Topic: A Book of Remembrance
Text: Exodus 16:31-35
Key verse: Then Moses said, “This is what the Lord has commanded: Fill a two-quart container with manna to preserve it for your descendants. Then later generations will be able to see the food I gave you in the wilderness when I set you free from Egypt.”
Life in the wilderness requires a compass and a log book! This journey is similar to the life at sea; you cannot get to the desired destination without a compass for direction. Every day, presents its own challenges, therefore Jesus taught his disciples…. “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”
The second essential for life in the wilderness is a log book; it is defined by the dictionary as an official record of events, especially on a journey in a ship or plane. A log book is a way to record and keep track of events in your classroom. Log books are important classroom management tools that can be used in a variety of ways.
Earlier in my writings, l encouraged us to know that the time in the wilderness is both a journey and a place of testing. Each of these life events have peculiar challenges, a believer who will come out in victory must have the right expectations and be equipped with necessary survival tools.
The log book, or preferably your journal is a place where you document your experiences, the good ones; the bad ones, the mistakes, the successes, how you felt about them, what you learnt from them and what the Lord taught you.
If you don’t have a log book, it’s likely you will quickly forget the dealings of God and make the same mistakes like the children of Israel.
God set the stage for the necessity of a kind of log book to help us remember his works in our lives. The rainbow after the flood was designed to put on record the faithfulness of God to man, and a reminder of the promise of God never to destroy the whole world with water again.
“And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.16 And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.”
God established the Passover feast as a constant reminder to the children of Israel of their mighty deliverance. Then your children will ask, ‘What does this ceremony mean?’ And you will reply, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord, for he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt. And though he struck the Egyptians, he spared our families.’” “And in the future, your children will ask you, ‘What does all this mean?’ Then you will tell them, ‘With the power of his mighty hand, the Lord brought us out of Egypt, the place of our slavery.”
Why is these all necessary? If you forget the works of the Lord, you will not have the strength and faith to trust him for the present difficulty you may be having. In our text today, God instructed them to preserve a sample of the Manna they received from heaven, as a constant reminder of his providence. What do you have to remind you of all the victories the Lord has given you in times past? I know the scars remind you of the pain, but you can also open a log book to remind you of the miracles in your life.
“Yet how quickly they forgot what he had done! They wouldn’t wait for his counsel! In the wilderness their desires ran wild, testing God’s patience in that dry wasteland.” Psalms 106:13-14
When you forget the works of the Lord, you will not be able to trust him with your future so you will live in perpetual fear.It’s not late to start today, open a book of remembrance for the Lord, what should go into the book? Everything.
Do all it takes to win!
Blessings.
Roses & Thorns