Lord's Day Devotion - Remember Me

Tomorrow, in Canada, the general populace will be wearing poppies in their lapels or at their coat breast.  They do this to remember those courageous soldiers who died in WW1 or WW2 specifically, for freedom of all.  They call it "Remembrance Day".  The USA remembers too, calling their day "Armistice" or Veteran's Day".  This is celebrated annually on 11 November.

If you've ever read anything about these or other wars, or even experienced them as a soldier, yourself, you know the awfulness of the encounters (I only know from reading).  What sacrifice, what horrors of war!  Those soldiers who survive, what nightmares and turmoil of remembering they must overcome!  We cannot forget them either!  Tribute to the living and the dead.  We give them thanks. 

There was cruelty where there should not have been.  Think of the death marches of soldiers even in Southeast Asia!  Case in point would be the Sandakan Death Marches in Borneo.  Thousands of Australian and British POW's died.  Even days after the war was supposedly over, those remaining soldiers were shot.  Only six soldiers survived; they were those who had escaped and were hidden and cared for by the locals.  These men have been remembered as well.

Commemorations of war memorials, of reenactments, books and movies (maybe romanticized), on the subject all help to give us some idea of what the military personnel have had to endure; what they fought and died for.  What the surviving soldiers suffer in the form of amputations, children born with physical and even mental challenges due to the effects of chemical warfare, or of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  

Let us remember; do not forget those struggles begotten from the ugliness, death and destruction of war.    Some of these wars were necessary to bring liberty to many and to stop madmen or tyrants continuing to create unspeakable evil.

Mankind has done this to and for mankind.

There is another who has given His life in the battle for truth and the greatest liberty of all.  He did this out of love for mankind.  This man is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ!   God sent Him out of His great love for mankind.  

Jesus's cruel trial, death and resurrection at the hands of those who were jealous of Him and hated Him with a passion.  They would be rid of them.  BUT God...God's love overruled and what man (and Satan) meant for harm, God turned into the most phenomenal rescue of all time.  He brought and bought liberty and justice for all.  

Freedom from sin and it's consequences:  suffering, death and eventual eternal tortures of Hell.

On Lord's Day, brothers and sisters-in-Christ, let us never forget what Jesus has accomplished for us as we pass the bread and wine one to another in remembrance of His death and resurrection.  

"This do in remembrance of Me," said Jesus (Luke 22:19) 

Normally we like to remember people who have died, for what they were in life.  We remember the war soldiers for what they accomplished for their sacrifices whether currently living or not. We remember Jesus Christ for what He accomplished in His death.  He is now risen and alive.  He is our living Savior.  He continues to offer salvation to one and all.  Praise Him.  

Here is a song written by Rick Founds that really embodies this:

Lord, I lift Your Name on High


Let us never forget.

                                                 ~ERC  November 2018~