When we are discouraged and coming close to doubting the integrity of God by thinking He just might not come through for us, the writer of Hebrews tells us what to do. He says in Hebrews 10:32, “But call to remembrance the former days….”
What the Word of God is telling us is that this is a time to put everything on hold, tell your mind to be silent, command your emotions to be stilled, and remember—let your mind drift backward to your earlier experiences with the Lord when your faith was simple, uncomplicated, and like that of a child.
Do You Remember Those Days?
Can you remember the joy of being filled with the Holy Spirit and experiencing all of His supernatural power and miracles as you prayed in the name of Jesus?
Can you remember the “former days” when you first knew you had the power to witness to your friends and your family and how you burned with a spiritual passion to see them saved?
Can you remember the “former days” when you carried your Bible nearly everywhere you went and viewed it in a new and precious way? Can you remember those early, precious and tender “former days” in your spiritual journey?
Hebrews 1:32 tells us that we must “call them to remembrance.” In others words, when times are rough and our faith isn’t finding its fulfillment as quickly as we desired, and when our minds and our bodies are ready to give up, we must decide to remember the faithfulness of God. We must decide to remember how we felt when God first spoke to us concerning the direction of our lives.
We must decide to rehearse our experiences of intimacy and victory with the Lord. If we are discouraged and feeling defeated, the flesh will not want to remember such times. Therefore, we must decide to remember them. We must decide to “call them to remembrance.”
When we fail to take the initiative to remember the former days, then we won’t remember! It happens only because we choose for it to happen!
Bad Memories vs. Good Memories
For these Hebrew believers, the memory of the early days of great faith and awesome miracles had been clouded over as year after year after year passed. They waited and waited for their dreams to be fulfilled, for the promises of God to manifest, but still nothing had happened.
Disappointment had set in, their hearts were growing weary, and they were beginning to think that it was all a terrible farce. As the winds of adversity sought to extinguish the flickering flame of their dreams, the Holy Spirit directed them to “Call to remembrance for former days….”
The word “remembrance” can be translated “to recollect.” What does it mean to “recollect” something? The word “recollect” really contains the idea of going back in the past and digging up memories, those that are not easily remembered—not bad memories, but good memories.
Bad memories are easily remembered, and the flesh loves to hang on to bad memories. But good memories are quickly forgotten and overshadowed by pending circumstances.
It takes a committed decision and some effort to push the flesh aside, shove discouragement out of the way, and go back into the recesses of your mind to bring those good memories of God’s faithfulness back into the forefront of your thinking.
Another way of paraphrasing Hebrews 10:32 might be, “There are some memories that you ought not bury! Rather, you need to go back and pull them out of the tomb, you need to bring them up in your life and erect them as monuments to God’s faithfulness. They should always be in the forefront of your mind.”
Recall Past Victories To Build Your Faith
Whenever you get discouraged or impatient and you feel your faith wavering, the flesh has a way of saying, “Please tell me that the situation is hopeless and I am a failure. This dream was my own fantasy and I should just give up and be like everyone else.”
When you feel defeated like that, you’ve got to make a decision to “Call to remembrance the former days,” those great monuments of victory from the past. Begin to shout your flesh down by praising God and thinking Him for bringing you through every challenging and sometimes frightening set of circumstances.
Like David did on many occasions, square your shoulders, stand tall, and march toward your giant declaring that God has delivered you from the lion and the bear, and He can certainly deliver you from any pressure or obstacle that would seek to hinder or destroy the dream He has given you!
Excerpt permission granted by Albury Publishing
Rick and Denise met while they were each on an individual quest to wholeheartedly follow God's plan for their lives. Rick was a college student, growing in his teaching ministry. Denise was a talented vocalist. She chose not to pursue a course that held the prospect of performing with the Metropolitan Opera so that she could instead pursue a relationship with Rick and fulfill her heart's desire to enter full-time ministry.
Rick and Denise's friendship has led to lifelong love and a powerful partnership in building the Kingdom of God. After a decade of ministry, first as pastor and then as itinerant ministers, Rick and Denise Renner embarked on an adventure of a lifetime. In January 1991, the Renners and their sons Paul, Philip, and Joel left behind all they knew to relocate their family to serve the region that only weeks earlier had become the former Soviet Union.
Rick and Denise remember kneeling together as a family and kissing the ground when they arrived at the airport in Latvia on that cold January day. At that moment, they all committed their lives to the will of God and to the people of their new homeland. The following year, Rick moved forward to launch and establish the first of its kind, and eventually the largest, a Christian television network in that region of the world.
Over the years, Rick and Denise pioneered three churches, a Bible school, and a ministerial association that serves thousands of Russian-speaking pastors throughout the former USSR as well as parts of the Middle East. As Rick began training and mentoring leaders in the early days, Denise also developed a women's ministry that is actively involved in changing the lives of women and their families today. Specifically, they minister to the needs of orphans, women prisoners, the homeless, and drug-and-alcohol addicts.
Rick, Denise, and their children began as a small circle of five, willing to go beyond their comfort zone to reach the uttermost parts of the world. Today that circle includes their sons' wives, six grandchildren, and a large ministry staff that helps the Renners extend their reach as they exalt Jesus Christ as the Hope of all nations.