THE WORK OF GOD

Hokitika Guardian, 10 July 1937, Page 6

THE WORK OF GOD

WHEN GOD FORGOT. (Contributed by Hokitika Ministers’- ( ' . . 1Association). 1 Does God forgetH Can he forget? . Two, pictures of God are conjured up I in the minds of most people as they 1 try to visualise Him. Firstly, the G’rea- 1 tor—that all-wise, all-powerful one, * terrible in His majesty, who said: “Let there be light,” and there was i light, who said, “let us make .man,” * and man was made. pie- J ture is of the equally awe-jjpjpiriug i Jehovah —the punisher of the evildoer, 1 surrounded by His angels, who are I writing, writing, writing; the deeds of 1 ■men, their-\yords, their very thoughts. : This is the One who remembers. 1 Th? Days That Are Past It is a cheerful contrast, therefore, to find that, with the coming of Jesqs, God is able to : forget and to f° r ' get. . . ' That crooked business-deal, that act of treachery, to brother or friend, that lack of faithfulness to wife or. husband, those. weary months of bitter railing against what we are pleased to call “fate”—all these are forgotten when we see Jesus as the Son of God and believe in Him, for “when God forgives He forgets.” “As far as the east .is from the west, so far hatli He removed our transgressions irom ,us.” This is an advantage.fo.f the Christian that is 'not possessed by others. He is freed from the clogging effect-of the past! The Days That Are Present: But that is not all; there, is power to live a successful and happy, life right now. It would be of little avail if,/ after having the past, “wiped off the slate,” we should have a repetition of j the past in the days to come. With. I the • acceptance of Christ there conies abundant life, the ‘flife which is life indeed,” for-no person has lived fully or happily or successfully apart' from : Him. The Days That Are Ahead: ■ Even that is not all. What of the misty future, when, at' the end-of-our, “three score .years and ten,” perhaps more, perhaps less’, we go to our “long, last, sleep?” No matter how miserab T ly disappointed we may have been with* life and with ourselves, there is a sweet desire to live on and on. That desire is God-given and. He will pot, .cheat us.' ■ . Jesus skid that there no/persou, prepared iio sacrifice coinfort,- , friends 1 or loved ones for His sake .‘ wild'shall * : sent -'time,' and in the world to ' life everlasting.” Such is the heritage, of the believer— God!s forgetting, plus God’s reriiem- % ' baring. . , ’ 'o'