But that is the time to be careful! Beware that in your plenty you do not forget the Lord your God and disobey his commands, regulations, and decrees that I am giving you today. [Deuteronomy 8:11 (NLT)]
But the people soon forgot about the Lord their God, so he handed them over to Sisera, the commander of Hazor’s army, and also to the Philistines and to the king of Moab, who fought against them. [1 Samuel 12:9 (NT)]
“Are you looking for something?” asked Earl in Brian Crane’s Pickles comic strip. When his wife, Opal, replied, “My glasses,” he suggested looking in her purse. “No,” she said, “I can’t find it. That’s why I’m looking for my glasses, so I can find my purse. I’m hoping that’s where I left my car keys.” Looking down at his grandson, Earl explained, “That’s why it’s a good thing women Gramma’s age don’t have babies.”
Being around Opal’s age, and having had more than my share of “senior moments,” I understand perfectly. Forgetting the Lord, however, is not like misplacing keys, forgetting where the car is parked, or failing to remember the grocery list. It’s way more than absentmindedness, an appointment slipping one’s mind, or drawing a blank at someone’s name.
Forgetting the Lord is a conscious choice to turn our backs to Him and overlook His presence in all things. It is failing to remember His past mercies and how much He loves each and every one of us. It is disregarding His commands and ignoring our responsibilities both to Him and to our fellow man. When we forget God, we rebel, grow impatient, act rashly or imprudently, or begin to think we are self-sufficient and all-powerful. As the Israelites discovered, forgetting God can have serious, even tragic, consequences. Throughout Deuteronomy, Moses warned them not to forget the Lord and yet, from Joshua through Malachi, we continually read of their unfaithfulness, God’s anger, and the consequences of their deliberate amnesia.
As happened with the Israelites, it’s easy to let challenges overwhelm us, wealth and power deceive us, busyness distract us, temptation mislead us, disappointment frustrate us, grief blind us, impatience goad us, and complaint to harden us. Before we know it, we’ve forgotten the Lord. Moses’s many warnings to the Israelites apply to us today. God accepts senior moments—but He will never tolerate our forgetting Him. God never forgot the Israelites and He will never forget us. Why do we find it so easy to forget Him?
God is mindful of man, and it grieves Him that man is not mindful of Him. [Charles Spurgeon]
Earlier this week, the news broke that church leaders in six Pennsylvania Roman Catholic dioceses have protected more than 300 “predator priests.” More concerned with protecting the church and abusers than helping the more than 1,000 victims or preventing further abuse, they failed to report allegations, discouraged victims from reporting abusers, conducted their own biased and faulty inquiries, pressured law enforcement to delay or close investigations, and spun their own versions of the events. Earlier this summer, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis agreed to a $210 million settlement to 450 victims of clergy sexual abuse there. It’s not just the Roman Catholic Church that has failed in this arena. It was just revealed that Willow Creek, a non-denominational Protestant mega-church, paid $3.25 million to settle two lawsuits over sex abuse by a church volunteer. No amount of money, however, can remove the trauma of abuse.
So then, about eating food sacrificed to idols: We know that “An idol is nothing at all in the world” and that “There is no God but one.” For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”), yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things through whom we live. [1 Corinthians 8:4-6 (NIV)] 
Recently, a pastor shared a troubling experience while at the annual conference for his denomination. Along with other ordained ministers, he was to vote as to whether or not candidates for the ministry would be ordained. While usually a gratifying experience as this ministerial board accepts people into their vocation, on occasion the vote can be heartbreaking. If a candidate receives a negative recommendation from his supervisor, he or she is permitted to offer a defense before the vote is taken. At the last conference, such an instance occurred and, sadly, one individual did not receive an affirmative vote for ordination.
After asking us how we protect our personal safety, the cyber-security specialist asked how we protect ourselves from cyber attacks. One woman proudly told how Microsoft had recently saved her from a hacking attempt. After a message popped up telling her to call them, she gave them remote access to her computer. The necessary patch and technical advice only cost $700 and now her computer was secure. Until the speaker told her, she didn’t know the hack was the $700 she’d spent, access to her credit card, and possible malware now active on her computer. While she never would have allowed a complete stranger into her home, she unwittingly opened the door to a criminal and welcomed him into her life.
In spite of many states having legalized its use, countless studies suggest that marijuana is a “gateway drug” meaning that it may lead to the use of other stronger more addictive drugs. I’m not going to enter into that argument but I’d like to use the word “gateway” as it regards to sin. Just like marijuana (when compared to heroin or cocaine) seems innocuous, coveting (when compared to murder or stealing) seems like an insignificant sin. After all, who does it harm? No sin, however, is insignificant and every sin is an offense to God
Devotions of the Heart 