God's Forgetfulness

Well, Monday was an interesting day of learning for me. It actually started in church on Sunday. Our Pastor started a new series on worship, and his focus on Sunday centered quite a bit around misdirected worship. We are designed to worship, so we all worship something. Our worship is just not always directed to the proper person. When we replace God with other people, activities, hobbies, possessions, or whatever else, as the central focus of our lives, that's where our real worship is directed, rather than at God where it belongs.

Well, a friend of mine and I have started doing a short Bible study together once a week (and it just happens to usually fall on Monday). We've started an online study done by Beth Moore on the book of Romans. I'll admit, Romans has always been kind of dry reading for me, so I tend not to read it. But so far (and we're only on Chapter 1 still), it's been much better than I could have ever thought Romans could be (LOL).

Monday, the focus of the study was on Romans 1:18-32. That's a lot of verses, so I won't copy them all here, but here's a link for you if you want to check it out (you can change the Bible version at the top if you'd like). In the NIV, this section of the Bible is titled God's Wrath Against Mankind...yikes! We spent about 45 minutes studying it and talking about it. It was eye-opening, and I learned a lot, but I honestly didn't think much more about it after we finished our study.

Until Monday night when I sat down to read the book I've been reading, and the chapter was titled 'The Great Falling Away.' My mind went immediately back to Romans 1, because much of that chapter is discussing the consequences of God's people falling away from Him. So, I gave it another look in conjunction with this chapter of the book. Here's what I learned.

Romans 1:18-32 refers to a people who knew God and recognized Him as God (right away these words stood out to me after my study of the word KNOW a few weeks back). So, they, at some point, had some level of intimate, personal relations with God. But, it says they no longer glorified Him or gave Him thanks. In other words, they no longer had a heart of worship, thankfulness, and adoration for Him that they had once had. The language of the entire passage seems to indicate that they consistently failed to recognize and thank God; that they had had a change in heart attitude toward Him. As a result, they fell away from God; they became foolish; their minds were darkened; and they replaced God with other things. The result: GOD GAVE THEM UP.

It says three times in a row (paraphrased):
v. 23-24: They had exchanged the glory and majesty and excellence of the immortal God for idols. Therefore, God gave them up in the lusts of their own hearts.

v. 25-26: Because they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped creation rather than the Creator, God gave them over and abandoned them.

v. 28: Since they did not see fit to acknowledge God or approve of Him or consider Him worth knowing, God gave them over to a base and condemned mind.

The result of God abandoning them is that their lives became full, permeated, saturated with sin and destruction of every kind. They hated God. They were without understanding. And though they were fully aware of how God viewed their actions, and what He said the consequences of such actions would be, they not only continued to do them, but they also encouraged others to behave that way as well.

Look what Ezekiel says about the righteous who turn from God:
Ezekiel 18:24 - But if a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits sin and does the same detestable things the wicked man does, will he live? None of the righteous things he has done will be remembered. Because of the unfaithfulness he is guilty of and because of the sins he has committed, he will die.

This verse, like Romans, refers to someone who knows God. Yet, it says that when such a person chooses to turn away from God, all of his former righteousness will be forgotten. When God forgets something, it is as if it never happened. This is a characteristic of God that we celebrate when we think of salvation - He forgets our sins and washes us clean. But we must also be aware that He is equally as forgetful when we turn away from Him. God's forgetfulness is prompted by a change in our heart-attitude toward God. Whether we are turning away from sin and toward God, or turning away from God and toward sin, He is faithful to forget our former ways.