Sunday School Lesson by Charles Stanley

Yikes.

What else might He forget?

 

Well, He is pretty Ancient, you know.

I am the one who often needs to be reminded of His promises. I find thoughts of God like this bizarre. Sometimes I express that sentiment and become disliked, but, oh well.

 

Are we not supposed to 'claim' His promises?
This is for our benefit, certainly not His. If we pray and claim His promise and our prayer is then answered, we are then sensitive to give all thanks and glory to Him.

 

Are there scriptural examples of folks "reminding" God of his promises, or asking him to remember them?

 

No, scripture says the Lord is not slack concerning His promises.

 

Sure there are, especially in times of severe hardship or persecution. But "often"? At some point reminding would turn into doubting, don't you think?

 

Good point, and when those demands aren't answered disillusionment will likely follow.

 

I agree on both sides of the coin.
One side is true that God never forgot what He promised to do.
The other side says we are to claim those promises of God or believe God will Do what He said.

And yes there are many examples of people in scripture reminding God of His promises. Moses - reminded God, Abraham - reminded God, David - reminded God.

But I think the point conveyed was not that God forgot but that THEY REMEMBERED His promise and in their prayers to God re-affirmed their faith and belief that God was/is able to do all He said. They came back from a place of doubt, feeliing God forgot them - to a renewed faith remembering that God was perfecting their faith WHILE fulfilling His promise to them.

 

I suppose one could make a case for John 17 being Jesus' reminding and praising His Father.

As Allan pointed out, yes there are many examples in Scripture of men reminding God of some thing or promise. Moses' is my favorite.

God was going to kill all of Israel and Moses said, "But Lord, these are YOUR people whom YOU chose. Remember?"

 

As an aside -- I don't know anything about Master Work books, but I have written curriculum and there is an editing process and sometimes I was appalled at what came out under my name. At times I went round and round with an editor only to be told that he/she was sorry, but they did have the final say.

Not to take anything away from the discussion -- because I think there is a tremendous difference in CLAIMING a promise and reminding God he made one.

 

Joseph -- it depends on the contract, writing curriculum is not the same as writing a piece and selling it to a publication. With curriculum writing, (at least with LifeWay) writing is work-for-hire and they can redo any or all of it if they want. They never changed the entire content on me -- just phrasing. Curriculum publishers want writers that only need tweaking because the turn around time is so short. Basically, it was always my piece, but it reminded me that Stanley phrase you honed in on in that lesson might have been made by an editor. Only Stanley and the editor know for sure.

Having said that, one of my favorite things to do was to take a unit that someone else had written that wasn't up-to-par and rewrite it. I was a ghost writer and the original authors name went on the piece.

 

I don't think God 'forgets' his promises and needs us to remind Him.
But I DO think we forget and need to voice them now and again, be it in prayer or to each other. Repetition is a great way to embed something in one's mind.

 

Lord!! Remind ME of YOUR fourfold promise!!

And instead of US "claiming" God's promises----friend, listen----God's promises claim US!!!! ---- Us "claiming"---that sounds a bit greedy, don't you think!!!!

Too many times we say to ourselves

"This verse is for me! This verse speaks to me!"

Friend, the whole Bible is for us! The whole Bible speaks to us!! Not just portions----all of it!!! Every "jot and tittle!!"

 

Perhaps, what he meant was by reminding God, we are reminding ourselves. (God doesn't forget, but we do.) Just a thought.