The God Who Does Not Forget

Dementia. Is that the new "big D" word? The word that if we don't whisper might result in it not being a reality?

As we were singing "He will be" by CityAlight yesterday, I was struck by the line, "Though time may pass, His memory will not fade."

Generation after generation, millennium after millennium, the memory of God will never fade. It will never dull or degrade even in the slightest degree.

But what about our loved ones, our parents and relatives and friends, who suffer from the awful effects of dementia? 

The Bible says if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved (Romans 10:9).

But what happens when the confessor forgets their confession to no fault of their own? What happens when our loved ones who once praised Christ now remember nothing, and hardly speak a word? What happens when our parents forget about Jesus and truths of the faith?

Friends, in those times, we must cling to the truth that "Though time may pass, His memory will not fade."

When those you love have forgotten their confession, God has not. 

If I can say it this way: the security of one's faith does not rest in the hands of the confessor, but in the hands of the One who is the object of the confessor's confession - Christ himself.

When you see or remember someone you care about, who once praised Christ, now sitting there blankly, remember Romans 8:30. 

"And those whom He predestined He also called, and those whom He called He also justified, and those whom He justified He also glorified."

The moment someone is saved (justified), the Holy Spirit takes up residence in that person and is the guarantee that they will be glorified. That is, God has already seen to it, at the cost of His Son's shed blood, that that person will make it safely to glory.

Why? Because the object of the confessor's confession will never forget, even if the confessor does. And He has bought their salvation at the cost of His life, and proved it through the resurrection. Therefore, we can say with Paul, "[nothing] in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." No, not even dementia.

~ Pastor Alexander