Recorded

Recorders are everywhere today: audio recorders, video recorders, and phone recorders that capture every live moment someone may want to keep for future reference. I am told that all our internet doings are recorded on a cloud somewhere or even deep in the caverns of our own computers.

All this technology is new, up-to-the-minute, state-of-the-art stuff that will be obsolete next week.

But the idea isn’t new. The Bible indicates that our dealings with God are recorded also:

• The prayers we have prayed,
• The praises we have offered,
• The worship we have given,
• The deeds of mercy we have done,
• The kindnesses we have shown,
• The burdens we have borne,
• The tears we have we have shed,
• The encouragement we have shared, and
• The promises we have made.

When an artist has reached a certain point in his/her life when much has been created, it is said that they now have a “body of work” that can be explored and cataloged by scholars as well as enjoyed by patrons.

In the same way, each Christ-follower is compiling a record, a body of works, we might say. It is a much more glorious file than any done on us before,

• not the permanent record we accumulated in school,
• not our college transcripts,
• not the personnel files where we have worked or even,
• the book the IRS has on us!

Those records tend to remember everything, the good and the bad, the successes and the failures, as well as the skills and the ineptitudes.

Be Warned!

The recording in heaven has some really serious omissions:

• The stupid things we did,
• The bone-headed decisions we made,
• The sins we committed and ours sins of omission,
• The wounds we caused,
• The ugly spirit we showed, and
• More terrible things than we need to enumerate now.

All of these true facts and actual deeds are missing from the recording.

How can this be?

There is no scandal but there is a cover-up. For when we confessed all these sins to Jesus, He forgave us. He blotted them out of the book, the file, the recording and even His memory.

The point is the birds found a home in the house of God and so should we! This lovely Temple was the House of God where all were welcomed if they were in the covenant and they have come to worship.

Amazing Grace how sweet the sound!

Makes me want to live for Jesus today. How about you?

Scriptures

Psalm 56
Be merciful to me, O God, for men hotly pursue me; all day long they press their attack. My slanderers pursue me all day long; many are attacking me in their pride. When I am afraid, I will trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can mortal man do to me? All day long they twist my words; they are always plotting to harm me. They conspire, they lurk, they watch my steps, eager to take my life. On no account let them escape; in your anger, O God, bring down the nations. Record my lament; list my tears on your scroll— are they not in your record? Then my enemies will turn back when I call for help. By this I will know that God is for me. In God, whose word I praise, in the LORD, whose word I praise — in God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me? I am under vows to you, O God; I will present my thank offerings to you. For you have delivered me from death and my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before Godin the light of life.

Psalm 32:1-2 NIV
Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit.

Psalm 51:9-10 NIV
Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity. Create in me a pure heart, O God,and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Psalm 103:2-5; 11-12 NIV
Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits — who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. …For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

Psalm 130:3-4 NIV
If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared.

Micah 7:19 NIV
You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.

Revelation 5:8 NIV
And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.

Song of Forgiveness

It Is Well with My Soul
Words: Horatio G. Spafford; Music: Philip P. Bliss

1.When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul.

Refrain:
It is well with my soul,
It is well, it is well with my soul.

2.Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ hath regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

Refrain:
It is well with my soul,
It is well, it is well with my soul.

3.My sin—oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!—
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

Refrain:
It is well with my soul,
It is well, it is well with my soul.

5.And Lord, haste the day when the faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.

Refrain:
It is well with my soul,
It is well, it is well with my soul.

Semper Reformanda!
Stephen Phifer