Just as we can improve our natural memories using things like mnemonics and acrostics, so we can improve our spiritual memories through regular exercise!
Meditating on God’s Word
God’s Word is living and active (Heb 4:12) and can shape our thinking and living. We need to read it regularly, feasting on it, gnawing on it, letting it into every part of our lives (Ps 119:9-16). We can meditate on it by memorising it (starting with something short and easy like 1 John 4:8 ‘God is love’) and can learn it by singing it! When we think of all translators have gone through to give us God’s Word in our native language or what some Christians face in getting hold of God’s Word in countries where the Bible is banned, we should be eager to make the most of every opportunity to read and study God’s living Word.
Dwelling on truth
Phil 4:8 tells us “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” It’s important to win the battle of the mind, by refusing to allow wrong thoughts to have a home in our minds. If we win the battle of the mind, we will be able to remember God more effectively and recall His truths when we need them. There is no room for half-heartedness in this; as Paul told the Ephesians, we are not to be like the Gentiles in the ‘futility of their thinking’, but must fix our minds and thoughts on the Lord.
Using visual aids to remember
The Passover in the Old Testament and taking Communion in the New Testament are the chief ways we remember what God has done. In Communion, we remember all God has done to purchase our salvation and we look ahead to His promise to return for His bride. In the Old Testament, God gave the people many visual aids to memory (tassels on clothes, phylacteries with Scripture in them to wear on their heads, memorial stones in the River Jordan to commemorate how God parted the waters, for example.) What visual aids are we using to remember all God has done and pass this on to the next generation?
Obedience
The more we obey God’s commands – even when they make us squirm! – the more we see God and are blessed by Him. It’s vital we learn to do what God says. There are no shortcuts in this matter, but regular obedience helps us to remember all that God is and has done.
What are we remembering for?!
What’s the point of remembering? What do we gain from all these efforts to remember Jesus Christ, descended from David, raised from the dead? The more we learn to remember who God is, what He has done and what He has promised, the more equipped we will be for all that life throws at us. We will be able to stand the trials and tests of life.
“When shadows fall on us,
We will not fear.
We will remember.
When darkness falls on us,
We will not fear.
We will remember.
When all seems lost,
When we’re thrown and we’re tossed,
We’ll remember the cost.
We’re resting in the shadow of the cross.”
(‘Shadows’, David Crowder*Band)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TF35CmGB4k