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Those Who Are Where You Once Were

Statistics startle sometimes. Case in point: Bible sales. Every year in the U.S., the Bible is the top-selling book. So, the fact that its sales in America soared 22% in 2024 seemed statistically impossible to me. How do we account for such a surge in the perennial bestseller? I think we have an answer: “a groundswell of commitment to Jesus over the last four years.”1 So observed a study from the research organization, the Barna Group. Barna’s recent data shows “66 percent of all U.S. adults say they have made a personal commitment to Jesus that is still important in their life today. That marks a 12-percentage-point increase since 2021.” Moreover, “Among the biggest drivers of the Jesus resurgence are younger generations—particularly Gen Z and Millennials.”2 What does this tell us but that people still search for meaning and truth? And that some are finding life’s purpose in God and truth in His Word.

Do you recall when “seeker” described you — when you were the one struggling in the search that ultimately led to God through Christ Jesus, His Son? God calls us to remember our plight and, in such remembrance, to extend justice and mercy to those who are where we once were. In giving the Law, God commanded His people, “You shall not pervert the justice due to the sojourner or to the fatherless, or take a widow’s garment in pledge, but you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore I command you to do this.”3 Similarly, God directed His people to the generosity and compassion He had extended to them: “When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow. . . You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I command you to do this.”4

Today as ever, there are the many who cry out from their own “Egyptian” captivity, those seeking cleansing from guilt and removal of shame, those searching for the purpose of life and the certainty of truth — people who are where we once were. Today may we remember when this was us, and in this remembrance, extend the hope and freedom which, through others, God extended to us.

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.”5 Yes, Lord, grace us to remember your comfort and to extend your compassion always. In Christ we pray. Amen.

1, 2 “New Research: Belief in Jesus Rises, Fueled by Younger Adults,” Barna, accessed August 5, 2025, https://www.barna.com/research/belief-in-jesus-rises/ (emphases added)
3 Deuteronomy 24:17-18 ESV (emphasis added)
4 Deuteronomy 24: 19-22 ESV (emphasis added)
5 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 NIV

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Remember the Rest of the Story

“The next time Satan reminds you of your past, remind him of his future.”1 I chuckled at the meme. It was clever, amusing, but ultimately not helpful. I suggest this, instead: “The next time Satan reminds you of your past, remind him of the rest of it.” You know, the part he leaves out. Last week in our remembrance series, we examined “euphoric recall,” the tendency to recollect past experiences more positively than they really were. Today, let’s stare down its counterpart, another form of misremembering: forgetting our forgiveness.

Through Jeremiah, God foretold a day when He would “forgive [our] iniquity, and . . . remember [our] sin no more.”2 Some interpret this to mean we can somehow do something that God cannot — namely, to recall our sins. Personally, I think “remember our sin no more” means God no longer remembers our sin against us. God has “[reconciled] the world to himself in Christ,” penned Paul, “not counting people’s sins against them.”3 Regardless, there is for us a “rest of the story”: Though our past is tainted with sin, it is also overflowing with forgiveness. It is vital to remember both.

Writing to the Corinthians, Paul asserted that some people “will not inherit the kingdom of God,” specifically the sexually immoral, idolaters, and the greedy, among others.4 He then made it personal, “And such were some of you.”5 Then from this sketchy profile emerged their stunning portrait: “But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. ”3 Did you catch it? These believers’ past was marred by all sorts of sin, yes, yet it was also filled with spiritual cleansing, restoration, and reconciliation to God — this through the atoning work of His Son and the indwelling of His lifegiving Spirit. Such was true of the Corinthians; such is true of us. Remember this.

Yes, when the evil one accuses you with a “partial truth,” remember the gospel truth. “You, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, [Christ] has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven.”6 Remember the whole story. And be glad.

“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” 7 Yes, Lord, this is most certainly true. Thank you.

1 In Matthew 25:41, Jesus teaches “an eternal fire” is prepared for “the devil and his angels.”
2 Jeremiah 31:34 ESV
3 2 Corinthains 5:19 NIV
4 1 Corinthians 6:9-10
5 1 Corinthians 6:11 ESV
6 Colossians 1:21-23 ESV
7 Psalm 103:2-5 ESV

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Euphoric Recall

“Say not, ‘Why were the former days better than these?’ For it is not from wisdom that you ask this.”1 — King Solomon

Our high school class of 1975 just celebrated our 50th reunion. It was fabulous — full of joy, reminiscence, interest, and care. We were always “close,” certainly by graduating class standards, so I eagerly basked in the passion and warmth of the evening. Still, if we were to go back 50 years as invisible visitors to our more youthful selves, we would recall more fully the tensions and trials among us at the time. (After all, we were teenagers.)

There is among people a natural proclivity toward “euphoric recall,” the tendency to recollect past experiences more positively than they actually were and not to remember the negative things associated with those events — the doubts, disappointments, and insecurities of life. For memory bias inflates our past as something more than it was, distorts our present as something less by comparison, and sets an unreasonable standard for what tomorrow must deliver. It lures us “back” to an embellished version of yesterday and, by comparison, a disappointment with today.

Such revisionism is not new. After God delivered his enslaved people from Egypt and led them toward the promised land, some among them began to romanticize about “the good old days” in the land of their captors. “If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost—also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!”2 Eventually they said to each other, “We should choose a leader and go back to Egypt.”3 What?! Return to forced enslavement4, harsh labor ruthlessly enforced5, the killing of newborn Hebrew boys?!6 Oh, the extremes to which we can fool ourselves, and alas, the danger therein.

So let’s turn the table on euphoric recall through the clarity of truth. Paul writes: “We ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”7

These are the “good old days” — days of liberty, transformation, and grace, each one new and filled with purpose. So, rejoice! Go forward! And remember them well.

Father, your steadfast love never ceases; Your mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.8 Amen.

1 Ecclesiastes 7:10
2 Numbers 11:4-6 NIV
3 Numbers 11:4 NIV
4 Exodus 1:11
5 Exodus 1:14
6 Exodus 1:17
7 Titus 3:3-7 ESV
8 Lamentations 3:22-23