Spiritual Amnesia
"We all forget things sometimes," reports CBS news. 'It can even be funny, up to a point. But memory loss is often serious, [as] in the case of one rare form of memory loss - amnesia - sudden."
Can you imagine forgetting who you are?
One September day in 2001, a 33-year-old Texas woman named Norene got into her car to go to work. As she tells it ... “There's a freeway here in Dallas and I began driving up the freeway, and I got as far as Denton, Texas, but I didn’t know where I was.”
The next thing she remembers is waking up in a hotel room in an unknown city, without friends or family. She had no idea how she got there.
Norene explains, “When I woke up the next morning, I sat up and I didn't recognize the room. I didn't recognize the purse that was sitting on the floor, or the clothes that were lying over the chair. I didn't recognize myself in the mirror. I didn’t even know my name.”
This type of amnesia is very rare and comes on suddenly. It can last for hours or even months and affects only two-tenths of a percent of the population.
With Norene, it took her more than a year to recover her memory.
She explains, “You know, I lost 33 years, and I had to slowly regain that back. And it is precious to me. And I've done as much as I can and everything I can to build on that."
Perhaps there was a time when you were growing in Christ, and then something changed—the pressures of your job, marriage, or family overtook you. Maybe your health started to deteriorate. The next thing you know, you experience spiritual amnesia. You have forgotten all you know about resting and trusting in Jesus. You've forgotten what it means to cast all your burdens on him. You have forgotten his manifold promises.
You’ve forgotten who you are in Christ!
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5, NIV).
"But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?" (Galatians 4:9, ESV).
"And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory" (Romans 8:17, NLT).
God Found Me in the Aisle of a Lucky's Supermarket
“Trained as a girl to be a concert pianist and a competitive ice skater, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, 47, is undergirded by her Christian beliefs. During an Aug. 4 Sunday school class at National Presbyterian Church,” reports the WASHINGTON TIMES, “she explained what inspires her. Here is an excerpt:
Although I never doubted the existence of God, I think like all people I've had some ups and downs in my faith. When I first moved to California in 1981 to join the faculty at Stanford, there were a lot of years when I was not attending church regularly. …
One Sunday I was in the Lucky's Supermarket not very far from my house. I was among the spices and an African-American man walked up to me and said he was buying some things for his church picnic. And he said, "Do you play the piano by any chance?"
I said, "Yes." They said they were looking for someone to play the piano at church. It was a little African-American church right in the center of Palo Alto. A Baptist church. So I started playing for that church. That got me regularly back into churchgoing. …
"My goodness, God has a long reach." I mean, in the Lucky's Supermarket on a Sunday morning.
Have you lost your way? Stopped using your gifts? Whether through sin or simple complacency, rest assured, God will come looking for you! It is His will to restore you to a place of fellowship and service.
“Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn't he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?” (Luke 15:4, cf. Matthew 18:12).
“I have strayed like a lost sheep. Seek your servant, for I have not forgotten your commands.” (Psalm 119:176).
Spiritual Health
Long before Dr. J or Magic or Michael, there was Pistol, Pistol Pete Maravich. He was a scrawny guard from LSU who treated the basketball court like a stage. When Pete came onto the court, the fans went wild. He turned a game into a show.
A three time all American, Pistol was the master of the behind the back, no look pass. When he dribbled, it looked like the ball was connected to his hand. He set many records and averaged 44.2 points for his NCAA career.
He wore his hair long and shaggy and his socks always looked a few size too big. Although rail thin, he appeared to be in fantastic physical shape. Maravich never seemed to tire as he wowed fans and player alike with his "street ball" style of play.
But just a few years removed from playing his grueling 70+ game schedule, on January 5, 1988, while playing a pickup basketball game--Pistol Pete collapsed and died of a heart attack at the age of 40. An autopsy revealed that his death was due to an undiagnosed congenital heart defect.
Stories like Pistol Pete--pictures of perfect athleticism who tragically and suddenly dropped dead of a heart attack at a relatively young age--confront us with a sobering truth: A PERSON'S PHYSICAL APPEARANCE DOESN'T REFLECT THE HEALTH OF THEIR HEART!
Likewise, A PERSON SPIRITUAL APPEARANCE DOESN'T REFLECT THE HEALTH OF THEIR HEART!
We've all known people who were the picture of the healthy Christian, attending all the services, involved in Bible study, worshiping God with all their heart, when suddenly...A young Christian wife walks out on her husband...A Christian father walks out and leaves his kids....A teenage Christian suddenly quits attending services and begins to run with the world.
It doesn't matter what we look like on the outside. It's what we look like on the inside that matters.