God Remembers

Day 318 of Bible Reading Plan – God remembers. He never forgets, yet He was willing to cover our sins. Sometimes when it seems like the world is going crazy, God remembers. God sees us. God still has a plan.

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SEEING DEEP

with Denise Pass

BIBLE READING PLAN

 

God remembers

God Remembers

God remembers. He never forgets, yet He was willing to cover our sins. Sometimes when it seems like the world is going crazy, God remembers. God sees us. God still has a plan. There is coming a time when God is coming to judge the Shepherds and His people, but then His judgment leads us to His redemption. What a good God!

 

Bible Reading of the Day: Zechariah 10-14

Pastors have a hard job, y’all. The sheep are harassed and helpful and sheep bite. Pastors have a hard job. But they are going to be held accountable. Do shepherds know the status of their sheep? This is a hard task because sometimes sheep lie and make it difficult.

But when pastors/shepherds are really diligent to know how their sheep are doing and to feed the sheep, they are doing God’s work. But the sheep are responsible to follow.

Sometimes pastors can get stuck in the weeds. They can worry about being liturgical or political (church politics, y’all), while the people fall away.

In researching this morning about the book of Zechariah, I found that the Hebrew word ‘Zechariah’ (or ‘Zachariah’) means ‘God remembers’. He sees. He is not going to let His people be forsaken. Even though His own people forsook Him. And the Day of the LORD is coming when every wrong will be righted. Everything will be restored.

Today’s reading opens up with God calling to account false shepherds who are misleading his people. God is going to judge both the shepherds and the people.

 

God Remembers—Judgment is coming

Zechariah 11-14

“7 So I shepherded the flock intended for slaughter, the oppressed of the flock.[b] I took two staffs, calling one Favor and the other Union, and I shepherded the flock. 8 In one month I got rid of three shepherds. I became impatient with them, and they also detested me. 9 Then I said, “I will no longer shepherd you. Let what is dying die, and let what is perishing perish; let the rest devour each other’s flesh.” 10 Next I took my staff called Favor and cut it in two, annulling the covenant I had made with all the peoples.”

When we rebel against God, it is like hating God. Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft. Despite this judgment from God, God never punishes without the goal of redemption and restoration. He does not desire that any should perish (2 Peter 3:9).

We need to remember God’s character when we see discipline and punishment. God is good. We want to give ourselves a second chance, but God’s discipline is always to help wake us up from our sin. We need to understand the heart of God.

But God has to judge sin, lest man never turns away from it. There is a standard that God has set because He loves us and if we do not correct sin, we are enabling it. God is righteous in his judgment. Even when it seems cruel to us, we are viewing it from a human point-of-view.

 

God Remembers—Our sin will be dealt with

Man is wicked. He defaults to sin and rebellion against a Holy God. And God loves His people enough to deal with sin. Parents also need to love their children enough to set clear standards and require accountability.

As a parent, I will tell you it is hard to deal with sin in the camp and in the soul of our children. Sometimes they rebel and get angry with you. Sometimes they try to blame you. But if you keep your heart set on God’s will and way, you don’t have to be manipulated by children. We need to lead them to the right way and ultimately trust God to deal with their sin if they will not listen to us.

But look at what our Savior was willing to do on our behalf and again I think of an analogy of parents who give so much for their children and the children are often not aware of the worth of what their parents do.

Just as the Shepherds were accountable to God, we are also accountable to God.

But look at what our Savior was willing to do on our behalf. We are often not aware of what Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf is worth.

 

God Remembers—What is our Savior worth?

Zechariah 11:12-13 describes an allusion to Christ and the betrayal by Judas.

referencing 30 silver coins. (Matthew 27:3) Although this passage in Zechariah is about Zechariah requesting his wages, this is also a Messianic prophecy, which found its fulfillment in Jesus Christ.

“12 Then I said to them, “If it seems right to you, give me my wages; but if not, keep them.” So they weighed my wages, thirty pieces of silver.

13 “Throw it to the potter,” the Lord said to me—this magnificent price I was valued by them. So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw it into the house of the Lord, to the potter.”

Think about how ludicrous it is that the death of God would cost 30 pieces of silver. We can approach God with a self-centered philosophy and fail to see how good He has been to us.

 

God Remembers—Messianic Prophesies

According to GotQuestions.org,

“Earlier, Zechariah had been commanded to watch a flock of sheep doomed to slaughter (Zechariah 11:4). He obeyed, using two shepherd’s staffs that he named Favor and Union (verse 7). Within a month, Zechariah fired the three shepherds working under him (verse 8). Then Zechariah abandoned the flock and broke his staff named Favor. Observers realized these actions were “the word of the LORD” (verse 11). The Lord would remove His favor from His people, allowing them to be harried by their enemies (verse 6).”

“A seeming difficulty is the fact that Matthew attributes the prophecy to Jeremiah, not Zechariah. The explanation is two-fold. First, Jeremiah also bought a field at the Lord’s command (Jeremiah 32:6-9). Second, the Hebrew Bible was divided into three sections: the Law, the Writings, and the Prophets. The Prophets began with Jeremiah, and it was common for people to refer to the whole section (which included Zechariah) as “the book of Jeremiah.””

Zechariah’s prophecy had a dual fulfillment: one in the prophet’s contemporary context, and one in the more distant future. The Jewish people of Zechariah’s day would be judged, as seen in the breaking of Favor, and the specific details regarding 30 pieces of silver and a potter’s field found a future fulfillment in the betrayal of Jesus Christ by Judas Iscariot.

 

God Remembers—And Redeems

Another instance of a Messianic prophesy is found in Zechariah 12:10

“And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.”

It took the sacrifice of Christ for people to realize that their sin cost. And to realize that their God loved them so much that He would pay for and cover their sins completely.

A righteous God has to punish but He took the punishment – our punishment upon Himself. If we will look at the cross afresh and look and realize what God did on our behalf, God can help us to live a right way if we are aware of the cost of our sin. God remembers us . . . do we remember Him?

 

Scripture of the Day: Zechariah 13:1-2

 “On that day a fountain will be opened for the house of David and for the residents of Jerusalem, to wash away sin and impurity. 2 “On that day”—this is the declaration of the Lord of Armies—“I will remove the names of the idols from the land, and they will no longer be remembered. I will banish the prophets and the unclean spirit from the land.”

Friends, this makes me think of the hymn, “There is a fountain filled with blood.”

Another prophecy from our reading today references the day of the LORD.

Zechariah 14:4 says, “On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west, forming a great valley, with half of the Mount moving north and half moving south.” “That day” is a reference to the Day of the Lord, and the One who stands on the mountain is the Lord Himself. This passage predicts the second coming of Christ…

 

Application

  • Friends, will you be ready?
  • We need to prepare our hearts, get rid of idols, and make sure our Shepherds are helping us to see the truth.
  • And we need to shepherd those in our sphere of influence, without fear of man.

𝗝𝗼𝗶𝗻 𝗺𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝘁 12 𝗽𝗺 𝗘𝗧.

“God Remembers”

Day #318: Zechariah 10-14

𝒱𝑒𝓇𝓈𝑒 𝑜𝒻 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒟𝒶𝓎: Zechariah 13:1-2

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I write books, music, podcasts and blogs, speak and lead worship to help people to overcome the battles of the mind with the word of God and to see past the surface of this life by diving deep into the word of God.