Isaiah 43:18 English Standard Version (ESV) “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old.”

Remember in the Hebrew here is zāḵar and one of the definitions is appropriate to this understanding. It says “to make a memorial”. Memorials are constant reminders of events that happened in the past. They indicate a part of life that has so much impact on your life that we should never forget them. It can be a form of worship. It can be a violation of “make no gods before me”. They can be glory days, or abuses we cannot put aside.

Galatians 5:24 English Standard Version (ESV) And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Think of it in this way; we are betrothed to Christ and have divorced ourselves from our old lives. We have chosen to love Christ more than our old lives. It is a stronger than “remember not” but softer than “crucify”. However we understand it, “remember not”, “crucify”, or “divorce” we have to understand the why is this “new thing”; Christ in us.

This new thing has been going on for almost 2000 years now and just as Israel had ancient history of relationship with God, we too can look back on Christian history and see what did not work because of abuses and those that strayed away from the Gospel.

The enemy of the Cross is still working in the world and has not given up on using our memorials against us. Nothing seems to undermine our confidence in obedience of faith than our former failures.

“You’re no better than they were!”

Does that lie appear in your memorials?

“You haven’t changed!”

Does that lie appear in your memorials?

“You’ll never be good enough!”

Does that lie get whispered in your ear?

Our memorials are nothing more than opportunities for the enemy of the Cross to keep our affections from Christ.

It is deflection.