He is not here, but is risen: remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee, saying that the Son of man must be delivered up into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day be risen again. And they remembered his words. Luke 24:6–8.
In the book of John is something similar: These things understood not his disciples at the first: but when Jesus was glorified, then remembered they that these things were written of him, and that they had done these things unto him. John 12:16.
John 14:25, 26: These things have I spoken unto you, while yet abiding with you. But the Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said unto you.
We wish we could always remember what God says, that is why it is important to start writing it down. But there are times that we have blackouts, and it is only in retrospect that the revelation of God’s purposes and plans are so perfectly real to us. But we don’t seem to realize them at the moment: we don’t see how God can be glorified in what we’re going through or that there is any plan or purpose in what God is putting us through.
So many times after something happens, we can look back into our journal, this is what the Lord had spoken and we had forgotten all about it!” We do make it a point to try to remember the things that are prophesied, and some of them are kept vividly in our minds by the Holy Spirit; we don’t forget them.
But God has a way of putting people through testings and trials in which He allows specific promises to be blanked out, so that we go through the testing with a trust in God. Afterwards, we recall the word that was spoken.
What God does with the memory (especially for the people who are Spirit-filled) is quite unique, and that if we will trust God, He will at the right time bring to our minds things that He has spoken to us to be our protection and the basis of our faith.
When you go through tests and don’t remember the word, we need to be encouraged. At the right time He will cause us to recall it so that we will know how God indeed led us through the thing we were in. Both when we forget and when we remember, He can be the Lord over our life and He can lead you in it.
Many times in moments of testing we may have wondered, “Lord, what does this mean?” After a season, something will happen and suddenly it will flash in our mind, this is what the Lord has spoke over us and we will recall what God had spoken.
Prophecy is not given to eliminate the walking by faith, because God seems to make it a dim thing in our mind at the moment when our faith needs to be tested. But we must walk with an understanding that God is leading us; He knows what He is doing; He is directing us all the time. Day by day we can look back and say, “This is true—the Lord led me! He had His hand on my life and all the time was bringing forth the thing He had said He was going to do!”
The longer we walk with God, the more persuaded we are that there is very little that a man or woman can do to prepare themselves for ministry except to listen to what God is saying, think His thoughts after Him and hide them in their hearts. Sometimes we forget a word—we are not able to recall it at will: but because it is there, because we have fed upon it at least one time, at the right moment the Holy Spirit will bring to remembrance what the Lord has made real to our heart.
The Holy Spirit uses all that we have read and studied, all of the truths from His Word that we have hidden in my heart. Our mind is not that good that it could produce all the things that we minister, but the Holy Spirit brings it to our remembrance as we begin to minister to one another.
The great well of our memory (the memory banks of the brain), should be filled with all of the Word that we can possibly put in them. At the right time, the Lord will bring it forth.
We Hide the Scriptures in our heart. We leave the choice of them to the Holy Spirit and He will bring them up, begin to expound them and make them real to our heart. That is what God said He would do. In Hebrews 8:10 He said He would write His Word on our hearts, and it wouldn’t be a matter of something outside of us but something written indelibly upon the tablets of our hearts, becoming a living part of us.
That is what we are, living epistles of Christ, read and known of all men; we speak forth as the Spirit gives us utterance, and the strength of the Lord comes in a beautiful way. How wonderful the Lord is to us; how He loves us; how He uses us and makes us His vessels in every way that we might please Him.
Why do we minister to people? To give them a word that they can lean on. We give them a word which, in the day of testing, becomes a light to their pathway in the darkness of the night; it becomes a staff to lean upon when they grow weary. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, And a light unto my path. Psalms 119:105.
This is why the young people need it so much. As they walk along the path of life, they face many decisions; they come to many points of crisis. Maybe their hearts will waver, but if the Word has been instilled in their hearts, at the right moment the Holy Spirit will speak to them out of that Word and they will find their way back into the things of the Lord.