God's Book of Remembrance

 “Then those who feared the LORD spoke to one another, and the LORD listened and heard them; So a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear the LORD and who meditate on His name.” Malachi 3: 16   

This is one of a few passages that speak of God writing a book. This passage speaks of it as “a book of remembrance”. We also have books of remembrance that we make for ourselves to help us recall events in this life. These books can take on the form of a photo album, a scrapbook, a diary, etc. Perhaps our most precious memories and recordings of our life are on our computer hard drive. In some cases the memories you have collected over the years may take on a different meaning to you as time goes by, and there can be various reasons for this happening. A particular photo, letter in a scrapbook, passage in a diary, a memento or saved email on your hard drive may provoke unpleasant thoughts in your mind. You may become sad in remembering someone close to you who has died. You may feel the pain of an emotional scar because someone has betrayed you. You may feel anger because someone wronged you, and never made it right. You may feel guilt because of a sin you committed, and never truly repented of doing. You may feel ashamed because of someone you betrayed. You might even be prompted to delete an email that you thought you wanted to save or remove a picture from a photo album that you no longer want to look at. Imagine if you went through all of the things that you have that are attached to any unpleasant memory, and removed them from your presence. All of the emails, etc. on your computer were deleted, the photos from your photo album were removed, items from the scrapbook torn out, the passages in your diary stricken, and the various memento’s were added to the trash. What would be left?

God is writing a book of Remembrance. What does God want to remember when He looks in His book? Will He see names that give Him unpleasant memories?

“Add iniquity to their iniquity, and let them not come into Your righteousness.
 Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous.  But I am poor and sorrowful; Let Your salvation, O God, set me up on high.”

Psalm 69: 27-29

If you read this Psalm of David you will see that he is contrasting the actions of those who had taken advantage of him and withheld comfort from him when he sinned with his own attitude of being poor (poor in spirit as in Matthew 5: 3), and sorrowful for his sins (those who mourn Matthew 5: 4, godly sorrow 2 Corinthians 7: 9). David is seeking God’s salvation, and he knows that only God can set him on high. David knows that God’s punishment against those who sinned against him will be to blot them “out of the book of the living”, and for their names to “not be written with the righteous”. Can these repent also? Yes, but if they do not they are blotted out. God will not look in His book and be prompted to remember their sins and unpleasantness before Him, because their names will not be written upon the page.

“You have a few names even in Sardis who have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with Me in white, for they are worthy. He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.
“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”’ Revelation 3: 4-6

This passage also clearly shows that there will be names added to the book of life that

will be blotted out, because they DID NOT OVERCOME.

“Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and

the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small

and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened,

which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the

things which were written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and

Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each

one according to his works. Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is

the second death. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake

of fire.” Revelation 20: 11-15

When our time comes to leave this world we want to be remembered by God. We want to

be written in His book of remembrance, written with the righteous, written in the book of

life, so that when He sees our name He will smile upon us knowing that we will be with

Him to share eternal memories.

“These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you

will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” John 16: 33

These words that Jesus spoke to His apostles will also give us comfort if we are

overcoming the world through Him.

God’s Plan of Salvation:

Hear the Word:                                   Romans 10:17

Believe the Word:                               Hebrews 11:6, Mark 16:15-16

Repent of your sins:                            Acts 2:38, 17:30, Luke 13:3

Confess Jesus as the Christ:                Matthew 10:32-33, Acts 8:36-37

Be buried with Christ in baptism:       1 Peter 3:21

Remain faithful:                                  Revelation 2:10

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