Is it just me, or am I the only one to whom God teaches the same lessons over and over again? Sometimes I wonder why I seem to forget important truths God has taught me over time. Then, through a passage read, or re-read, or listening to another person share, or being driven to prayer and dependence on God in the midst of trial, the light goes on and this incredible insight comes into focus as the answer to my searching. But oftentimes, I already knew that.

As followers of Jesus Christ, we have all experienced this. When we are new to Christ we learn lessons that are life-changing. For instance, the first time we struggle with unanswered prayer, a difficult illness, or the tragedy in the life of another, our faith is rocked. But then we seek God and learn a lesson that is life-long: God does not promise to answer all prayer or heal all illness, or take away all pain—in this life. This is a life of faith, trusting God in hard times. When we first learn a lesson of this magnitude we are thrilled that God has revealed a truth to us in a most personal and supernatural way.

And then we forget. Time goes on, and so does life. New challenges arise, new lessons are learned, and sometimes we doubt our own progress. Some years later, we are faced with a similar trial we endured as a young Christian. We seek and search, and then the light goes on, and we see an electrifying biblical truth. A new lesson? —no, the same one. We just forgot.

Historian Clair Davis says the Christian life is “a combination of amnesia and déja vu. I know I’ve forgotten this before.” We keep forgetting that we’ve already experienced this, learned this lesson, but just forgot it. So, we learn and relearn the same lessons over and over again. What does this mean? It means that we are simply human. We forget.

If you were to take the great lessons found throughout the Bible in the lives of great men and women of faith, you would probably find that there are a handful of lessons that shine through: God is sovereign, God is faithful, God is holy, God is love, God is forgiving (yes, there are more).

But we, we are frail children as dust. We can’t remember what we did two weeks ago Thursday, let alone on any given day ten years ago. But God does, and He does not change. Knowing our frame, that we are prone to wonder and forget, He has built into the life of worship remembrances to force us to recall the greatest lessons about Him and life. When the Lord instituted Passover in Exodus 12 He said, “Now this day will be a memorial to you, and you shall celebrate it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations you are to celebrate it as a permanent ordinance” (v.14). For the Israelites, Passover was a yearly reminder of God’s redemption—that He took notice of them, heard their cries, took pity on them and rescued them from bondage.

Just like us, they would forget these foundational truths sometime throughout the year. But Passover would remind them that they had “forgotten this before.” With God’s prescribed prompting of Passover, they would remember anew what they had easily forgotten. A memorial is testimony of something significant that has happened that is too important to forget. And we need to be reminded.

As Christians, we have an even greater mnemonic than Passover—The Lord’s Table. As the Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 11:23-26,

"23 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; 24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, 'This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.' 25 In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.' 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes." (Emphasis added).

Just as Passover was to remind the children of Israel of the most important, life-changing, formative event in their history, so we are to remember the most important event for us: Our redemption in Christ. Communion was given to us by Christ for this very purpose, so that we would remember to not forget. There is much evidence from church history that the early church celebrated communion every Lord’s Day when they gathered to worship. The frequency of celebration is important.

Communion is to be a constant testimony that we should never forget and always remember the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We should never forget we are hopelessly lost apart from Christ. We must not forget that we cannot save ourselves. We must always remember that we are saved by God’s infinite grace. We must always remember that His grace enables us to live for Him. The Gospel is not a lesson to ever be forgotten, but to be ever-remembered. We must keep it always before us, and the table of communion is the prescribed way to “Proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.”

There are some lessons we forget, learn and relearn. But the Gospel, the Good News of our redemption should never be forgotten, not even for a moment.