In the Bible we see this constant call to remember God and I've realized that's cuz we forget ALL the time. Here are a few things I don't want to forget from this past year:

1. He constantly calls us to remember who He is and He continues to reveal parts of Himself to us, again and again all throughout our lives. We only know Him in part here; but one day, we will see Him face to face. Pretty incredible.

2. He has given us everything we need for life with Him. One aspect of that is His Word - the living, transformative words of our Maker. He calls us to delight and meditate on them for our good.

3. The Creator of the world invites us to know Him and call Him Father. What a gift.

4. He comforts us in our mourning and reminds us that He knows what it’s like to lose His only Son. He holds our hand and helps us say: It is well with my soul.

5. He has set eternity in our hearts and promises that one day the age of death will be done. I can’t wait.

6. He made us in His image. We’re called to mirror Christ in many things by the power of His Spirit. Ironically, those are often the things we shy away from. Meanwhile, there are also things only God is meant to be and those are the things we tend to strive for.

7. He alone saves and captures hearts. We are not capable of saving. We're in desperate need of it.

8. He made us for worship but more often than not we turn that worship towards things other than Him.

9. He is the only One who can fulfill us. No person or thing ever will. They weren’t made to.

10. He dreamed up a beautiful thing when He made the Church, His bride. While it’s broken because it’s made up of broken people, it was His plan to bring the gospel to the ends of the earth. God loves it and hasn’t given up on it so neither can we.

11. He often uses people who are hard to love to teach us about the kind of love He has for us. The people who are hard to love, who don’t deserve it, He says: That’s who you are; but you’ve been washed and sanctified and made whole through Jesus. Not because of how deserving you are but because I made you and because Christ loved you and gave His life for yours.

12. He constantly calls us into the humility Christ demonstrated for us, coming from a throne of endless glory to a cradle in the dirt.

13. He has a heart for the widow, the orphan, the foreigner, the oppressed, those without a voice and He calls His Church to reflect His heart for those people. His response to people doesn't look like the right or the left, Republican or Democrat. His response looks like Jesus.

14. He sent His only Son to be taunted, rejected, despised and ultimately crucified for what we did. Now He calls us into life and heart change, promising life to the full and eternal life.

15. He sees the depths of our wandering, doubting hearts and loves us still. We wait our whole lives for that kind of unconditional, self-sacrificing love and God’s waiting for us, staring us in the face, saying: Here it is. You won’t find that kind of love anywhere else.

16. He helps us seek Him and love Him because we can't even do that on our own. What a crazy kind of love. If you asked someone else for help to love them and not leave them, they’d look at you like you were crazy.

17. He is worthy of our trust and yet patient when we continue to do things that show we trust other things for contentment and peace more than Him.

18. He is always asking: Do you love me more than anything? Will you do anything, give up anything, to follow me?

19. He promised Jesus to the world since the Fall and He kept His promise. He also promised Jesus would come back again. What a day it will be.

20. The good news of the gospel isn’t that God came to make you rich, comfortable, married, successful, prettier, smarter, funnier, etc. It’s that He came to make you holy.

21. We are not enough but He is. Then when we’re made right through Jesus who is enough, we’re not even enough to become like Jesus on our own. We start to think we are and that’s when God demonstrates His patience and continues to remind us: You don’t get it. The point is that you need Me. You are not enough and the good news is you don’t have to be. But you have to know that and turn to the One who is. We truly need Him every hour.

22. He’s constantly working to make us more like Christ. It’s painful, but a good reminder that we are so far from perfect or holy. This means Him sending Jesus to stand in the gap for us was more of an amazing grace than we’ll ever fully know.

23. When we’re confronted with our own brokenness, we can land in despair. But while God calls us to grieve what separates us from Him, He’s made a way for us to be in His presence and calls us to live in the joy that that brings.

24. In His presence there is fullness of joy. He’s constantly working to get us there, to His feet. The question is: Will we get on our knees?

25. My story can’t change lives. It’s my life that needs change and transformation. His story does change lives. It transforms hearts. For all of eternity.