Deuteronomy 16:1-8: in context

Moses commands Israel to keep the Passover each year, and he gives the reason plainly: that you may remember the day when you came out of the land of Egypt all the days of your life. The annual feast, with its unleavened bread, the bread of affliction, was a deliberate act of remembrance, a yearly returning to the memory of God's great deliverance, so that the redemption from Egypt would not be forgotten but kept fresh in the memory of the people through all their generations.

The Passover was, above all, an act of remembrance. God knew the human tendency to forget, and so he built into the life of his people a regular, deliberate act of remembering: keep this feast, that you may remember your deliverance all the days of your life. The unleavened bread, the specific timing, the whole observance, were designed to keep the memory of God's redemption alive, to return the people year after year to what God had done in bringing them out of Egypt. Left to themselves, they would forget; the feast was given so that they would remember. This addresses a tendency in us that God knew in Israel: we forget what God has done. The mercies and deliverances of God, vivid when they happen, fade with time; we forget his benefits, take his past faithfulness for granted, lose the memory of what he has done for us. And forgetting God's deliverance dulls our gratitude, weakens our trust, and loosens our hold on him. Praise the LORD, my soul, the psalmist says, and forget not all his benefits; the exhortation not to forget implies how easily we do. God built remembrance into his people's life because remembering matters, and forgetting is a real danger. This calls us to deliberate remembrance of God's deliverance. As Israel kept the Passover to remember their redemption from Egypt, so we are given, in the Lord's Supper, a deliberate act of remembering a greater deliverance: do this, Jesus said, in remembrance of me. The bread and cup call us back, again and again, to remember Christ's redemption, his body given and blood shed for us, so that we do not forget the deliverance at the heart of our faith. And beyond this, we do well to build remembrance into our lives, deliberately recalling God's faithfulness and deliverances, keeping fresh the memory of what he has done, rather than letting it fade. The Passover kept Israel remembering their deliverance all their days; and we too are called to remember God's redemption deliberately, not letting the memory of his faithfulness fade, but returning to it, keeping it fresh, and letting it feed our gratitude and trust. Forget not all his benefits; and do this in remembrance of him.

Do I let the memory of God's deliverances and mercies fade with time, forgetting his benefits and taking his past faithfulness for granted, and can the Passover, given so that Israel would remember their deliverance all the days of their life, and the Lord's Supper, given that we might remember Christ's redemption, move me to deliberate remembrance of what God has done, keeping fresh the memory of his faithfulness rather than letting it fade, and letting it feed my gratitude and trust?