How does your relationship with the lord look right now?
Do you think you are doing well, or are you an overly harsh judge on yourself? Personally, I have been in both places. A better question to ask is “where is your heart?” Are you willing to listen to God’s voice when He speaks in love, instruction and correction, or is your heart hard and your ears turned off to His voice?
Ezekiel 36:24 For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land. 25 Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them. 28 Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; you shall be My people, and I will be your God.
Here in Lynchburg we started a Bible study on the book of Jeremiah. This prophet is a young man raised up to tell the people the words of the Lord. The words he ended up speaking grieved his heart because he was seeing the sin and corruption of his people and the judgement he understood they would receive; God had told him they would not listen. He is delivering the last words of warning Judah, the kingdom of the south, would ever receive. He would also see their downfall and takeover by Babylon. God goes as far to say do not pray for these people, and even if Moses and Samuel stood before Him, His mind would not be favorable. (Jeremiah 7:16 and 15:1)
How did they fall so far? They had just repented and turned towards God in the time of Josiah when Jeremiah became a prophet. They had the temple of the Lord and the Priests still serving there, as well as the prophets who spoke the word of the Lord. Ultimately, it was because of their hearts (Jeremiah 3:10). You see, even the prophets and priests and their kings had turned from then Lord (Jeremiah 5:31) and brought idols into even the Lord’s temple (Jeremiah 7:30). There were only a few prophets left that spoke the truth.
Why would they do such a thing? Because of their pride, their greed and following the example of those around them to the point that they’re even leading others astray. (Jeremiah 2:33)
Jeremiah2:10“Go west and look in the land of Cyprus[b];
go east and search through the land of Kedar.
Has anyone ever heard of anything
as strange as this?
11 Has any nation ever traded its gods for new ones,
even though they are not gods at all?
Yet my people have exchanged their glorious God[c]
for worthless idols!
12 The heavens are shocked at such a thing
and shrink back in horror and dismay,”
says the Lord.
13 “For my people have done two evil things:
They have abandoned me—
God and Jeremiah both cry out to these people, but they do not listen. The people seemed to think because they had the temple (Jeremiah 7:4-11) and made sacrifices to God (Jeremiah 6:20), that was enough. In their minds they felt righteous before God. They would even say “I am not polluted”, or “because I am innocent,” and “I have not sinned.” (Jeremiah 2:23 & 2:35); yet God knew their hearts and was angry.
After all their justifying of themselves and blindness to their own sin they had become like the very idols they served, trading their identity as God’s image bearers for the images of their own making.
Psalm 115: 4
Their idols are silver and gold,
The work of men’s hands.
5 They have mouths, but they do not speak;
Eyes they have, but they do not see;
6 They have ears, but they do not hear;
Noses they have, but they do not smell;
7 They have hands, but they do not handle;
Feet they have, but they do not walk;
Nor do they mutter through their throat.
8 Those who make them are like them;
So is everyone who trusts in them.
But God in His crazy love continues to implore them to return to Him.
Jeremiah 3:1
“They say, ‘If a man divorces his wife,
And she goes from him
And becomes another man’s,
May he return to her again?’
Would not that land be greatly polluted?
But you have played the harlot with many lovers;
Yet return to Me,” says the Lord.
So where is your heart? Are your ears and eyes open to God? My challenge to you this week is to open yourself to His leading and ask the Lord to show you your heart.
Psalm 139
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:24 And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
