Love and War

Thoughts from the daily Bible reading:  Jeremiah 21-24

God is serious about His Justice.  You can see it over and over again....especially in the book of Jeremiah.  In the first 20 chapters of Jeremiah, God is telling the people through His prophet that He was going to punish them because they have followed their own evil hearts and forsaken Him.  God told them He would punish them by allowing the Babylonians to destroy them because they had forsaken God and had followed their own evil hearts.  Yet, in chapter 21, when war finally comes to the people, King Zedekiah sent word to Jeremiah asking him to go to the Lord. In the king's message to Jeremiah, he even said, “Perhaps the Lord will deal with us according to all his wonderful deeds and will make him withdraw from us.”  Amazing!  Time and time again, the people ignored the Lord’s words of judgement.  Yet, it the time of disaster, they thought God would simply overlook their sin and answer with “his wonderful deeds.”   God did answer according to his wonderful deeds, but they were not the people's desired deeds.  They were deeds of justice.  My human heart wants God to relent of  his anger towards them.  I want God to allow them to live.  But that would not be just.  Even in His Righteous anger and judgement, God told them that if the people would surrender to the Chaldeans, they would live….yet many did not surrender.  Even among a time of great judgement and unrelenting anger, God provided a way for the faithful who would trust in Him.  This is soooo relevant for our culture today!   God has told us that Judgement is coming.   He will not allow sin to go unpunished.  Yet, so many think that God will just let their sin go unpunished because, after all, “God is love,” right?  Yes, He is love.  He is the truest Love of all.  But He is also Good and Just.  Therefore, He cannot and will not leave sin unpunished.  So, in His perfect love and justice, He has provided a way for us to go unpunished….That way is through His Son Jesus Christ who paid the penalty for sin so that we could be reconciled to God.  He is the only way to be free from sin and brought near to God forever.  See the comparison:  Judah could be “free” from the Babylonians if they would just surrender.  They would be rescued by God.  We also see that when they didn’t turn to God, He did punish them.  In the same manner, God will punish your sin and my sin.  He has shown us through His Word that He will do this.  He has made a Way for us, the only way, Jesus Christ.   Let it soak in:  God will punish sin.  Trust in Christ.  Don’t delay.

follow your heart?

My faith family is reading through the Bible this year.  We are in the book of Jeremiah right now.  Jeremiah prophesied to Judah that they were going to be punished for their sins by being brought into captivity.  I am learning so much about the seriousness of sin and the mercy of God.  God is merciful and ready to forgive, but He also cannot and will not allow sin to go unpunished.  He shows us this clearly through Jeremiah....
We live in a culture that tells us to "follow our heart."  Many churches even tell us to do this!  It sounds sweet, warm and fuzzy, but the consequences of following our own hearts are HUGE.  Look at the passages below.  All of these passages are explaining why Judah was being punished:
Jeremiah 9:13-14
^"13And the LORD says: "Because they have forsaken my law that I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice or walked in accord with it, ¹⁴but have stubbornly followed their own hearts and have gone after the Baals, as their fathers taught them."
Jeremiah 13:10
^"10This evil people, who refuse to hear my words, who stubbornly follow their own heart and have gone after other gods to serve them and worship them, shall be like this loincloth, which is good for nothing."
Jeremiah 16:11-12
^"11then you shall say to them: 'Because your fathers have forsaken me, declares the LORD, and have gone after other gods and have served and worshiped them, and have forsaken me and have not kept my law, ¹²and because you have done worse than your fathers, for behold, every one of you follows his stubborn, evil will, refusing to listen to me."
Through these verses, we can see that following our own hearts and following God's Word are in DIRECT OPPOSITION to each other.  Look at the verses again, and you will see that every time, God says some variation of this: that the people have forsaken Him and His law in order to follow their own heart. One chapter over in Jeremiah 17:9, God tells us, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?"


What is the solution to this problem?


Only God can change our hearts.  Psalm 51:10 is a cry for God to create in me a new, pure heart.  He alone gives us a new heart that is able to desire Him.  But, it still isn't easy after that.  God does not magically make every Christian wake up seeking Him wholeheartedly each and every day without sinful desires waring for our attention.  It is a battle.  That's probably one reason why God gives us such clear instruction in how to handle our evil hearts.  He also lets us know this will be WORK.  Check out Deuteronomy 11:18, "You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes."  
This verse doesn't describe a magical desire for God's Word to be obeyed.  Rather, it describes an INTENTIONAL relationship with the Word.  We must make a strong effort to know it, keep it in our hearts and in our minds.
This is all over Scripture.  Here are a couple places:
Psalm 119:11 "¹¹I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you."
Romans 12:2 "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.^"


Isn't this what Jesus tells us to do when we are to lay down our lives and follow Him?  We must die daily to our own desires and very lives in order to give ourselves to God's desires.
Let's do the hard work of denying ourselves in order to give ourselves to doing the very Word of God.

we have work to do

Everyone wants to find purpose and meaning in their life.  Christians typically ask the question this way: "What is God's will for my life?"  

The answer is very simple answer: Worship God and lead others to worship God.  I am no where close to being where I want to be, but I can tell you that life - true, exciting, invigorating, meaningful, satisfying, joyful, peaceful, purposeful, driven, and gratifying life is found only in worshiping God and leading others to worship Him.  

Not only is this our purpose, but NOT fulfilling our purpose of telling others about the hope only found in trusting in Jesus Christ for salvation has SERIOUS, URGENT consequences for the people around us.  Your neighbors, co-workers, family members, friends, waitresses, all have SOULS that will live on FOREVER.   

Maybe one reason reason why we don't tell others about Christ is because we don't sense the urgency of eternity, or maybe we don't even think about eternity at all.  We are too consumed with our own agendas.  I want to urge us all to live in light of the reality that EVERYONE'S life, on earth is "but a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes." (James 4:14) But it does not end there.  This passage from The Weight of Glory by C.S. Lewis, shows a great way for us to consider eternity and the task of proclaiming Jesus to the world:

"It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare....It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is is with awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.  There are no ordinary people.  You have never talked to a mere mortal.  Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations--these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat.  But it is immortals who we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit--immortal horrors or everlasting splendors."

The most incredible privilege we have AND the most urgent need the world has is for believers to proclaim Christ Jesus to everyone they meet.  There is plenty of work to do right here where you live....TODAY....and in proclaiming this message, we will find the most meaningful, exciting life possible. 

Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

(Matthew 9:37-38 ESV)