A Purpose-Driven God
Greetings in the Lord!
Well, today's word is one of those challenging ones that causes us to re-examine how we might perceive the many attributes and character of God, as we understand Him to be. It also takes us to the Old Testament, which for many Western/American Christians, is already a dubious place for us to explore such an issue. In many ways it seems the general consensus is that the God of the Old Testament acts altogether different from the God of the New Testament, and quite frankly, many Westerners prefer to hold to the "New Testament" understanding of love and grace. Maybe that's because it can be a feel-good approach that gives "wiggle room" to Christians who ultimately have a desire to compromise with worldly dictates and mindsets. However, such a pleasantly selected view of the Bible doesn't help anyone at all, and ultimately, paints a distorted picture of our Creator. It is incomplete and shortsighted...and dangerous.
At any rate, today's word comes from Jeremiah chapter 44. It is an uncompromising passage where Jeremiah confronts the exiled Israelites living in Egypt with warnings to turn away from practicing idolatry and return to serving God only. By this time in the book of Jeremiah, Jerusalem and all of Judah had been ransacked and destroyed by the Babylonians just as Jeremiah had told them would happen if they did not stop being idolaters. Now, unable to live in Jerusalem, the Israelites sought refuge in Egypt and continued to rebel against serving only God.
"We will not listen to the message you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord! We will certainly do everything we said we would: We will burn incense to the Queen of Heaven...At that time we had plenty of food and were well off and suffered no harm. But ever since we stopped burning incense to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have had nothing and have been perishing by sword and famine." Jeremiah 44:15-18.
The Israelites were still being stubborn and really just wanted an excuse to continue in their idolatrous ways. I mean really, if they followed their own logic it would stand to reason that the Queen of Heaven that they served before the Babylonian invasion was powerless to save them on the day of their disaster....or was no god at all, while the Lord's word was actually fulfilled by the Babylonian invasion. His word proved true! But the Israelites were not interested in repenting and seeing truth, their hearts were hard and arrogant towards God and His servants.
They wanted to continue to live their lives with idols and God....but the Lord is a jealous God and will not tolerate spiritual compromise.
So the Lord replied that He would make sure that they dwindle down to nothing and waste away...with barely any Israelites except for a few fugitives to return to their inheritance of Jerusalem.
"For I am watching over them for harm, not for good; the Jews in Egypt will perish by sword and famine until they are all destroyed. " Jeremiah 44:27
Yep, makes ya a little uncomfortable doesn't it? It does me....I mean, "watching over them for harm"? I don't know about you, but that's not the boat I want to be in! And I have no doubt that this passage is just as relevant and applicable today as it was in those days.
"But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire." Matthew 3:11-12.
That statement was spoken about Jesus and a foreshadowing of what lies ahead for those who turn away, doubt, or reject him. And did you know that spiritual compromise is a form of rejection of Christ? It is saying that He is not enough, that He is not completely Who he says he is. It makes since then that God would allow those principalities that the Israelites had compromised with and ultimately served when they bowed to idols to wreck havoc in their lives. To watch as He allows us to "see" whom we are REALLY serving when we bow to idols or have any form of spiritual compromise/idolatry in our lives. The devil and his cohorts come to steal, kill and destroy, that's it. There can never be any good result in our lives when we serve such entities.
It's shocking to me to hear and see how many American Christians fall into the trap of spiritual idolatry--it is no different these days than it was in Jeremiah's day! Then they get even more stubborn when they begin to reap the bad seeds they have sown--and often try to blame God for their misfortune! This is true about getting involved with the New Age, sorcery, fortune-telling, paganism, and many other "religions," if you play with fire you're going to get burnt, spiritually speaking. Involvement and adhering to these false doctrines open a large of door of misery into the day to day life of a person. Christians should never even go there, but quite often they do. Let it be the cry of our hearts to return to spiritual purity!
~Be blessed and be a blessing.
Well, today's word is one of those challenging ones that causes us to re-examine how we might perceive the many attributes and character of God, as we understand Him to be. It also takes us to the Old Testament, which for many Western/American Christians, is already a dubious place for us to explore such an issue. In many ways it seems the general consensus is that the God of the Old Testament acts altogether different from the God of the New Testament, and quite frankly, many Westerners prefer to hold to the "New Testament" understanding of love and grace. Maybe that's because it can be a feel-good approach that gives "wiggle room" to Christians who ultimately have a desire to compromise with worldly dictates and mindsets. However, such a pleasantly selected view of the Bible doesn't help anyone at all, and ultimately, paints a distorted picture of our Creator. It is incomplete and shortsighted...and dangerous.
At any rate, today's word comes from Jeremiah chapter 44. It is an uncompromising passage where Jeremiah confronts the exiled Israelites living in Egypt with warnings to turn away from practicing idolatry and return to serving God only. By this time in the book of Jeremiah, Jerusalem and all of Judah had been ransacked and destroyed by the Babylonians just as Jeremiah had told them would happen if they did not stop being idolaters. Now, unable to live in Jerusalem, the Israelites sought refuge in Egypt and continued to rebel against serving only God.
"We will not listen to the message you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord! We will certainly do everything we said we would: We will burn incense to the Queen of Heaven...At that time we had plenty of food and were well off and suffered no harm. But ever since we stopped burning incense to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have had nothing and have been perishing by sword and famine." Jeremiah 44:15-18.
The Israelites were still being stubborn and really just wanted an excuse to continue in their idolatrous ways. I mean really, if they followed their own logic it would stand to reason that the Queen of Heaven that they served before the Babylonian invasion was powerless to save them on the day of their disaster....or was no god at all, while the Lord's word was actually fulfilled by the Babylonian invasion. His word proved true! But the Israelites were not interested in repenting and seeing truth, their hearts were hard and arrogant towards God and His servants.
They wanted to continue to live their lives with idols and God....but the Lord is a jealous God and will not tolerate spiritual compromise.
So the Lord replied that He would make sure that they dwindle down to nothing and waste away...with barely any Israelites except for a few fugitives to return to their inheritance of Jerusalem.
"For I am watching over them for harm, not for good; the Jews in Egypt will perish by sword and famine until they are all destroyed. " Jeremiah 44:27
Yep, makes ya a little uncomfortable doesn't it? It does me....I mean, "watching over them for harm"? I don't know about you, but that's not the boat I want to be in! And I have no doubt that this passage is just as relevant and applicable today as it was in those days.
"But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire." Matthew 3:11-12.
That statement was spoken about Jesus and a foreshadowing of what lies ahead for those who turn away, doubt, or reject him. And did you know that spiritual compromise is a form of rejection of Christ? It is saying that He is not enough, that He is not completely Who he says he is. It makes since then that God would allow those principalities that the Israelites had compromised with and ultimately served when they bowed to idols to wreck havoc in their lives. To watch as He allows us to "see" whom we are REALLY serving when we bow to idols or have any form of spiritual compromise/idolatry in our lives. The devil and his cohorts come to steal, kill and destroy, that's it. There can never be any good result in our lives when we serve such entities.
It's shocking to me to hear and see how many American Christians fall into the trap of spiritual idolatry--it is no different these days than it was in Jeremiah's day! Then they get even more stubborn when they begin to reap the bad seeds they have sown--and often try to blame God for their misfortune! This is true about getting involved with the New Age, sorcery, fortune-telling, paganism, and many other "religions," if you play with fire you're going to get burnt, spiritually speaking. Involvement and adhering to these false doctrines open a large of door of misery into the day to day life of a person. Christians should never even go there, but quite often they do. Let it be the cry of our hearts to return to spiritual purity!
~Be blessed and be a blessing.
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