by Wesley Blackburn
The story of Jeremiah is a really difficult one. Like most of the prophets throughout Israel and Judah's history, Jeremiah was commissioned by God to take a very difficult message of the people's sin to the people.
Obviously, you can imagine that people who were commissioned by God to tell the people of their sin were not very popular with the people. No doubt many sneered and jeered at the prophets, perhaps even calling into question whether they were truly receiving a message from God at all, or whether or not they just wanted to get on a moral "high horse" and judge people. Frequently, prophets were punished, humiliated, beaten, imprisoned, and even killed.
Jeremiah would be no different. His message would earn him lots of trouble from people and rulers of Israel. He would actually earn the name of "the weeping prophet" because of his deep concern for the people not following God's laws, but also in part because the pain and torture that Jeremiah would endure over his ministry would be enough to make any grown man weep.
As Jeremiah receives his initial call to go and talk to the people, God gives him one message: Come back to your first love. This would pretty much sum up Jeremiah's message to the people of his day. He would ask them to turn away from their worthless idols, to turn from doing evil in God's sight, and to come back to God, live a right life before Him, and worship Him.
Jeremiah's message makes me think: Have I forsaken my first love? In this season of life, I think that I'm honestly struggling to keep God as the first love in my life a lot of the time. Mostly, I'd rather serve me. I'd rather do the things that make me happy. There have been a lot of times in my life where I have been genuinely motivated by a desire to live a life that honors and glorifies God; I feel that's been a struggle for me recently. I think that is where much of Israel's struggle stemmed from as well.
It's especially silly because we see the repercussions of our sin. Broken relationships. Bitterness. Hate. We leave a trail of destruction in our path and we don't even realize it. In Romans 6:21, Paul talks about how we were all once slaves to sin. Paul basically asks this blunt question of, "How's that working out for you?" The answer is, pretty simply, it doesn't. When we continually live in a habitual pattern of sin, it's usually blatantly obvious to everyone around us that things aren't working. But we still stubbornly continue. Again, that's the story of Israel. But I think it would be silly if I didn't also admit that that is also the story of me.
So what does God ask of us? He wants us to turn to Him. He wants us to call on Him. But more than just calling on His name (anyone can do that in the dark moments of their lives), God wants to obey Him. God restores us and loves us so that we can, in turn, follow Him and play a part in His story of restoring and redeeming the lives of others. Let's all be a part of that story; let's turn to God, submit our lives to Him, and boldly follow where He is leading.
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