Tuesday, March 15

Tuesday

Has a nation ever changed its gods?  (Yet they are not gods at all.) But my people have exchanged their Glory for worthless idols. Be appalled at this, O heavens, and shudder with great horror,” declares the LORD. “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.    - Jeremiah 2:11-13

Yesterday we saw that our fundamental problem and the fundamental problem in the world today is what the Bible calls sin.  Scripture has a good deal to say about this issue; what it is, how it affects us, and what can be done about it.  The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah gives us a kind of anatomy of sin the second chapter of his book.  Actually, most of this chapter is God speaking directly through the prophet Jeremiah.  God is spelling out exactly what is wrong with His people.  In verse 9, God says that He is bringing charges against His people!  (that had to be a pretty unsettling thing to hear from God)

In the passage above, God tells them (and us) that the core of their issue comes down to these two things; they had forsaken God, the source of living water, and instead they had been drinking from their own rotten wells.  This is the essence of sin - rejecting God and going our own way.  This was clearly the issue for the two brothers in Jesus’ parable in Luke 15, they both rejected the father and they both wanted their own way.  This is our issue as well; in fact, this has been humanity’s problem since the very beginning.  In Genesis 3 we see the very first humans rejecting the loving rule of God and attempting to rule their own lives, and this has been our spiritual legacy ever since. 

When I was in Jr. High, I got into trouble for making and keeping several small explosives in my school locker.  Some friends and I thought it would be fun to light them off in a field behind the school and they convinced me that I should keep them in my locker until school was over.  I know, I know, it was an incredibly dumb thing to do, but at the time I probably thought it sounded like a good idea.  Anyway, a teacher overheard my friends talking about our plans and the next thing I knew we were all in the principal’s office waiting for our parents to arrive.  I remember the principle telling my parents that “this kind of behavior was out of character for Jeffrey.”  My mother of course agreed and said that I would never do such a thing, my father however, wasn’t quite so sure.  The truth is that while this was the first (and the last) time I ever got into trouble for having explosives in my locker, at a much deeper level, this was exactly “in character” for me.  I was increasingly concerned about my friend’s opinion of me and less concerned with what was right and good and true.  I was developing the kind of character that would do something as stupid as keep bombs in my locker and even lie about it when first confronted.  While this is a relatively mild (even humorous) example, the capacity for foolish, dumb, hurtful, dishonest, selfish, wicked, and vicious behavior is already inside every one of us.

The Biblical view of sin goes much deeper that mere wrongdoing.  Sin is much more than making bad choices, or breaking the rules.  In fact, it is entirely possible to keep the external rules and yet still be sinful in your heart. In Matthew 15:18, Jesus says about the Pharisees, “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”  Sin, from the Bible’s point of view, is in our spiritual DNA, it is a virus in human nature that cannot be cured or even controlled apart from the saving grace of Christ.  David wrote about his in Psalm 51:5 when he said, “surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.”

Jeremiah tells us that (we) God’s people have exchanged our Glory for worthless idols.  What is our Glory?  God, God is our Glory!  He is to be the apple of our eye, the object of our ultimate allegiance and affection.  We have exchanged Him for a thousand worthless and false gods.  We exchange Him for the gods of work and career.  We exchange Him for the gods of wealth and status. We exchange His Glory for the lesser glory of human approval. We exchange Him for the gods of romance and relationship.  We exchange Him for the idols of our children’s success.  We exchange God, our Glory, for the false gods of self-esteem and body image.  Whatever we put in the place of God in our lives, will eventually become our god! 

God is your glory!  Do not trade Him for anything or anyone else; you will always lose in the exchange!


Jeff Frazier