Wednesday, March 16

Wednesday

Your wickedness will punish you; your backsliding will rebuke you. Consider then and realize how evil and bitter it is for you when you forsake the LORD your God and have no awe of me,” declares the Lord, the LORD Almighty. – Jeremiah 2:19

Some people tend to think of God punishing people for their sins.  The Bible does teach that God is just and He will ultimately punish all sin, but here in the first part of Jeremiah 2:19 we see that there is a very real sense in which sin is its own punishment. 

This was certainly the case for the younger brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son.  His selfish choices, and reckless living led him to the point where he found himself in the midst of pig slop (literally) with nothing and nobody to turn to.  Oh, I’m sure he had his share of laughs along the way, but his choices were steadily leading him further and further from home and closer and closer to the place of brokenness and despair.

Jesus continued:  “There was a man who had two sons.  The younger one said to his father,  ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.  “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living."     – Luke 15:11-13

When he finally returned home in rags and full of shame, his father apparently did not feel the need to heap further punishment on his son.  I think it was probably quite clear that the boy had already suffered greatly because of his decisions. 

Although not as immediately obvious, this was the case with older brother as well.  He stayed at home and obeyed the rules, but his heart was far from his father.  When his younger brother came home and his father threw the biggest party the village had ever seen, he (the older brother) was outside on the porch refusing to come in. 

“The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him.  But he answered his father,  ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends.  But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’     - Luke 15:28-30

His heart was full of self-righteous anger and he was a captive of his own bitterness and resentment.  Look again at what God says to us in Jeremiah 2:19 “Consider then and realize how evil (younger brother) and bitter (older brother) it is for you when you forsake the LORD your God…” Some of us end up in the pig slop because of our choices, and others of us end up in an internal prison of anger and bitterness, but the point is that left undealt with, our sinfulness always leads us away from our Father. 

"When tempted, no one should say,  “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed.  Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death."   - James 1:13-15

So, what are we to do about this serious problem of sin?  Notice what God tells us at the end of this verse from Jeremiah. “Consider then and realize how evil and bitter it is for you when you forsake the LORD your God and have no awe of me,” declares the Lord, the LORD Almighty.” (2:19b).  The word used for “awe” in this verse is the Hebrew word ‘yirah’, it is the same word that is often translated as “fear” in the Old Testament.  Not fear in the sense of being afraid of God, as if He is going to strike you down when you least expect it, but fear/awe as a holy reverence for who God is and how we are to live in reference to Him.  Jeremiah is telling us that when you lose this sense of awe and reverence for God - watch out, because you are on the path toward real trouble. 

Perhaps a good way for us to think about what living with “awe” for God really means is to ask ourselves these questions…

Do I have a sense of my total dependence of God or am I living the lie of self-sufficiency?

Is God the primary filter through which I make every decision in my life?

Is God’s opinion of me the one that matters most in my life?

Is God the one I turn to first for counsel, comfort, and guidance?

            Does God have my attention throughout the day, or only in those few moments when I     

            am feeling “spiritual”?

Oh God our Father, give us this holy awe in our hearts so that we will not stray from You.  Let us not be afraid of You, but let us live with fear and reverence in our hearts for who You are – Amen. 


Jeff Frazier