Morning Sharing: From Forsaking to Reconciling

Although I am trying to make my way through Jeremiah right now (at least the first chapter), instead of moving further along this morning I was drawn to take another look at my starting place and (of course) saw something I hadn’t noticed before. 

God said, “And I will declare my judgments against them, for all their evil in forsaking me. They have made offerings to other gods and worshiped the works of their own hands” (vs 16). 

This got me thinking about why it is so evil to forsake God. This needs to be understood in relation to the greatest commandment, that we are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Obviously forsaking him is breaking that command.  

But both the command to love God and the indictment about forsaking him presuppose a reality that makes God the only measure of what is good. This would explain why Jesus said that no one does good except God alone. 

This feels a bit like the sourdough starter (leaven) that needs some time to permeate the whole lump of dough. I can see where God is going with this, and he is at least humoring me in my childish need to labor over it until I understand it for real, but it will take some more time of meditating on this and praying it through to see how exactly God is working in this and how I am to join him in his work. 

For starters, I know the focus is to see what God is doing in me to address anything in my life that reeks of forsaking him in immediate circumstances where I might not even notice I am leaving him out of my thinking and idolizing something of my own making (self-protective structures included). 

This will lead to specific expressions of surrender to his work of cleaning up my act so I am being transformed through the renewal of my mind “into the same image (as Jesus Christ) from one degree of glory to another.” 

And then I will look for new opportunities to keep sharing him with others in the confidence that his kindness will lead someone to repentance and back into the arms of his love. 

As usual, God tells me to go first, and then walk with him as he expresses his life through me for his glory and the good of others.

 

© 2023 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)