Lenten Devotions - Day 33
“Get out of Babylon, my people, and run for your lives, before I strike the city in my anger! Don’t be afraid or lose hope, though year after year there are rumors of leaders fighting for control in the city of Babylon. The time will come when I will punish Babylon’s false gods. Everyone there will die, and the whole nation will be disgraced.” Jeremiah 51:45-47
Jeremiah was preparing a people for the experience of exile. He knew it would not be an easy life. He knew there would be great issues to face, the suffering of an oppressed population, and the loss of home, freedom, and identity. They would be heartbroken over leaving their land and all it symbolized in terms of the blessing and provision of Yahweh. He also knew there were greater dangers than these.
After some time in exile, they would begin to re-establish themselves within the foreign society. They would find their lives enmeshed with the lives of their conquerors. They would lose sight of just how they were becoming dependent on the culture and environment. They would attach themselves to association with a society they might even still consider evil, foreign, and oppressive. They would develop a new sense of security in the land of their exile, making it difficult to follow Yahweh’s leading should it become time to return to the land of promise.
Even within exile in a foreign, hated land, among a people they considered nothing but enemies, it would be an easy thing to become acclimated and redefine security in terms of maintaining the new life built in a hated land. They would be tempted to adopt the god of security, the god of the known, the god of comfort, above the God of Israel.
Change can be a difficult thing. We are so often unaware of how much change has transpired in our lives. We easily become acclimated to things, patterns, routines we may have once considered evil, immoral, ungodly, foreign, or oppressive. When God calls us to leave behind that to which we have grown accustomed, we are in a quandary. We are uncertain about leaving our attachments. We decide that perhaps God asks too much, that we are misunderstanding God, or that the little things to which we cling are too insignificant to really matter to God. Security in our attachment to routines, possessions, and links to the way of life around us begin to outweigh our reliance on and allegiance to God.
Jeremiah knew such would happen to his people. He warned them that there would come a time when their new host nation would find itself under God’s judgment. There would come a time when they would be called to step away from what they now considered an enemy threat, but they would be firmly attached to a new sense of security. At that time, their allegiance to God would be tested, and their lives would hang in the balance.
The church has always been a minority—the real church, that is. We have often, however, come to associate ourselves with a society in which we live. We have faced the struggle to remain true to God when associating with a dominant culture would lull us to believe that being a good citizen is the same as being a faithful Christian. God calls us, however, to step beyond our culture to live according to a far greater mission. Do we have the courage to step aside to live for God in spite of cultural attachments?
Take a close look at where culture prevails over God in your life. Give God priority.
“Lord, help me follow your priorities over my attachments to the world around me.”
—©Copyright 2009 Christopher B. Harbin http://www.sermonsearch.com/contributors/104427/
Jeremiah was preparing a people for the experience of exile. He knew it would not be an easy life. He knew there would be great issues to face, the suffering of an oppressed population, and the loss of home, freedom, and identity. They would be heartbroken over leaving their land and all it symbolized in terms of the blessing and provision of Yahweh. He also knew there were greater dangers than these.
After some time in exile, they would begin to re-establish themselves within the foreign society. They would find their lives enmeshed with the lives of their conquerors. They would lose sight of just how they were becoming dependent on the culture and environment. They would attach themselves to association with a society they might even still consider evil, foreign, and oppressive. They would develop a new sense of security in the land of their exile, making it difficult to follow Yahweh’s leading should it become time to return to the land of promise.
Even within exile in a foreign, hated land, among a people they considered nothing but enemies, it would be an easy thing to become acclimated and redefine security in terms of maintaining the new life built in a hated land. They would be tempted to adopt the god of security, the god of the known, the god of comfort, above the God of Israel.
Change can be a difficult thing. We are so often unaware of how much change has transpired in our lives. We easily become acclimated to things, patterns, routines we may have once considered evil, immoral, ungodly, foreign, or oppressive. When God calls us to leave behind that to which we have grown accustomed, we are in a quandary. We are uncertain about leaving our attachments. We decide that perhaps God asks too much, that we are misunderstanding God, or that the little things to which we cling are too insignificant to really matter to God. Security in our attachment to routines, possessions, and links to the way of life around us begin to outweigh our reliance on and allegiance to God.
Jeremiah knew such would happen to his people. He warned them that there would come a time when their new host nation would find itself under God’s judgment. There would come a time when they would be called to step away from what they now considered an enemy threat, but they would be firmly attached to a new sense of security. At that time, their allegiance to God would be tested, and their lives would hang in the balance.
The church has always been a minority—the real church, that is. We have often, however, come to associate ourselves with a society in which we live. We have faced the struggle to remain true to God when associating with a dominant culture would lull us to believe that being a good citizen is the same as being a faithful Christian. God calls us, however, to step beyond our culture to live according to a far greater mission. Do we have the courage to step aside to live for God in spite of cultural attachments?
Take a close look at where culture prevails over God in your life. Give God priority.
“Lord, help me follow your priorities over my attachments to the world around me.”
—©Copyright 2009 Christopher B. Harbin http://www.sermonsearch.com/contributors/104427/
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