Lamenting of the heart

I want to preface this blog entry with this.  Everything that I am blogging about is not meant to point fingers at anyone, nor is it meant to be condemning.  Everything that I have written about in this post, are things I have been dealing with in my life.  I don't feel even remotely qualified to write on this issue, but it has been on my heart for weeks and believe I can share it with all of you.  I just want to experience deeper intimacy in my relationship with the Lord and I know that is the cry of many of your hearts.  God is asking us to allow Him to do a cleansing of His temple (our hearts).  This blog came from my reading of Jeremiah 7:1-11.  I hope you will go read it, and allow the Holy Spirit to speak to you.

Lately my heart has been lamenting.  It has not only been weeping at issues in my life, but in the lives of so many other Christians, and generally the world that we are living in today.  I am so overwhelmed by the evil that I see going on and it not only makes me weep, but I get so angry to see such blatant injustice.  I have watched the news and listened to people talk, and I am amazed at the deception that seems to have blanketed our land.   There are so much rhetoric going on, and it is easy for a heart to believe that humankind is lost.  That there is no good in this world any longer. It seems just absolutely hopeless.  Yet God reminded me this morning in His word in Jeremiah 7 that we are not to trust in deceptive words!  I was gently reminded that the war has already been won!  Jesus Christ is alive and sitting at God’s right hand!  He is the VICTOR in this battle with evil! 

At this point I have to make a confession.  I had begun to dislike the “church”.  Not the actual physical building that I go to on a weekly basis, but the spiritual “church” we all belong to when we accept Christ as Savior and Lord.  God began months ago, convicting me of my hypocrisy and the idols I had in my life.  As God began to deal with me in those areas of which I have mourned and repented  (and continuing to do so on a daily basis),  He began opening my spiritual eyes to the things around me.  The more I read scripture, the more I see clearly the deception of idol worship and what I see makes my heart weep.  

Then I was in scripture today and in Jeremiah 7, God is speaking.  He is speaking to His people Judah. Yes, I have heard the argument that the Old Testament is not for the church and that it was written solely for Jewish people that what God said them, we should not apply to ourselves, but God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  He NEVER changes and if He is calling out the Jewish people on their disobedience and their sin, why wouldn’t we take notice as His church and listen to Him.  

God’s heart has, is, and always been for His people.  When you really dig into scripture you can hear his Heart.  He loves humanity so much that He was willing to meet us in our humanity in the person of Jesus.  So to all those who may say that what God says in the Old Testament cannot apply to us, His Church and His Bride are listening to deceptive words. 

In this passage God is actually addressing those who came to the Temple to worship God.  When I read this passage, I actually realized that those things that I have been lamenting are the same things that causes God heart to lament.  You see in this portion of scripture God is calling His people, those who call themselves worshipers.   As Christians we are called to be worshipers.  But in the day of Jeremiah, the worshipers of God were not worshiping Him.  Their hearts were hard, cold, filled with sin, and idol worship.   Are we so different today as then?

It says in Jeremiah 7:2  “Hear the word of the LORD”. I have to stop here for a moment and make comment here.   LORD spelled in all capitals, is the word Yahweh in the Hebrew.  Yahweh was the ultimate name of God and the Jewish people didn’t even dare to speak this name.  In all of His Holiness they knew they were undone in His presence because of their sin and didn’t address Him as such.  I thank God every day for Jesus who makes it possible for me to stand in the presence of Yahweh! 

Here is the LORD speaking to his worshipers, his people.   He continues, “Reform your ways and your actions and I will let you live in this place. Do not trust in deceptive words and say “This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD.  If you REALLY change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless, or the widow and do not shed innocent blood an if you do not follow other gods to your own harm then I will let you live in this place,in the land I gave your ancestors for ever and ever …BUT look you are  in deceptive words that are worthless!   

Times may have changed, but the sin has not.  There are so many deceptive words that people are believing.  God is challenging his people to look at the things that we are believing and being told and match them up with His Word.   We are being told that God is a forgiving God and that as long as we confess our sin to Him we are forgiven.   This is truth but the deception that comes into play here, is that we can do whatever we want, and after we are done with the sin, I can go to God and tell Him I am sorry and I am forgiven.  It is a presumption upon His mercy and His grace to know full well what we are doing is sinful, choose to do it willfully, and then go back to God and ask for forgiveness!   How many times I have been guilty of this! 

Other deceptive words tell us that going to church, participating in all the glitz and programming that is intended make us to feel good, makes us feel safe, all the while we have blatant sin in our lives.  As you read through the Old Testament and the New Testament you see clearly that God is not interested in what we do for Him or our religious traditions, He is interested in our hearts and where in our esteem we uphold Him.    

The one thing that I have learned about God in reading His word is that He can NOT tolerate idol worship.   And as I look at the Church today, it abounds!  In my own life, it abounds if I am not careful to look after my relationship with the Lord and make a conscious and intentional effort to keep Him first place.  I get off track often, there is so much the world offers, how can I not?  But I have found over the last few months that NOTHING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING CAN COMPARE TO JESUS!

  

In His first Commandment, God addressed that HE was YAHWEH and we as His people are not to have any other gods before Him. But I tell myself I surely can't have idols in my life.  I love Jesus and He is sufficient.  Is He really?  When was the last time you reached for your Bible, rather than your cell phone?  When was the last time you spent time in prayer instead of on social media?  Have you give God the first place in your life today?   Idol worship is anything that takes first place in your life.  An idol steal time away from God, it takes up much of your resources whether it be your talent or money.  Idols demand your time and attention and oftentimes turns the worshiper of God into the image of the idol being worshiped. 

Idol worship comes in all forms:  entertainment, ministry, money, sports, relationships, worry, and fear and many other things.  Idol worship is anything that takes 1^st place in your heart and steals your time and attention in developing a relationship with our Lord.   Idol worship is a deception that can hide for a long time in our hearts.  We listen to the words in our ears that say that what we are doing is harmless and surely God doesn't mind, He is in fact the one that gave me all these blessings and I should enjoy them but God is saying, “but look you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless!” (Jeremiah 7:8)

Now the next passage is where it gets personal for you and I as He asks a question of His worshipers, “Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known and then come and stand before me in this house which bears my Name and say, “We are safe”-to do all these detestable things?  Has this house which bears my name become a den of robbers to you?  

He is saying to his people (you and I) who have been called by His Name, and is asking us essentially:  You come into my Presence every week to worship but your hearts are not for me.  You come into my Church and say you are there to worship me, but while you are worshiping your mind is on whatever your hearts are worshiping-your idols.  You do not come into my house to worship in Spirit and Truth but it is all about the agenda and making yourself feel good about your sin and your idols.  You bring the things of the world your Baals and gods and are really worshiping them even while in the presence of my Holy Spirit!  Do you really think that if you do this, you are safe?

  He is calling us, His Church, to repentance just as He did in Jeremiah’s time.  He is crying for His children to return to Him with all of our hearts!  There is no more time to listen to the deceptive words that we are better than the world, looking at judgment upon others, and that somehow we have arrived. We are called to confess our sins and God is faithful and just to forgive us, because of the cross and the penalty that Christ paid on our behalf, and only because of that we can come before Yahweh and stand in His Holy Presence.  

Wake up Church, God wants to cleanse His temple (you and I) and wants us, as His church, to be lifted up to give hope to the world.  We can’t do that if we are dirty and stained by the world.  We need to really put God back in first place in our lives and really need to deal with the idols in our lives.  It is not going to be easy but God’s heart is calling us to do exactly that!  How can we refuse as His children to do that after all that He has done for us?  We actually do owe Him our lives, ALL of our lives.  When we have set ourselves apart for Him and choose Him over our idols and allow the Holy Spirit to purify our lives, we will see God’s glory in our lives, in our homes, in our communities and in our land.  We will see revival like we have never seen before, but revival can only begin if the God’s people’s hearts are right before Him.  

It is interesting that the verse that has been brought to the attention during these times that we are living in and most especially during this very important election year has been 2 Chronicles 7:14 in which God is calling out: if my people who are call  ed by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. 

 Interestingly enough in this verse God is addressing his people, and in today's terms He is addressing His Church.  He is telling those of us who confess Christ as Savior and Lord that we need to pray, seek his face, and turn from our wicked ways.  We need to address the sin that is in each of our lives, repent of that sin and turn from it.  We can do all of that because of the Cross.  We can not have one foot in God's kingdom and a foot in the world.  When we turn from our sin, He promises to forgive us, and in the process He will heal our land, which will bring revival!  This revival must begin with the hearts of God's people and putting back where He belongs, first place.  

In Revelation 2 when Jesus is addressing the seven churches, He is giving commendations to each of the churches but to some of them He is bringing rebuke.  To the Church of Ephesus He commends their hard work and perseverance but the rebuke He brings to them is that they have forsaken their first love and to the churches of Pergamum and Thyatira He brings rebuke for allowing compromise and tolerating immorality.  And to the church at Laodicea, He brings the strongest rebuke when He tells the that church that they are either hot nor cold but lukewarm and He will spit them out of His mouth!  

Does this sound like a God who isn't serious about sin of His people?  He definitely is serious and in my heart I hear his call to repentance and His call to rid my life of idols and placing Him back in first place in my life.  I know that as a sinner that I can not do that without the power of the Holy Spirit.  So I take one day at a time.  His grace is sufficient for me in that day, and when I sin, I am immediately convicted and the Holy Spirit prompts me to go to the Lord and ask for forgiveness.  I battle the deceptive words of the enemy on a daily basis.  My heart longs for true intimacy with my Lord and that only comes from repentance and turning from my sin.  It comes from relying on Jesus and Jesus alone.  My heart's greatest desire is to see true revival in United States, to see God's power manifested and see people's lives radically changed.  Yet that revival comes at a great expense to you and me as God's people--we need to lay down our lives totally and completely before our Lord.  In true repentance, turn from our sins and walk each day in obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ.  This can only be done by sacrificing our idols for the True Living God, trusting in Him and obeying Him completely and without excuse.