What Happened?
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Jeremiah the prophet lived in the final days of the crumbling nation of Judah.
The last prophet that God sent to preach to the southern kingdom, which comprised the tribes of Judah and Benjamin.
God had repeatedly warned Israel to stop their idolatrous behavior, but they would not listen.
So He tore the 12 tribes asunder, sending the 10 northern tribes into captivity at the hands of the Assyrians.
Then God sent Jeremiah to give Judah the last warning before He cast them out of the land, decimating the nation and sending them into captivity in the pagan kingdom of Babylon.
God has always desired a relationship with His people
You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me,
Notice that God is jealous when someone gives to another something that rightly belongs to Him.
God is speaking of people making idols and bowing down and worshiping those idols instead of giving God the worship that belongs to Him alone.
God is possessive of the worship and service that belong to Him. It is a sin (as God points out in this commandment) to worship or serve anything other than God.
I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.
“And they shall be my people, and I will be their God”
All he wants is a relationship!!!!
God wants to be number 1
He wants to lead us....
He wants to guide us....
He wants to conform us....
He wants to transform us....
He wants people to see Him through us....
But what happened to the relationship?
“Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem, Thus says the Lord,
“I remember the devotion of your youth,
your love as a bride,
how you followed me in the wilderness,
in a land not sown.
“I remember the devotion of your youth”
I remember....
Devotion: loyal love n. — an unfailing kind of love, kindness, or goodness; often used of God’s love that is related to faithfulness to his covenant.
I remember…
How you prayed to me
How you trusted me
How you worshipped me
How you praised me
How you served me
How you were excited to fellowship
How you were excited to tell someone about me!
Your faithfulness
“I remember your love as a bride”
I remember the butterflies....
“How you followed me in the wilderness, in a land not sown”
A Handbook on Jeremiah Section Heading
“You followed me in the desert, in a land where nothing grows.”
You followed me into a place where you had to depend on me !
But what happened?
Just like Isreal.....
They went have idols and pagan gods...
What happened is.... I created an idol and didn’t know it!
An idol can be anything we place ahead of God in our lives, anything that takes God’s place in our hearts…
News flash........
All idols are not necessarily bad things…
Sports
A career
A relationship
Playstation / Xbox
The problem is when these things become #1
When I lean on my understanding
for my goals or my career
But there are idols that are destructive
When i rather turn up every weekend
When I am depending on alcohol or weed to be my peace
When I’m watching things that I shouldn’t
When I am being excessive with my actions
Too much of something....
Social media!!!!!!!!
But… How do I get back to my relationship with Him???
You can’t do it by yourself…
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
We serve a God that is actively seeking a relationship with us!
Don’t think about your relationship with God as a place…
But think about the relationship as the “Control Center”
Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.
It was my own understanding that caused me to be in control....
But we serve a God....
That wants to help us overcome the biggest enemy…
A God that wants to help us overcome ourself!
