Tuesday, January 08,
2013, 6:36 a.m. – Last evening, sometime after supper, the song “Pray, Pray, Pray” (http://originalworks.info/pray-pray-pray/) began playing in my mind. So, I began to pray. This
continued until about 11 p.m., so I continued to pray until I fell asleep. I
woke periodically with the same situation, so I kept praying until I would fall
asleep again. Then, at some point in the night or early in the morning the song
changed to “Broken Hearts,” and so I
prayed again. Finally the song switched to “Seek
the Lord,” and then I got up to seek God’s face in prayer and in the
reading of his word.
Broken Hearts /
An Original Work / December 14, 2012
Based off Jeremiah 31:15 (cf. Matt. 2:18)
Weeping in Ramah;
Her children no more.
Rachel is weeping;
Her comfort forlorn.
Jesus is waiting;
Her comforter be,
When she calls on Him,
Down on bended knee.
He has provided our
Sins’ sacrifice,
When He died for our
sin,
Paying the price.
Our hearts are broken;
We’re feeling her
pain;
Looking for answers
And someone to blame.
Jesus is calling us;
Him to believe;
Turning from our sins,
So we can be free.
Trust in His promises.
Lean on His grace;
Living for Jesus,
Eternal life gain.
Days of confusion,
Distress, pain and
grief;
Looking for someone
To give us relief.
Our God and Father
In heaven above
Is looking down to us;
Providing love.
Call upon Him in your
Sadness and pain.
Trust your life with
His Son;
Live life again.
In Jeremiah 31 (the passage of scripture this song is based
off) we read how God had disciplined or was going to discipline his children in
judgment. The people had strayed from God, so God disciplined them so that they
would return to him. They repented of their sins and returned to God and God
restored them, or else God was giving us a glimpse of this into the future.
Yet, this is a call to take note of the path we are on in life, to call upon
God, and to return to God. God will then restore us, will renew us, and we will
be blessed by him.
Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. I read Psalm 106 (quoting vv. 1-6 NIV 1984):
Praise the Lord.
Give thanks to the
Lord, for he is good;
his love endures forever.
Who can proclaim the
mighty acts of the Lord
or fully declare his praise?
Blessed are they who
maintain justice,
who constantly do what is right.
Remember me, O Lord,
when you show favor to your people,
come to my aid when you save them,
that I may enjoy the
prosperity of your chosen ones,
that I may share in the joy of your nation
and join your inheritance in giving praise.
We have sinned, even as
our fathers did;
we have done wrong and acted wickedly.
What stood out to me as I read this passage of scripture
were the many ways in which God’s people of old had sinned against him, and how
this parallels over to our lives today, and to the many ways in which God’s
people, his church, still sin against him.
We Forget God
God had just miraculously delivered his children out of the
hands of their foes and yet the first thing they did was to grumble and
complain against God and his servant Moses, and they wished they were back
under slavery again, or else they wished they had died in Egypt where they had
all the food they wanted to eat. They forgot so quickly all that God had just
done on their behalf – his miracles of deliverance and his many kindnesses to
them.
Jesus Christ set us free from slavery (bondage) to sin
through the miracle of God’s salvation, which he provided for us through Jesus’
shed blood on the cross for our sins. Yet, how many of us, after having been
set free from sin have quickly (or over time) forgotten all that God did for us,
and so we longed to be enslaved by sin again, and perhaps even gave into that
longing? We, too, forgot about God and all his many kindnesses to us in saving
us from our sins, and we demonstrated this by our attitudes and by our actions.
We Grow Impatient
The people of God, now in the desert, grew impatient with
God and with his servant Moses. They soon forgot all that God had done for them
and they did not wait for his counsel. They did not seek the Lord in their troubles,
but they decided to solve their own problems, and they gave into their sinful
cravings.
We today, especially in America, are such impatient people.
We want everything fast – the internet, food, service, communications, etc. We
live in such a fast-paced world where things are constantly moving, where we
are continually connected electronically via TV, commercials, movies, the
internet, Smart Phones, book readers, video games, social media and the like,
and where we are used to continual motion, so we have a tendency to be
impatient when things don’t move quickly. We are also under the influence of
all of these forms of media, and they impact our reasoning, values and
decision-making.
Yet, God does not work like our world does. He has his own
timing for everything. He doesn’t always give us instant answers, or instant
gratification, or quick results. So, we grow impatient with God, we don’t seek
or we don’t wait on his counsel, and so we follow the cravings of our own
sinful desires, and/or we try to solve our own problems without his help, and/or
we seek worldly counsel instead of the wisdom of God.
We Worship Idols
More than once the children of God turned to idols instead
of turning to their One True God. God had miraculously delivered them out the
hands of their foes. He had protected them and watched over them, and he had guided
and led them in the way they should go. He had miraculously provided food and
water for them, and yet in all this they still turned to idols, to worship
them, instead of (or in combination with) worshiping the One True God.
After all that God has done for us in setting us free from
slavery to sin and in delivering us from our foe (Satan); in providing for us
day-after-day all that we need (not necessarily all we want or desire); in
teaching us and guiding us in the way we should go; and in providing his Holy
Word and his Holy Spirit to give us comfort, counsel, leadership and to teach
us his will and his ways, how many times have we turned away from his counsel
and sought other gods instead to meet our needs or our desires?
Other gods can come in many forms. They can be as individual
as we are, i.e. for one person his “god” may be money, while for another it may
be “success,” and yet for another it may be physical or erotic pleasure. Other
gods can be anything or anyone who takes the place of the One True God in our
hearts and lives to where we “worship” (adore, love, give devotion to, show
commitment, focus our time, talents and emotions upon, or demonstrate much
attentiveness, loyalty, dedication, affection, and steadfastness to) the other
god over and above or to the exclusion of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
We Doubt God’s
Promises
The people of God of old began to doubt God’s promises, they
grumbled against God, and they did not obey him.
How many times have we seen God fulfill promises to us time
and time again and yet when we are faced with a new difficultly or challenge we
begin to doubt God’s promises to us? We may not even do this consciously with
our minds, but how we behave and how we respond to our circumstances demonstrates
our lack of faith in God and in his ability to meet us in our time of need.
And, so, instead of listening to God speak to our hearts and following him in
obedience and surrender to his will for our lives, we go our own ways and
follow after our own fleshly and worldly desires.
Syncretism
God’s people did not follow his commands fully, i.e. they
only partially obeyed and did not do all that he said in destroying the peoples
God had commanded them to destroy. Instead, they mingled with the people (with
the nations), and they adopted their customs, and they worshiped their idols.
Not only that, but they sacrificed their sons and daughters to demons, and they
shed innocent blood.
In the New Testament we are not called to kill our enemies
but to love them and pray for them, yet we are also taught to come out from
among their influences and to be separate from close (intimate; contractual;
partnering) relationships with them, and to touch no unclean thing (see 2 Co.
6:14-18). If we “mingle” with the unrighteous, i.e. those outside of faith in
Jesus Christ or even professing Christians who we know are living in sin, we
may end up becoming more like them instead of influencing them to become like
Christ. And, we may adopt their ways and their customs instead of following the
truths of God’s word.
As well, the church here in America has invited the U.S.
government to partner with them through the 501c3 non-profit status for
incorporation, and thus has brought itself under the influence and rule of the
U.S. government. And, they have invited the world into the church via the use
of worldly methods and marketing schemes to try to reach the world. By doing
so, I believe, the church has opened its doors to the influence of the nations
and is thus guilty of mingling with the nations on multiple levels. The church
in America puts hand over heart and pledges allegiance (loyalty; commitment;
faithfulness; and fidelity) to the U.S. government, i.e. it worships the
government and is often loyal to it over and above loyalty to God; and is loyal
to men often over and above or in place of Almighty God.
As part of this syncretism with the government and the
world, the church, I believe, has lent its support to the killing of innocents
throughout the world, including the killing of our own sons and daughter in war
after needless and senseless war, as well as it has lent its support to a
government that sanctions the killing of babies before they come out of the
womb. And, the list goes on and on and on…
God’s Call
God is calling his church to repent of her sins, to turn
from her wicked ways, to come out from among the influences of this evil world
and the “worship” of other gods that are not God, and to follow the Lord Jesus
Christ in full obedience and surrender to his will for our lives. One day God
is going to judge this nation of ours and this world, and I believe the church
will be included in those judgments (see Rev 2-3), and that God is calling to
his church to repent and to return to her first love, and to stop living like
the world.
Seek the Lord –
based off Isaiah 55 - http://originalworks.info/seek-the-lord/
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