Monday, November 16,
2015, 8:30 a.m. – The Lord Jesus put in mind the song “Our Eyes on Jesus.” Speak, Lord, your words to my heart. I read Jeremiah 31:15-22a (NASB).
Bitter Weeping (v.
15)
Thus
says the Lord,
“A
voice is heard in Ramah,
Lamentation
and bitter weeping.
Rachel
is weeping for her children;
She
refuses to be comforted for her children,
Because
they are no more.”
There is much heartache and sadness in the world, much
injustice, and much in the way of the innocent being taken advantage of, being
abused and even put to death because evil people want to mistreat and/or kill
them for political gain, in order to exert power and/or revenge, or in order to
silence and/or to exterminate those with whom they have philosophical or
religious differences. And, my heart goes out to the ill-treated. Having
suffered abuse as a child, I empathize with those who are subjected to cruelty by
those in positions of power and influence over them, i.e. by those who serve in
positions of leadership over people for whom they are supposed to provide care,
concern, help, comfort and nurturing. Sometimes I literally weep over the
innocent being taken advantage of.
I also weep over the wayward church which has been taken
captive by manipulative and deceptive people who have convinced God’s people to
believe lies and to reject the truth, in many cases. This deception has been so
subtle and so gradually introduced into the church that many have not noticed
the subtle changes that have appeared here and there over the years. Satan
disguises himself as an angel of light in order to deceive people, especially
Christians, because his goal is to lead them away from their pure devotion to
Jesus Christ and away from his gospel of salvation, and to get people to accept
“another Jesus” and “another gospel” which does not require either repentance
(turning from sin) or obedience to Christ and to his teachings, but teaches
that a prayer is all that is necessary for salvation and eternal life no matter
how one lives his or her life after that.
It saddens me greatly to see the spiritual decline which has
taken place in the church over my lifetime (65 years), and keeps going downhill.
So, I often pray to God, believing him to revive his church, and to restore her
to fellowship with him, as well as I pray for the unsaved to come to faith in
Jesus Christ and for the abused to be rescued from suffering.
Promise of Return
(vv. 16-17)
Thus
says the Lord,
“Restrain
your voice from weeping
And
your eyes from tears;
For
your work will be rewarded,” declares the Lord,
“And
they will return from the land of the enemy.
“There
is hope for your future,” declares the Lord,
“And
your children will return to their own territory.
Many times when I have prayed such prayers, and have wept
over the wayward church, and the mistreatment of innocents, and the unbelief of
the unsaved, the Lord Jesus has comforted me with such words as these. There is
much teaching in the prophecies of scripture which have dual fulfillments, and
which speak regarding the last days before Jesus’ return, which promise that
God’s wayward people, i.e. the spiritually adulterous church of the last days,
will return to the Lord, and that he will restore and heal them, and that they
will follow him in surrender and obedience, and that they will now preach his full
gospel so that many will come to faith in Jesus Christ before our Lord returns.
And, this is my hope, and it is what helps to keep me going many days when that
hope is not yet realized.
I also believe that through judgment God will open the
blinded eyes of his people so that they will see that they were deceived, and
so they will turn away from the lies, and thus will be delivered out of their
captivity, and they will now put their hope and trust fully in Christ and he
will be their only shepherd. And, one day Jesus Christ will return for his
bride (his saints) and we will be forever with our Lord. At that time he will
wipe away the tears from our eyes, and we will no longer be sad. There will be
no more pain, sorrow, suffering or sin. The beast and the false prophet, who
deceived many people, will be thrown into the lake of fire, and the dragon,
Satan, will be bound, so he will no longer be able to tempt us to sin. All who
have suffered abuse will now be delivered, and all will be healed. That is
hope!
We are Chastised (vv.
18-19)
“I
have surely heard Ephraim grieving,
‘You
have chastised me, and I was chastised,
Like
an untrained calf;
Bring
me back that I may be restored,
For
You are the Lord my God.
‘For
after I turned back, I repented;
And
after I was instructed, I smote on my thigh;
I
was ashamed and also humiliated
Because
I bore the reproach of my youth.’
Until then, i.e. until that hope of restoration and healing
is finally realized, God is chastising his wayward people, the people of this
sinful world, and the nations of this sin-sick world of ours. He says that he
disciplines those he loves so that we may share his holiness, so we are all
being disciplined. “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but
sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful
fruit of righteousness” (See: Heb. 12:1-13). And, that is hope! The goal of God’s
divine discipline, scourging, and rebuke of all his children has always been,
and continues to be our holiness, our spiritual maturity, and for the conducting
of our lives according to the Spirit and no longer after the sinful flesh. So,
when the Lord disciplines us, we need to respond to that correction by
submitting ourselves to God’s will for our lives, by surrendering our all to
him, and by confessing sin to him and to those whom we have offended. Then, we
need to move forward in the power and working of the Spirit of God within us in
living holy lives, and in advancing the gospel of salvation so that many will
be saved.
Direct Your Mind (vv.
21-22a)
“Set
up for yourself roadmarks,
Place
for yourself guideposts;
Direct
your mind to the highway,
The
way by which you went.
Return,
O virgin of Israel,
Return
to these your cities.
“How
long will you go here and there,
O
faithless daughter?
When we have wandered off from the Lord, and we have gone
off to follow after the gods of this world, and/or when we have returned to
following after our flesh instead of the ways of holiness, and we are
confronted with our need to repent, and to change our ways, we need to examine
the path we took into captivity, and we need to reverse it. In other words, we
need to retrace the steps we took that led us back into sin and back into
captivity so that we can, in the power of the Spirit within us, reverse those
steps on our way back to the Lord. It is called “Reversing the process of
bondage.”
Have you ever lost something? Or, have you ever noticed a
sudden change in your health? Or, have you taken note of a sudden change in
behavior of a child? In each of these cases, you may carefully examine what
types of things changed, what new medicines were introduced, what new people
entered your lives, or what new situations occurred. Or, you may retrace your
steps in order to find your lost item. Well, it is the same process when we finally
listen to the Lord, and accept responsibility for our waywardness. Sometimes we
don’t know exactly how we got there, because the changes may have been gradual
and subtle, or because we may have desensitized ourselves to various steps of
disobedience along the way, and lied to ourselves, and believed our own lies,
and so we need to take an honest evaluation of our lives and the steps of
disobedience, so we can reverse them.
For instance, if your sin is sexual in nature, which for
many this is the case, then what was the first temptation you gave into? What
did you do when you were tempted? What did you fail to do? What lies did you
tell yourself? What lies did other people tell you in order to console you in
your sin? What lies did you tell others in order to cover up your sin? What was
the next step you took? Usually sin begins in the mind. If we entertain it in
our minds, eventually it will come out, either through our speech or through
our actions, or both. If we take the first step, usually we will take the next,
and the next, etc., especially if we have no one to encourage us away from sin,
and we have a bunch of people trying to make us feel good about ourselves even
while we are sinning. Then, we generally rationalize and justify our actions in
order to suppress guilt, and then the process continues and becomes cyclical if
we do not, by the power of the Spirit, stop it and put it to death.
In Hebrews 12 we read that we need to throw off the sin that
so easily entangles us and the weight that hinders so we can run with
perseverance the race God has marked out for us to run. Jesus said that if a
part of our body causes us to sin, we should cut it off. I believe that is to
be taken metaphorically that we should cut out of our lives those things which
lead us into sin over and over again, throwing off the weight which hinders. So,
first of all, I believe we need to look at what is drawing us into sin, and as
much as is within our power to do so, we need to remove those things from our
lives. For instance, if you have been struggling with pornography for many
years, you probably need to cut out private internet access from your life,
because that will always be a temptation. If you are drawn to watching R-rated
movies with sexual situations, you may need to get rid of your TV and Netflix.
You can’t have purity of mind if you continue to take into your mind that which
is impure.
You may need to also delve into your past, and see where you
first began to sin in this manner, and what drew you to that sin, and you may
need to pray and work through some of these wrong choices you made so that you
can reverse them. Sometimes we get wrong impressions and we believe lies, and
our actions are thus directed by the lies we believe rather than by the truth
of God’s word, so we have to know what those lies are, so that we can dispel
them with the truth of God’s word. In other words, reversing this process of
bondage means undoing the damage that has been done in your life, and it means
relearning new ways of responding, believing, and behaving. And, it means
obeying the Lord every step of the way in whatever he tells you to do, whether
it is confessing sin, removing those obstacles that lead you into sin, making
restitution for harm committed, or whether it is simply to resist Satan, flee
temptation, and draw near to God.
Our Eyes on Jesus
/ An Original Work / April 23, 2012
Based off Hebrews
12:2-13
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus.
Our faith starts and grows in Him,
Who for the joy set before Him
Endured all our sin.
Scorning the shame of the cross,
He sat down beside God above.
He was willing to die for us,
To save us, in love.
Think about the opposition
He endured from sinful men,
So when you go through life’s trials,
You stay strong within.
Knowing all He went through for us
Helps us not grow weak of heart;
Not grow weary; don’t give up;
And not from Him depart.
In your struggle against sin’s ways,
Resist not to shed your blood.
Have you forgotten the words
God spoke to us in love?
“My child, don’t ignore it when
The Lord corrects you; do faint not,
Because the Lord disciplines those
That He loves, of God.”
God rebukes us all for our good;
Share with Him in holiness.
It produces a harvest of
God’s own righteousness.
Therefore, strengthen all within you
That is weak and might give way.
Stand firm in the faith God gives you;
Trust Him and obey.
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