After living in a household with at least one other person ALL of my life up until 3.5 years ago, one of the things that I find most annoying about living alone is there is NO ONE to blame things on....other than me! Whenever the remote isn't where I know I left it, or there are dishes left in the sink and not put in the dishwasher (WHO does that?), or when I find yard work not done that I needed done by this time of the year, I look to find who it is that I can blame? And there's no one....only ME! Now I wonder if I may have been the culprit all along...no, I don't think so. Surely all of these bad habits have only recently developed. (Really....? I think I may owe my family members some apologies!)
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Another method we use to avoid taking responsibility is the "you never told me" line. That's the one that kids love to frequently use on parents. "You never told me you wanted me to......." whatever the chore was that you gave them and are now reprimanding them for not doing. "You never told me it was important to....." whatever the good habit was that you tried to get them to develop. The problem is, they were told, they just weren't listening.
Judah fell into both categories of finding targets to shift their lack of responsibility onto. They blamed their problems on Jeremiah, and they claimed that God had never made it clear to them what He wanted of them, and they pretty much denied they'd done anything wrong. How can they ever feel the need for repentance if they never admit that they have failed? How can we?
If everything is always someone else's fault, then we won't come before God and bring our failures to Him. It just doesn't work to say, "God, they made me do it and I didn't know it was wrong." That doesn't qualify as repentance. "God, it didn't seem wrong to me so as long as I'm true to myself, I really didn't do anything wrong." That doesn't qualify as repentance. "God, I am a complete and wretched sinner trapped in the pit of sinfulness and in desperate need of a Savior." THAT qualifies as repentance.
God had made it abundantly clear to Israel and Judah what He required of them. They could not say they didn't have clear instructions and they could not say He hadn't made their transgressions apparent to them. They could say that they had chosen to ignore Him and His directives to them, but shifting the blame to God wasn't going to work for them...and it doesn't work for us. When God pronounces to His people through His prophet Jeremiah that they have forsaken Him while worshipping idols, that they have followed their own desires while ignoring His commandments, that they failed to teach their children of Him and of His wondrous deeds done on their behalf, do they listen and repent? No, they admit no wrongdoing and condemn Jeremiah for his words of discipline. God's earnest plea to them to recognize their sinfulness and turn back to Him falls on deaf ears and discipline follows.
Should we expect anything different? The people of Judah had the Torah and the prophets to relay to them God's will. We have the complete Scripture, an abundance of teaching and teaching modalities, AND we have the Holy Spirit living within us. Can we deny that God has made His will readily available to us if we seek it? But do we, like the Judeans, forsake Him in preference to worldly gain and do we pursue all of our selfish and sinful desires rather than His directives over our live? Have we failed to pass on to our children and grandchildren our faith in our Father God and share with them what He has done for us in our lives? If we have failed in these ways, then we should be hearing His call to us to repent, to accept our personal responsibility in failing to put God first in our hearts, with no other target to put the blame on other than ourselves.
It is so easy to try to shift blame to someone, anyone, else so that we don't have to make changes or question our decisions. We even try to blame God. "Well He's the One that made me this way!" which we all say at one point or another! "He made me and He knows me so how can He blame me? It's on Him!" That's the ultimate blame game, isn't it? While the first two segments of that question are true (He made us, He knows us), the third is not...He has given us everything we need to become the people that He has designed us to be, and His design is good and perfect and reflected in His Word. If we try to excuse any sinful human propensity in our lives (laziness, lying, gossiping, sexual immorality, hatred of others) by ascribing it to God's design for us, we're just wrong. All of those things come to us through brokenness and by living in our flesh rather than by living in His Spirit. Romans 8:5 "Those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh; but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit." and Romans 12-13, "Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation, but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live."
God made it clear to Judah, He makes it clear to us. God gave them a choice, Jeremiah 21:8 "Tell all the people, 'This is what the Lord says: Take your choice of life or death!'" God gives us a choice as we read in Romans - live according to the flesh, or according to the Spirit - one brings death, the other life.
God wants us to live - and to live abundantly! Choose life!
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