WEEK FIVE - DAY FOUR - GOING THROUGH THE MOTIONS

There's been many stages in my life when I've felt like I'm just going through the motions with God.  Just checking off the "to do" list of church attendance, Bible study, prayer time...everything by rote, without much emotion or interaction of my heart.  I don't ever want to be there on any kind of long-term basis again, and yet there are still days that feel forced, when I wonder if God is listening, or if I am, or if either of us is connecting with the other.  While I think it's normal to experience some "dry" days occasionally, if these days come too often, or too close together, it's time for some examination of our lives, our hearts and what it is that is drawing us away from the heart of God.  Because God IS listening, God is ready to connect and, as the old saying goes, "Feel far from God?  Guess who moved?"  It's never our Heavenly Father who has drawn back...we can always trace the lost connection right back to our wayward heart.

Matthew West released the song "The Motions" in 2009 and the lyrics really speak to what we're talking about today:

"I don't wanna go through the motions, I don't wanna go one more day
Without Your all consuming passion inside of me.
I don't wanna spend my whole life asking, what if I had given everything instead of going through the motions?
No regrets, not this time, I'm gonna let my heart defeat my mind.
Let Your love make me whole. I think I'm finally feeling something."

God wants us to have His passion, His all consuming passion, inside of us.  He asks us to give Him our whole hearts, and abandon the emptiness of going through the motions.

The people of Judah had been in a very long dry spell.  Oh they were still offering the sacrifices, false prophets were still delivering soothing messages from the temples, but their hearts were far away, turned away from God, and turned toward their neighbors' pagan influences. In Jeremiah 7:9-10 God makes it clear that they are not fooling Him, "Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery and swear falsely, and offer sacrifices to Baal and walk after other gods that you have not known, then come and stand before Me in this house, which is called by My name, and say, 'We are delivered!' ---that you may do all these abominations?" and in Jeremiah 23:10b-11 we read, "...'the pastures of the wilderness have dried up.  Their course also is evil and their might is not right. For both prophet and priest are polluted; Even in My house I have found their wickedness,' declares the Lord."  They were both physically and spiritually dry and yet they had deceived themselves into thinking that God would be pleased with their superficial worship...He never is.  

When we are coming to God with hearts that are in every practical aspect turned away from Him, and yet stand in worship with hands held high and sing words of praises, He is no more pleased with us than He was with the people of Judah.  He wants our hearts...He wants our lives.  We read in Romans 2:29, "And true circumcision is not merely obeying the letter of the law; rather, it is a change of heart produced by God's Spirit.  And a person with a changed heart seeks praise from God, not from people."  Here's your sign - who are you seeking praise from?  When our hearts have been changed by the Spirit of God, we seek the praise of God alone.  And what does it look like to worship God in a manner that pleases Him?  

In Psalm 51:17 we are told that "The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit. God, You will not despise a broken and humbled heart."  We cannot worship God in a pleasing manner if we come to Him with a haughty spirit, without a desperation for His healing of our brokenness, without acknowledging Him as our only source of cleansing and restoration.  

Jesus tells the Samaritan woman at the well, that we must worship God in spirit and in truth (John 4:24).  In Matthew Henry's commentary on this verse, he states, "The spirit or the soul of man, as influenced by the Holy Spirit, must worship God, and have communion with him. Spiritual affections, as shown in fervent prayers, supplications, and thanksgivings, form the worship of an upright heart, in which God delights and is glorified."  My emphasis added to fervent prayers, supplications and thanksgiving because we can fall into rote patterns of prayer that are far from fervent.  We must continually ask for hearts that are soft and ready to pour out our every emotion in our conversations with God.  

This brings to mind how the people of Judah were viewing God's provision for them...they had this idea that their continued "worship" of Him, in whatever manner they were willing to bring it, ensured that God would continue to protect them, bless them and keep their cushy lives, well, cushy!  In Jeremiah 5:12-13 they say, "He won't bother us!  No disasters will come upon us.  There will be no war or famine."  We have to be very careful that our worship of God isn't reduced to worshipping Him for making our lives good and comfortable.  Our proclamation that "God is good" needs to be said when we've experienced wonderful times and equally proclaimed when we've gone through the valley.  Worship of God is due Him because He is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God, Creator of the universes and, yet, being all that, He knows us and loves us...individually, personally.  We worship Him for no other reason.  We praise Him for all that He has done for us through the sacrifice of Jesus and the forgiveness that His blood brings over our lives.

We thank Him for earthly blessings that He has brought to us, but we don't worship Him for that.  We worship Him for who He is and praise Him for what He has done for us.  If all our earthly blessings go away, we still will have hearts of worship.  For He will still be God.  Worthy of all honor, praise and glory!  

WEEK FIVE - DAY THREE - PERILOUS PRIDE

PRIDE - imho the root cause of all sin - our complete obsession with self.  Satan knows us so well; as he whispers in our ears, he prefaces almost every temptation with "You"..."You deserve it", "You need it", "You are more important", "You are smarter."  And our itchy ears say, "Yes, yes, yes, I do and yes, I am!"  And down the rabbit hole we go!  Chasing the elusive "something" that will feed our pride and make us feel complete.  While all the time God is calling to us to lay down our pride and allow Him to be our completion...but that takes admitting that we need Him and that we cannot find completion within ourselves.  Pride is the barrier to the relationship with God that He is calling us to.  We must recognize it within ourselves and then ask Him to rid ourselves of it, asap!  The sooner we humble ourselves, the sooner He will be able to have true Lordship of our lives.  There's only room for one on the throne of our hearts!

The nations that surrounded Israel were full of earthly pride.  They prided themselves on their accumulation of wealth and treasure, on their powerful horses and military might, and on their trade skills.  They were arrogant in their feelings of independence and self accomplishment.  And Judah, God's special people, had allowed their neighbors' attitudes to infiltrate into their own...they too were arrogant, and sometimes in the fact that they felt God had elevated them to a place of no reproach.  God would never turn on them, no matter how far they wandered away from His commands...or so they thought! Jeremiah 5:12-13 "They have lied about the Lord and said, 'He won't bother us!  No disasters will come upon us.'"  

Back to our memory verse of this week, Jeremiah 9:23-24, "This is what the Lord says, 'Don't let the wise boast in their wisdom; or the powerful in their power; or the rich in their riches.  But those who wish to boast, should boast in this alone:  That they  truly know me and understand that I am the Lord.'"  God is telling us that we have no reason to be prideful...all of our wisdom, power and riches are of no value to Him.  He has no need of them.  And the only thing that we can offer to others that is of any eternal value is our true  knowledge of God and the acknowledgement of Him as Lord over all.  Brag about that if you're going to brag about anything!

When Jeremiah's assistant, Baruch, grows weary of his assignments and complains of fatigue and being overwhelmed, Jeremiah admonishes him and asks him, "Are you seeking great things for yourself?  Don't do it!" Jeremiah 45:5a.  The same warning comes to us...are we seeking great thing for ourselves over and above the assignments that God is tasking us with?  Is our view of our importance, our wisdom, our abilities causing us to question the "lesser" things that God may have laid out in our lives for us to accomplish for His purposes?  Don't do it!  Don't let pride cause you to miss something wonderful, a moment when you truly see God allowing you to participate in His plan in a way you would have never imagined!  Jeremiah tells Baruch that because of his obedience, God will spare him from coming disaster.  "Great things" that Baruch may have dreamed of doing may have led him right into situations he could have never gotten out of and completely out of God's will.  

Pray for the areas of your life where you tend to feel prideful and ask God to rid yourself of that sinful pride.  Then ask Him to remind you of all the things that you boast about in Him, all the ways that He has shown Himself in your life.  Pray for yourself, pray for our nation to be humbled and to turn back to our Creator God.  He IS everything...He IS life....He IS our God!

WEEK FIVE - DAY TWO - FINDING A TARGET

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!)

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!

WEEK FIVE - DAY ONE - GOOD DISCIPLINE

Our overall theme of this week is Quitting the Blame Game - Personal Responsibility, and today's focus is on Good Discipline.  Does that seem like an oxymoron?  Doesn't discipline, in the context of correction, have a negative connotation?  Does anyone like to be disciplined?  

If you are a parent, you've undoubtedly had to discipline your children in the course of their raising.  And inevitably, when the pronouncement of the dreaded punishment came, whether grounding, taking away of a privilege, or when they were very young a swat to the fingers or their bottoms to let them know that they had just misbehaved, was met with the reaction, "That's not fair!  I didn't deserve that!"  And yet, we knew as their parents that we had to intervene at that very moment so they could be aware that whatever had invoked the discipline was something we didn't want to see continue in their behavior.  I remember hearing James Dobson say, and I'm paraphrasing, that whatever behavior you saw in your child that you didn't want to live with for the rest of their lives, and yours, you should address there and then and put a stop to it before it gets a foothold.  

As our good Father, I believe God does much the same for us.  When He sees us taking a path that He knows is not going to lead us to good places, or that will lead us away from Him, He corrects us as His children in whatever way He needs to to get our attention and reset us on His good path.  Sometimes this correction can be painful, and we can say, "That's not fair!  I didn't deserve that!"  But we are the child, and He is the Father.  He is the One who can see all the way down that road, all the way to the end of our path, and He is bringing us home.  I think of the verse in Philippians 1:6, "He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."  That's exactly how I picture God's discipline in my life...He's carrying on with his good work in me.  And He will until He gets me home.  Thank You, Father!

Not all hardships that we go through are God's discipline.  Many of them are due to the fact that we live in a sinful, broken world where we still deal with sickness, death and sin.   Our bodies breakdown and we die, and those we dearly love die, and it's hard. Needless violence runs rampant because people are in rebellion to God, and it's hard.  And we trust God.  

Some hardships come because we make really poor choices - we don't take care of our bodies and we get sick; we don't focus on our families and relationships are broken and splintered; we feed our minds trash, and we wonder why we're depressed, we overspend and end up financially stressed or bankrupt.  (My husband had a saying on that one that he loved to share with children and grandchildren, "When your outgo exceeds your income, your upkeep will become your downfall." That's about right!)  We can't blame God when we aren't following His guidelines for our lives.  He has given us His best advice on living this life here on earth through His Word.  He won't erase the circumstances of our bad choices, but when we repent and ask Him to walk with us to correct our missteps, He is faithful to do so.  And we learn again to trust God.

The troubles that are the hardest for us to understand, though, are those that come about due to our obedience to God.  That's where Jeremiah found himself - he had been obedient, he had done what God had asked and what had it gotten him...no family, no wife, no children, no friends, no respect.  But what had it gotten him...the knowledge of who God truly is and that He is Lord!  This brings us to our memory verse this week, Jeremiah 9:23-24, "This is what the Lord says, 'Don't let the wise boast in their wisdom, or the powerful in their power, or the rich in their riches.  But those who wish to boast should boast in this alone: that they truly know Me and that I am the Lord.'"   That's what Jeremiah had gotten, bragging rights over the wise, the powerful and the rich...because he knew God and he knew Him as his Lord.  Can we cling to that when we see those who are not paying attention to God, gaining on us in worldly standards?  When we, as Christ-followers, may experience worldly ridicule?  When we hear of Christians around the world being truly persecuted, beaten, jailed or even killed for their faith?  Can we say, "But they knew God!  Nothing compares to that!"  Isn't that what Paul said in Philippians 3:8, "I count everything as loss compared to the priceless privilege and supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord [and of growing more deeply and thoroughly acquainted with Him---a joy unequaled].  For His sake I have lost everything, and I consider it all garbage, so that I may gain Christ."  Amplified Bible.   WOW!  That's looking at life through reborn eyes!  Losing everything and considering it a joy unequaled to do so in order to gain the knowledge of Christ.  Do we value knowing God that greatly?   Do we trust God that much?

As God tells Jeremiah in Jeremiah 12:5, if you're having trouble running against men, don't even think about running against horses! If we fall down in peaceful living, how will we do when troubles really come upon us?  We have to change our perspective - we have to join Jeremiah and Paul in seeing that what God has in store for us is worth so much more than we can imagine based on the garbage of this world.  We learn to trust God - more and more and more.

So, if we are being disciplined, thank God that He cares for you so much that He treats you as His sweet child...needing a little nudging, sometimes a sterner reprimand, to bring you back to His good and perfect way for your life.  If we're going through hard times, whether of our doing or due to this crazy world we live in, we put our trust in God to walk us through.  And if we're being persecuted for His name's sake, for our obedience to His Word, for our faith in our Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus, then we look forward, with our reborn eyes, to the completion of the work that He has begun in us, the true and complete knowledge of Him that we will enjoy for eternity.  

Yes, there is good discipline when it comes from a good, good Father...and we have the best.

WEEK FOUR - DAY FIVE AND WEEK RECAP!

Another week behind us and only two left in this study of Jeremiah, my new friend!  I've added another name to the list of those that I can't wait to sit down and talk to when I reach my forever heavenly home.  I think when I meet Jeremiah I will just want to give him a big hug...he seems like he would like that, doesn't he?  Just to know that someone fully appreciates the hard earthly life that he led and the fact that we are both now standing face to face in perfect eternity, all struggles behind us! No more weeping Jeremiah, I think he will be smiling from ear-to-ear!  Now that's some good daydreaming ...scenes like that playing in my head make me very anxious for home!

Day Five admonished us to give our whole hearts to God - no more half-hearted devotion.  This is where it gets hard for us - we want to be devoted to our Lord, but we always want to hold on to that little portion of our hearts that is reserved for us, whatever it is that we want in our lives.  God is surely OK with us holding on to a little bit for us, isn't He?  If holding on to a little bit was good for us, I think God would be ok with it....but He knows it's not.  He knows that "little bit" tends to grow, to multiply and before we know it, our heart has been consumed by "us" and all of our selfish desires.  Like our teaching said, this happens gradually so that we don't notice it happening, but unless we're guarding our hearts, it will surely occur.  Whole-hearted devotion is our goal and where God want us to live.  Half-hearted devotion becomes quarter-hearted devotion becomes a once-in-a-while fleeting thought of God.  

Jeremiah knew that Judah had lost their first love...and he pleads with them to return.  If we're at a level of devotion that is less than what we know God wants of us, return!  I told our group that when I was reading through this, I found myself singing, "Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling...calling, oh sinner, come home!"  Come home - come home and give your whole heart back to the One who loves it completely.  

In Ephesians 5:15-17, Paul writes, "So be careful how you live.  Don't live like fools, but like those who are wise.  Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days.  Don't act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do."  So just as Jeremiah admonishes the people of Judah, Paul is calling to us as well...to be wise and make the most of every opportunity...don't act thoughtlessly...understand what the Lord wants us to do.   These words indicate we're to be in constant  thought of where God is leading us and what He is asking of us...all the time...that's whole-hearted devotion.  Let's live like that and see the difference it will make.  In our lives, and in the lives of those around us...living for the Kingdom!

Our week was centered on staying spiritually sensitive.  That's right where we ended up, isn't it...keeping that sensitive heart to God's leading and direction.  We can only do that by routinely evaluating our hearts---just as we take our blood pressure, or have an EKG, we need to check our spiritual sensitivity meter and ensure that we are not allowing our hearts to grow cold or stony.  Prayers for God to keep them soft and supple to His gentle touch.

Then we were reminded that behavior modification does not, and never will, equal heart change.  Heart change must be the first change...everything should be driven from the heart, it won't work going the other direction. Behavior modification is driven by us, surrender of our hearts to God allows HIM to do the changing in us, as only He can see the exact ways that we need changing.  Let Him!

Day three allowed us to see that our Father is the true mender of our broken hearts.  We can take them to Him and He will hear our mourning cries to Him and dry our many tears.  He IS close to the broken-hearted.  He cares for His children so dearly and tenderly.

Guarding our hearts is essential to our spiritual well.-being.  Our hearts are vulnerable to the enemy's attacks...that's why we are instructed to put on the breastplate of righteousness.  Not our own righteousness, it will fail us, but the righteousness of Christ that never fails.  We clothe ourselves in that righteousness and then reject all the harmful things that might damage our hearts - all the influences that we can recognize as opposed to the transformation that God is working within us.  

It all adds up to whole-hearted devotion to our Father.  Aren't we so fortunate that God wants ALL of us?  As stated in our text, "God doesn't desire all of our hearts because He is possessive or controlling; He simply knows that we are designed for intimacy with Him.  He knows that our half-hearted attempts at following Him will lead only to dissatisfaction, complacency and mediocrity---leaving us wanting something more....God calls us to whole-hearted devotion and He leads us by His own example---not sparing His only Son to show us His whole-hearted affection."

That's our God, that's our Father.  Let us return His whole-hearted affection with the surrender of our whole hearts!