But my people did not listen to My voice. Israel would not submit to Me. So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own counsels. Oh, that My people would listen to Me, that Israel would walk in My ways. (Verses 11-13)
But this command I gave them: "Obey My voice and I will be your God and you shall be my people. And walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you." But they did not obey or incline their ear but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their own hearts, and went backward and not forward. Jeremiah 7
Unrequited love. If we haven't experienced it personally, we have read a book or watched a movie in which one person loves more than another. We always hurt for the one whose devotion is rebuffed or never even noticed by the one she adores from afar. I believe it was God's unrequited love for us that brought Him out of heaven down to earth. Hear the longing in His heart as He says, "Oh, that my people would listen to Me." Understand the disappointment when He knows the good He has for them but they choose to walk backward instead of forward. It is necessary that I stoop down to earth to show them what it looks like to be loved by Me.
The woman was coarse, hardened by the experiences of her life. Pariah to the better women in the village. Drawing water at midday to avoid befouling their purity with her presence. Jesus met her there and loved her. Chose her to be the first person to whom He claimed to be Messiah. Once a year the waters of the pool were said to swirl with healing power. The lame and blind gathered there hoping to be the one whose toe first touched the miraculous churning. This man's infirmity kept him from plunging to his healing, though his hopeful heart kept him day by day on the edge of the pool. "Do you want to be healed?" Jesus asked the man who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. "I can't get into the waters fast enough before someone else does," was the man's reply. Not exactly the answer to the question posed by Jesus. No matter. "Take up your bed and walk." Do what I say and see what happens. The man got up and walked.
On a grassy knoll five thousand people were without food because they'd come to hear about the kingdom of heaven. With five little loaves and two fish, Jesus fed them all. And had leftovers. The fish and bread did what He said. As did the waves later in that day when the disciples were upset with Jesus for sleeping while they were about to drown. "Do not fear!" to the disciples. "Be calm!" to the waves.
In Bethany there was a family Jesus loved. A man, Lazarus, and his sisters, Mary and Martha. He stayed with them, ate with them and enjoyed long conversations about the kingdom of God as they sat in the living room after dinner. But when Lazarus fell ill, Jesus didn't come. Four days in his grave, Lazarus smelled rank. Really, truly, officially, irretrievably dead. That's when Jesus showed up. When it was all over. But even death does what He says." "Lazarus, come forth!"
A fig tree doesn't give the Master breakfast. "Dry up," He tells it. "You won't bear fruit again." A picture of what happens when we don't obey. Yet when a funeral bier comes his way, the mother of her young son mourning and wailing with the grief of her loss, Jesus gives the boy back his life. The centurion's child is dying in another city. "Just speak the word and my child will live." "I've not seen this kind of faith in my own people, Israel," Jesus responds. "She lives. Her fever is gone." The centurion took His word for it. Good thing.
The demons made him a raving lunatic. Tied him to trees to keep him from rampaging the countryside. Jesus found him there in his misery. "Come out of him at once!" The demons shuddered and ran into a herd of pigs that rushed, in their new madness, over a cliff to their deaths. Even demons did what He said.
So what of his people? What of us? How much more could the Father show His love for us? More than giving His only begotten Son that all the world through Him might be saved? How is it that everything but man does what He says? Recognizes the power of His words? Of course, God, like us, wants to be loved because we choose to love Him. He doesn't want me browbeaten into submission. I am to understand my response to the love of Jesus. I love Him because He first loved me and gave Himself a ransom for my life. I can't imagine how Jesus feels when we reject that kind of giving and go our own way down the highway of hubris to our own foolish conclusion. It's got to hurt!
The crowds waved palm branches and cried "Hosanna!" as Jesus rode in on a donkey. They loved Him that day for what they thought He was about to do, not for Who He is. By the same time the next day He would be hanging on a cross, killed by His own people for precisely the things He came to redeem them from. How did they miss what Jesus was doing those three years? Blessing, healing, feeding, forgiving and, yes, raising the very dead. This One Who loved us first, loved us best, and we spit on Him, cursed Him and finally killed Him. This is what we do with the love of God? When our response should be abject humility, unadulterated adoration and unquestioned obedience to One Who would only ask of us what He was willing to give: Everything.
"O, Jerusalem! Jerusalem! The city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood, under her wings, and you would not!" The lament of Jesus over His people. The cry of His heart. And in the giving over of them to their stubborn hearts, they murdered their only hope of real, lasting love.
Too many years of doing my own thing. Tired of going backward. It's made my ear inclined to listen and heart ready to love this Jesus of mine Who has wooed me with His great compassion. Who has poured agape out on me in measures deeply undeserved. It's made me throw my arms up and sing with all my heart an imperfect love song to my God. Would that I could erase the pain my Lord has felt over all the rejections and ridicule to which He's been subjected! Would that I could love my God with an adoration so great He feels reciprocated for the love long unrequited.
But this command I gave them: "Obey My voice and I will be your God and you shall be my people. And walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you." But they did not obey or incline their ear but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their own hearts, and went backward and not forward. Jeremiah 7
Unrequited love. If we haven't experienced it personally, we have read a book or watched a movie in which one person loves more than another. We always hurt for the one whose devotion is rebuffed or never even noticed by the one she adores from afar. I believe it was God's unrequited love for us that brought Him out of heaven down to earth. Hear the longing in His heart as He says, "Oh, that my people would listen to Me." Understand the disappointment when He knows the good He has for them but they choose to walk backward instead of forward. It is necessary that I stoop down to earth to show them what it looks like to be loved by Me.
The woman was coarse, hardened by the experiences of her life. Pariah to the better women in the village. Drawing water at midday to avoid befouling their purity with her presence. Jesus met her there and loved her. Chose her to be the first person to whom He claimed to be Messiah. Once a year the waters of the pool were said to swirl with healing power. The lame and blind gathered there hoping to be the one whose toe first touched the miraculous churning. This man's infirmity kept him from plunging to his healing, though his hopeful heart kept him day by day on the edge of the pool. "Do you want to be healed?" Jesus asked the man who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. "I can't get into the waters fast enough before someone else does," was the man's reply. Not exactly the answer to the question posed by Jesus. No matter. "Take up your bed and walk." Do what I say and see what happens. The man got up and walked.
On a grassy knoll five thousand people were without food because they'd come to hear about the kingdom of heaven. With five little loaves and two fish, Jesus fed them all. And had leftovers. The fish and bread did what He said. As did the waves later in that day when the disciples were upset with Jesus for sleeping while they were about to drown. "Do not fear!" to the disciples. "Be calm!" to the waves.
In Bethany there was a family Jesus loved. A man, Lazarus, and his sisters, Mary and Martha. He stayed with them, ate with them and enjoyed long conversations about the kingdom of God as they sat in the living room after dinner. But when Lazarus fell ill, Jesus didn't come. Four days in his grave, Lazarus smelled rank. Really, truly, officially, irretrievably dead. That's when Jesus showed up. When it was all over. But even death does what He says." "Lazarus, come forth!"
A fig tree doesn't give the Master breakfast. "Dry up," He tells it. "You won't bear fruit again." A picture of what happens when we don't obey. Yet when a funeral bier comes his way, the mother of her young son mourning and wailing with the grief of her loss, Jesus gives the boy back his life. The centurion's child is dying in another city. "Just speak the word and my child will live." "I've not seen this kind of faith in my own people, Israel," Jesus responds. "She lives. Her fever is gone." The centurion took His word for it. Good thing.
The demons made him a raving lunatic. Tied him to trees to keep him from rampaging the countryside. Jesus found him there in his misery. "Come out of him at once!" The demons shuddered and ran into a herd of pigs that rushed, in their new madness, over a cliff to their deaths. Even demons did what He said.
So what of his people? What of us? How much more could the Father show His love for us? More than giving His only begotten Son that all the world through Him might be saved? How is it that everything but man does what He says? Recognizes the power of His words? Of course, God, like us, wants to be loved because we choose to love Him. He doesn't want me browbeaten into submission. I am to understand my response to the love of Jesus. I love Him because He first loved me and gave Himself a ransom for my life. I can't imagine how Jesus feels when we reject that kind of giving and go our own way down the highway of hubris to our own foolish conclusion. It's got to hurt!
The crowds waved palm branches and cried "Hosanna!" as Jesus rode in on a donkey. They loved Him that day for what they thought He was about to do, not for Who He is. By the same time the next day He would be hanging on a cross, killed by His own people for precisely the things He came to redeem them from. How did they miss what Jesus was doing those three years? Blessing, healing, feeding, forgiving and, yes, raising the very dead. This One Who loved us first, loved us best, and we spit on Him, cursed Him and finally killed Him. This is what we do with the love of God? When our response should be abject humility, unadulterated adoration and unquestioned obedience to One Who would only ask of us what He was willing to give: Everything.
"O, Jerusalem! Jerusalem! The city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood, under her wings, and you would not!" The lament of Jesus over His people. The cry of His heart. And in the giving over of them to their stubborn hearts, they murdered their only hope of real, lasting love.
Too many years of doing my own thing. Tired of going backward. It's made my ear inclined to listen and heart ready to love this Jesus of mine Who has wooed me with His great compassion. Who has poured agape out on me in measures deeply undeserved. It's made me throw my arms up and sing with all my heart an imperfect love song to my God. Would that I could erase the pain my Lord has felt over all the rejections and ridicule to which He's been subjected! Would that I could love my God with an adoration so great He feels reciprocated for the love long unrequited.
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