(This post is the next in a series of posts containing my first blush reactions to passages I come across in the reading of Scripture. I am currently going straight through the book of Jeremiah and will be sharing with you which verses the Spirit causes to jump out at me and the unrevised, unpolished feelings which they invoke.)
“The wise men shall be put to shame; they shall be dismayed and taken; behold, they have rejected the word of the LORD, so what wisdom is in them?” (8.9)
This seems to parallel the wonderful passage in Romans 1. It is so pandemic today, as it has been for all times, that men look upon their own intellect as the supreme end of wisdom and yet they display their ignorance through an open rejection of what has been revealed. This is the challenge of atheism today and is a battle that we are losing. We must fight for the Truth courageously in the power of the Spirit in hope that no more people will die under condemnation for devoting themselves to this foolishness.
“They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.” (8.11)
I cannot allow myself to be deceived by a partial healing of the injuries which sin has caused to my spirit and to my relationship with God. It must be a full healing and a complete restoration, which is sought through struggles and tears and repentance and longing for God. There are no quick fixes for indwelling sin. I must be killing it daily or it will kill me.
“My joy is gone; grief is upon me; my heart is sick within me.” (8.18 )
I struggle so much with being ungrieved by the lostness of others. I become judgmental of those who do evil in their ignorance of the light and so my heart is hardened against their condemnation instead of being moved to tears as it should. I long to be able to ache with the lost, to be moved to action by their hopeless state, to lose my jadedness at their condition. If the Lord had not shown me mercy I wouldn’t be here. Let me show mercy and go forth to fulfill the commandments of my Lord.
