…If you do not, my anger will leap out
like a flaming fire against you
that no one will be able to put out.
That will happen because of the evil
you have done. Jeremiah 4:4
God speaks powerfully through His Prophet, Jeremiah, to His people who are once again under the rule of another. In His effort to restore the relationship between He and His people, He must go over the offenses, and remind them of the boundaries and ramifications that come along with breaking the covenant agreement.
I found verse 4 an issue because God is speaking, and my fear is that the people both now and then were not listening. As we soak in God’s love, perfume ourselves with His grace, and cloth ourselves with His mercy, we are blind to His wrath, and destined to experience more of it. God warns the people, it can be the best of times, or the worst of times. They can align with His Word, or stand in disobedience to it.
We memorize all the scriptures with blessings and promises, and ignore the warning and instruction. God says, “Dedicate yourselves fully to the Lord…” God desires for us to be fully dedicated, not partially dedicated. The people ended up in their current circumstances because they had spiritual affairs on God. They worshiped false idols and desecrated His temple by giving the living God a non-living roommate. They sacrificed on His altar, offering that which was intended for the Lord to a false god. They could not advance or prosper because they were not fully committed to the Lord.
Of course I gasped. As I look at our current state, I see us suffering and blaming the adversary, binding the work of the devil while the Lord holds back the angels and the hedge placed around us, exposing us and leaving us vulnerable to the enemy. God was using them to chastise His people in an effort to direct them back into a right relationship with Him, and they adjusted to their new normal, remained in error, and abandoned their pursuit for righteousness. We don’t have to remain in our current state! We can restore to us what has been taken by dedicating ourselves fully to the Lord.
God says this, “…get rid of everything that hinders you from being committed to me.” So I ask you:
What is hindering you?
What bothered me about this statement is that often the things we see as aids are hindrances. There are things we consider blessings that are weights in the pool of faith. As we swim from shore to shore, the cares of this world weight us down in such a manner that we find ourselves struggling to get closer to Him.
Which bring us to the end of the verse, “If you do not…” God warns them there will be a price for not removing the hindrances and fully dedicating themselves to the Lord, that price will be God’s anger.
God warns, “…my anger will leap out like a flaming fire against you…” God gives us the visual of his anger being like a flaming fire. It’s the language of leap out that grabs the immediate attention. 
Much like 3 Hebrew boys, God’s anger can rage so hot that it leaps out and consumes all in it path. God says a refusal to honor our covenant will place the people whom God has placed His name on in the position of enemy. Worse, the fire of God is not an out of control and random fire, its a hot and focused fire which has a focal point. Lord forbid we be the point of His Anger.
It seems today we like to play chicken with the Lord! The game chicken we played as children seems to be the lifestyle of many believers.
In this game, two people take a challenge that has the potential to harm both participants, and measures how far each will go before either harming each other or yields. The aim is to get the other to flinch first. thus showing fearlessness and moxie.
We hear the word, read the word, know the word, but refuse to acknowledge a portion of its promises. Just as much as the Bible gives promises of blessings, it gives promises of action towards those who refuse to be obedient. God sends Prophets to us to correct us, but we stop up our ears, and dare the Divine to visit us. Its as though we believe we can wave His Word in His Face, and use His promise of blessing to nullify the warning through the same Word!
Stop Playing Chicken with God!
In the past, the Israelites benefited from the help from others, but God warns them. No matter the marriages and or the connections they have made with those who are not in relationship with the Lord, “…that no one will be able to put out.” Everyone can grab a bucket and a hose, and focus all their resources on putting out the inferno God has sent your way. We can collectively sacrifice all our resources and find ourselves bearing witness as you are reduced to ash and dust. Why play chicken with the Lord.
I know what you are thinking; how cruel! Nah, God concludes “That will happen because of the evil you have done.” Having a merciful God does not mean He is not just and that we do not pay for our actions. God says it is imperative that we assess our relationship with Him and look to restore and repair it before He is forced to take action. He will do this to protect His name, and to display His conviction about righteousness for His creation.
#PastorJDO3
The people of Israel have walked away from their God, and chosen to worship the false idols of the communities in which they existed. Their willingness to walk away from God, as well as the lack of reverence and fear for the Lord, was speaking loudly to the people who had front row seats. Those who feared and revered the Lord, though not God’s chosen people or ones who worshiped the Lord, had fear and respect for God, and lost it as His people walked away from Him. 
Their abandoning of God and choice to worship idols, validated the idols to those who worshiped them, leading to an even deeper worship and placed further distance between them and the Lord. I thought of us! I considered how our behavior has either given glory to God, or served as hindrance to them worshiping and acknowledging God.
We must also be honest. Honesty is a dying value our capitalistic mindsets. The mindset that is ingrained in us is to do what ever is necessary to prosper. Our behavior is justified by the productivity of our hands and plans. This my friends is wrong. There is a right and a wrong, and bearing fruit from evil is not a part of God’s plan. We take God’s word to be shrewd and or skew the concept of the wicked wealth being stored up for us.
Keep the covenant with God will keep us from being in exile. God shares that His plan was to lavish His people with blessing in the land He delivered them too. And as He blessed them, the testimony as to His goodness would be upon their lips. His children would be elevated in the midst of surrounding kingdoms, blessed beyond belief, leaving no doubt that this was truly the one true and living God. Because they worshiped the things and opened up to other gods, God has to punish them, thus resulting in people doubting God and not desiring to be in relationship with Him. God wanted to restore the people and make them the envy of all. He said the people would look at them and “pray to be as blessed by Him (God) as you are, and will make Him the object of their boasting.
This mirrors our personal perspective on faith. Many of us edit God’s Word, and omit God’s truths, justifying our lifestyle and choices by overlooking what He has commanded. This is harmful and foolish! The devil has deceived us into becoming out own gods, offering us the same fruit he submitted to Adam, and have bitten once again.
God says the dedication of these unbelievers is admirable. Their loyalty worthy of mention. Their faithfulness worthy of imitation. God says to look at them. They worship statues and animals, pictures and drawing, items and possessions, and they are faithful to these items though they are powerless. And we; are called by the name of the one true and living God, who has displayed His power, revealed truth, delivered his people, gave them land and riches, defeated false Gods, empowered His prophet to defeat the magicians of Israel and they still abandoned their God. Sadly, so have we.
How tough it must be for God to watch us be “catfished” by a statue posing as a God. God watches us carry on two and 10 years love affairs with a false god, using up our resources and time, humiliating us before the world as we are dragged along by our nostrils. How painful it must be for God to be so close to His people, only to have them falling in love with images on a screen. How painful it must be for Him to continue providing and being faithful, while we explore our options and share our most intimate moments and thoughts with someone who can not, see, hear or speak, and for that matter, act! How frustrating it must be for God to bring us through and have us attribute His handy work to and after marked god.
Has God sent word to you? Of course, this is a rhetorical question! You too, like me, and like the children of Israel have been both an enemy of the cross, and or AWOL! Maybe you you deserve to be dishonorably discharged! Despite our behavior, God sends prophets and angels, discharged with instructions and directions, to real us back into relationship with Him. He sends flowers and blessings, and allows us to experience life without Him, and still reaches out to us. He watches us walk hand in hand with sin, bathing in iniquity, and soaking in indiscretions, and drafts beautiful love discourses to express His unfailing love for us. Who does this but God?
speak His name in the midst of our sin and struggle. Why the aisle doesn’t open up to swallow us, one can not justify, but God justifies us! Through our covenant agreement, we are heirs to a Kingdom via a promise that is undeserved.
I sense that the Lord is growing tired of watching his people broken and suffering. He is tired of seeing us wasteful and neglectful. He cries tears seeing His Kingdom in ruins, and His people running about without concern for righteousness. He has been silent while people walk though His Kingdom leaning on a covenant, in which they are law breakers, depending on it to be their protection, while they experience the fruit of the evil one. He is tired of seeing us recite the lines of the adversary; loyal to his precepts, while the Word given to grow and prosper us sits idle bye, pregnant with potential, absent of a suitor. God is “roaring!”
God reaches down with His hand into the smoldering ashes of our past fire for Him, searching for an ember. Just one ember from our past, in which He can renew and rekindle a fire. I see Him taking His Word, verse by verse, and laying it across our heart. With both hands, he shields the wind of the adversary attempting to blow out the growing flame. He leans over and breaths into our lives, slowly fanning, and adding on strip after strip, until the once smoldering fire, burst forth from our mouth as a raging fire from our tongues. 
I love this because there are times when we are exposed to the same conditions as the world. It rains on the just and on the unjust. Famine comes through the city and all its inhabitants are affected. Floods run down the street, and house after house is consumed, “But the Lord”! We are often consumed with the sight or fear of immanent and perceived danger, “But the Lord”! I want to acknowledge that God is a refuge. In my own life, I have come through many circumstances, not equal to Paul, but a personal suffering of my very own, “But the Lord”, as I am sure you have.
I look around and see the infrastructure of all built being taken apart beam by beam, brick by brick. It seems the underground aqueducts are being exposed, and the citizens are reaching for buckets to retrieve their own resources. The roads that give us safe travel are now being held hostage, and the benefits of being a citizen of earthly kingdoms once again parallels Rome; pay tax and live. As we render unto Caeser, Jesus descended from His seat and said, render unto God that which is belongs to God. While man collects money to further feeding His flesh, God demands of man that which belongs to Him. You know, we were bought with a price. Our lives are not our own. And while man is satisfied with coins, God wont be satisfied until we surrender to Him our life!
