DEPRIVED OF GOOD

Can I pray for you in any way? Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com.

In Christ, Mark

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

** Follow The Christian Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk

** Like posts and send friend requests to the author of The Christian Walk, Mark Cummings on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mark.cummings.733?ref=tn_tnmn

** Become a Follower of The Christian Walk at http://the-christian-walk.blogspot.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

They do not say to themselves, ‘Let us fear the Lord our God, who gives autumn and spring rains in season, who assures us of the regular weeks of harvest.’ Your wrongdoings have kept these away; your sins have deprived you of good.

Jeremiah 5:24-25

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Our scripture passage today reveals a fundamental truth about the matter of the Lord and the goodness He brings.

Did you catch it?

For if we decide to disrespect and disregard the Lord, giving our devotion and attention to the world and its ways, then we can expect to not experience His goodness.

In other words, choosing to live in sin leads to being deprived of good.

It makes sense, right?

I mean, why would the Lord bless us when we are living in ways that are deplorable and despicable to Him?

To willingly live in sin is to basically say to the Lord that you don’t love Him nor care to please Him. With this, you can see why no goodness would befall such a person because God’s word tells us that the Lord is always working things out for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28).

Consider the Old Testament Israelites. God had done so much for them, rescuing them from captivity and oppression, leading them through the wilderness and providing them provision and protection along the way, and bringing them into a land He set aside just for them.

They had it made. All God asked of them was to remain faithful to Him and obedient to His commands.

The people of Israel completely failed to do both.

You know the story, they were immersed in a culture where there were choices when it came to religion. They could worship the God who told them He was the only true god or they could give any number of other gods and idols a try, gods and idols that many Gentiles were following and prescribing. Of course, the Israelites chose to abandon God for the false idols and as a result, God brought His judgment upon them. Their wrongdoings had deprived them of experiencing the goodness they could have had if they would have just remained loyal to Him and His will.

So where does that leave us today?

I believe that we are repeating the mistakes of the past and, in doing so, are depriving ourselves of the blessings that the Lord would love for us to have but He will not grant goodness to someone who fails to love him. As long as we continue to pursue our own desires and walk in ways outside of the Lord, then we can expect to find the Lord’s goodness absent from our lives.

It’s really a simple matter of choice when you really think about it and my hope is that we will be more acutely tuned into our life attitudes, so much so that we will never even consider doing anything that would show the Lord contempt and incite His anger.

When we do this, we will reap the bounty of goodness He longs to give each of His children.

When we don’t then we will continue to find ourselves deprived of good and we will be the only ones to blame for it.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.

Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com