WHY DO WE TURN AWAY?

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In Christ, Mark

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

“Say to them, ‘This is what the Lord says:’”

“‘When people fall down, do they not get up? When someone turns away, do they not return? Why then have these people turned away? Why does Jerusalem always turn away?”

“They cling to deceit; they refuse to return. I have listened attentively, but they do not say what is right. None of them repent of their wickedness, saying, ‘What have I done?’ Each pursues their own course like a horse charging into battle. Even the stork in the sky knows her appointed seasons, and the dove, the swift and the thrush observe the time of their migration. But My people do not know the requirements of the Lord.”

Jeremiah 8:4-7

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

Think about the God we serve for a few moments.

He possessed the power to create the heavens and the earth and everything within them, including us.

He delivered His people from Egyptian oppression by dividing a sea and allowing them to escape on dry land.

He brought water from a rock and manna and quail from heaven to provide for His people.

He is the fount of perfect wisdom and no one on earth has the knowledge and intellect that He has.

He resurrected His only Son Jesus from death to life.

God did all this and more. So why would we turn away from Him?

Or maybe the better question is, “Why do we turn away from Him?”  As we see in today’s scripture passage from Jeremiah 8, God had the same question. Look again at these words:

“Say to them, ‘This is what the Lord says:’”

“‘When people fall down, do they not get up? When someone turns away, do they not return? Why then have these people turned away? Why does Jerusalem always turn away?”

“They cling to deceit; they refuse to return. I have listened attentively, but they do not say what is right. None of them repent of their wickedness, saying, ‘What have I done?’ Each pursues their own course like a horse charging into battle. Even the stork in the sky knows her appointed seasons, and the dove, the swift and the thrush observe the time of their migration. But My people do not know the requirements of the Lord.”  Jeremiah 8:4-7

Note here how the Lord tries to show the nonsense involved with people rejecting and abandoning Him.

After all, if you would fall down, you wouldn’t remain down unless you were injured so badly you couldn’t stand. No, when we fall, we get back up again. It only makes sense, right?

The same applies when we turn away from something that we really need. When that happens, we always tend to come back around to get our need met. It wouldn’t make sense to continue to turn away and deprive ourselves.

So why do we decide to turn away from the Lord and then remain away? Why would we even turn away from Him in the first place?

It’s just crazy that we even consider it let alone do it like we do.

God was always there for His people, faithful to them in every way. He never turned away from them until they chose to turn away from Him in unfaithfulness, disrespecting and disregarding Him through their worshipping of false gods and idols. The scriptures tell us that the people of God were unaware of His requirements and that their sin was grounded in deceit, a commitment to their own desires, and a stubborn refusal to repent and seek to restore their relationship with God. Rather than draw near to Him, the Israelites allowed their wickedness to distance themselves from the One who they were to serve fully, their Master and Maker who would also soon present Himself to them as their Supreme Judge. They had chosen to turn away from God and so they would soon find out how difficult life would be without Him as they would be displaced from their homeland and hauled away into seventy years of exile by the Babylonians.

The people of Israel were soon going to find out that turning away from God carries with it dire consequences.

This brings us back to today and our behavior. For we should know by now that God is never going to honor any of His people who willingly and willfully choose to ignore and reject Him. Instead, He will always bring His punishment and discipline, born out of the anger He feels when His people abandon Him. We are to be subordinate to God in every way. He dictates to us what we are to do and we are to comply in absolute, uncompromising obedience. That’s the way it is and we have no place to try and rewrite the rules. In fact, our only proper posture before God is to be fully compliant, humbly surrendering and submitting ourselves to Him, the One who reigns over all creation.

And yet, how often do we fail to do this? Why do we turn away?

I’m sure God is still asking the question as much today as He did in Old Testament times.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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