REND YOUR HEART

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In Christ, Mark

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

“Even now,” declares the Lord, “return to Me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.”

“Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and He relents from sending calamity. Who knows? He may turn and relent and leave behind a blessing—grain offerings and drink offerings for the Lord your God.”

“Blow the trumpet in Zion, declare a holy fast, call a sacred assembly. Gather the people, consecrate the assembly; bring together the elders, gather the children, those nursing at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room and the bride her chamber. Let the priests, who minister before the Lord, weep between the portico and the altar. Let them say, “Spare your people, Lord. Do not make Your inheritance an object of scorn, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’”

Joel 2:12-17

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

Have you ever known someone who gave an outward appearance they were thinking or feeling one way when they were really feeling another way inside?

It happens all the time, doesn’t it, and I’m afraid we have all been guilty of doing it. Somehow as we grow in experience through life, we also become skilled at hiding our true feelings inside, becoming master deceivers in a lot of ways.

Maybe we have told someone we liked them when inside we really despised them in some way.

Maybe we have tried to act like something wasn’t wrong in our lives around others when the inner truth was that our lives were in severe turmoil and trouble.

Maybe we have even tried to do this to the Lord, professing outward signs of remorse and sorrow for the sins we have committed while inside waiting for the right opportunity to commit the same sins again, a form of counterfeit repentance if you may.

It was this last example that we find at the heart of today’s scripture passage taken from the 2nd chapter of Joel. Look again at these words here:

“Even now,” declares the Lord, “return to Me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.”

“Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and  compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and He relents from sending calamity. Who knows? He may turn and relent and leave behind a blessing—grain offerings and drink offerings for the Lord your God.”

“Blow the trumpet in Zion, declare a holy fast, call a sacred assembly. Gather the people, consecrate the assembly; bring together the elders, gather the children, those nursing at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room and the bride her chamber. Let the priests, who minister before the Lord, weep between the portico and the altar. Let them say, “Spare your people, Lord. Do not make Your inheritance an object of scorn, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’”   Joel 2:12-17

The sins of the Israelites were detestable in God’s sight as they chose to worship the pagan gods and idols of other nations, turning from Him while disobeying His most fundamental commandment to worship no other gods. Such blatant wickedness would result in nothing short of God’s most severe judgment unless the people of God decided to turn away from their transgressions, repent, and go back to the righteousness only God could offer.

Note that God wouldn’t tolerate just a surface repentance which really wasn’t repentance at all. You see, the people of God would often go out into the streets in sackcloth and tear or rend their garments in a showing of emotional distress and mourning. This would also often include a person throwing dust or ashes on themselves to show everyone just how remorseful they were.

There was only one problem. At times, this was all just a show, a carefully sketched act meant to convince everyone that the person was truly sorry for their sins when their hearts were still in love with the sins they falsely repented of. And maybe these people could fool their peers but in no way were they fooling God, the only One who could peer within their very souls and see whether or not sincerity existed.

This is why the Lord calls on His people to go deeper, to show their contrition inside as well as out. He wanted them to rend their hearts and return to Him with all their hearts as they fasted, wept, and mourned over the ways they had disrespected and disregarded Him. For this was the only way the people could change for the good, not just in the short term but the long as well.

Why was the rending of the heart so important?

Because it was the only way the Israelites might convince God to slow His anger and relent from the calamity He was planning to bring upon them, the only way they could get back to the place where God’s compassion, love, and blessings could be found.

Finally, note that the call was far beyond an individual plea. Rather, God expected His people to genuinely return to Him at a collective level as well, commanding His people to congregate and for the priests to consecrate that assembly, making it a holy gathering. All were to be included in the get together, even the children, as the priests made a plea for God’s mercy to come saying:

“Spare your people, Lord. Do not make Your inheritance an object of scorn, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’”

In other words, after rending their hearts and honestly turning back to the Lord, the Israelites would be making a firm commitment to once again be His people, the kind of people He intended and desired for them to be all along. In response to this, the Israelites hope God would once again be their God and spare them the scorn they deserved for their sinfulness, the scorn that would surely come from other nations who watched the once revered and holy nation fall into ruin at the hands of God’s judgment.

Friends, the Lord is speaking to us in powerful ways today and wants us to repent as He expected the Israelites to. He doesn’t want us to show remorse for sins outwardly without an inner desire to change; rather He wants us to rend our hearts so that the Lord might enter in and mend what is broken, bring us back to His favor and the kind of life He wants us to live.

Amen,

In Christ,

Mark
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