Other than Jeremiah being really sad and depressing I don't have much to say.
I did find Jeremiah 3:10 to be a very interesting verse. "In spite of all this, her unfaithful sister Judah did no return to me with all her heart, only in pretense," declares the LORD.
The people of Judah (literally) prostitute themselves to every other god imaginable. AND they do it in God's Temple.
Then, Judah "repents" of their sin. I put repent in quotations, because apparently they only repented in their words.
So what does this verse actually say? It is saying that (get this) God doesn't want to hear my platitudes. God wants my life.
This goes back to the verse that says God isn't interested in my sacrifice or worship, He wants my obedience.
And obedience is much harder than my praises. My praise is easy. God already knows how Great He is. God wants to know how much praise will affect my life.
When my praise affects my life, then (and only then) is it called WORSHIP.
Worship is not singing. Worship is not dancing. Worship is not prayer. Worship is not Bible reading.
Worship is OBEDIENCE. Everything else should come from obedience. Everything is a part of obedience.
Judah said "we're sorry" and then went right back to what they were doing.
And to be honest, that is almost exactly what I do in my life. I truly am sorry for my sins. I don't want to be a sinner. I don't know how anyone can read Leviticus and not be sorry for their sins (or John for that matter)(or any of the Bible).
So, I sin and I "repent." I am sorry. I really, really don't want to commit the same sin again, but I do over and over and over again.
I can remember for about 5 straight years asking God for forgiveness for the exact same sin... fighting with Alyssa. Seriously, I knew it was wrong. I did not want to fight with her.
BUT... for 5 years, we fought all the time. I still don't know why I did it. I can make excuses, but the reason is this... that sin of fighting with Alyssa had me and I couldn't stop. I would "repent," but never truly repent.
That's Judah. And that's me, even today.
My sins are more mature. I'm full of myself. I am unwilling to submit to God. I constantly tell God "no" when the Holy Spirit is speaking to me. I'm full of myself. I'm lazy. I lie. I think I'm better than everyone else. I'm full of myself.
Too much honesty to be writing on the Internet. I need prayer. I need to repent. I mean truly repent. Not just say "I'm sorry," but change. I need to more Christlike.
Life is hard.
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I've been to a seminar on what worship is... took a whole class on what worship is... read whole books about what worship is... but I've never heard it summed up as well as you just did. what a radical idea: worship is obedience.
ReplyDeleteand repentance. another radical idea! i'm glad you brought that up, 'cause I've been thinking about this whole idea of repentance a lot over the last few weeks as I've read the Bible. i think the church today tends to think we just need to do things better. what we don't realize is revival won't come when we just be a little nicer, try a little harder, do a couple extra random acts of kindness. the people that will change the world are not the ones who are a little nicer. they're the ones who realize they are NOT nice, and repent in sackcloth and ashes with their nose in the dirt. not an appealing concept in the church today. but a necessary one.
i hear you on the fake repentance thing. sin that I 'repent' from, over and over and over, but keep right on sinning.
sidenote: and then there are the sins that we do almost without even realizing we're sinning. one of my sins is consumerism. but it is so ingrained in me, and in the culture, that it is hard to even label it as sin. i just spent 2 1/2 hrs at Walmart when i could've been reading my Bible...
i hope you at least bought an air freshener at Walmarts while you were there for 2.5 hours
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