Are you going backward?

Jeremiah 7:21-24 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Put your burnt offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat flesh. For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices: But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you. But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward.

Have you ever gotten lost? The moment you turn down a side street and realize you are in the wrong neighborhood and everyone is looking at your car because they know you are not supposed to be there is plain awful.  We all have been there at one time or another I suppose. 

I remember one time when we lived in the Amazon, my husband had gone up river early one morning to walk the parameters of our farm land we had recently purchased.  We were living in a small town and our village church was an hour and a half away by boat, so we had decided to move further into the jungle in order to save on gas and be closer to the village.  Mark had taken a GPS with him and had decided to mark all the boundaries of our land.  It was quite a large piece of jungle and only the edge by the river had been cleared, so he wanted to explore a little to determine where we could build a house.  The children and I were at home doing school and I expected Mark would be back by lunch.  Well, lunch came and went, still no Mark.  I didn’t worry and I went about hanging my laundry on the wall to dry as the kids played in the yard.  I often joke that the Amazon had three seasons, Hot, Hotter and Hottest.  That particular day happened to be in the “hottest” time.  My clothes dried quickly and I had folded and put them away only to realize, Mark was still not back.  I began to think on all the things that can (and do) go wrong on the river.  Snakes, Cayman, and drowning were the three evils that dominated my thought process as I prayed that my husband was okay.  As the sun began to ease behind the horizon, Mark showed up on the front porch.  He sat down on the wire rocker and made a gesture that he wanted water.  I ran inside and got him some which he drank and poured on his head.  To make a long story short, he had gotten lost.  The GPS couldn’t give him directions because the trees were too dense and Mark couldn’t get a signal.  He had gone into the direction he thought he had come from, but was actually walking in circles.  He didn’t have any water, so he cut a vine to drink, but it was the wrong type and the liquid had burned his throat.  He trudged on for hours before collapsing from heat stroke.  Eventually he heard a dog barking and some men out hunting from the neighboring village came near, but he couldn’t call out because he had no voice.  Thankfully the dog and the men found him and carried him out of the jungle to his boat and he made it home.

Many times I have thought back on that day and how Mark looked as he sat on the front porch totally depleted and defeated.  It was pitiful and it took several days for him to recover his voice and his strength. Was he out doing something that needed to be done?  Yes, he was, but he had forgotten an essential piece of equipment, a regular old compass that always pointed true North. 

Since the time that Jesus died and rose again, we are no longer under the Old Testament Law.  We don’t have to observe the sacrifices that the Jewish people were commanded to keep.  We are shown in I Corinthians 10:11 and in 2Peter 2:6 that what some did in sin are written about for an example to us.  An example of what NOT to do.  So while I may not have to obey the Law, I should still look to the God who gave that Law and understand and fear Him, because HE has not changed.  He still requires obedience and not sacrifice. 

In the opening verses of this post we find the people of God have left off looking at the compass of the Law.  They had promised that they would follow God and do whatever He commanded, but they didn’t.  They were going backward into sin and wrong thinking instead of forward.

Many people want to gripe and complain about the “rules” of the Christian life, but God has not given them to us for punishment, rather out of love He is protecting us from the destruction that comes from following our own wicked hearts.  He is our true compass, pointing us in the true and right direction, but for some reason, we want the new fangled things.  We want preaching on grace, not repentance.  We want Psalms and comfort, not the strictness of James.  If we would but take the WHOLE counsel of the Word of God, we would see His love pouring out of every single book.  He knows which directions will get us lost or tangled up in something that will cause us to go backward and not forward.  This is the God you and I have set out to get to know this year.  He actually does have a plan for our lives.  He really does care about where you are today and what you are going through!  He wants to guide you!  Will you listen to Him?

Just last week a young lady cried while asking me what she should do about her relationship.  She said she had prayed and asked God but it was as if He was not answering.  Since I know her boyfriend is unsaved I told her that God could not answer any differently than He already has instructed in 2Corinthians 6 about being unequally yoked.  She pulled out her phone and made note of the reference and said, “I didn’t know He had said something like that!”  She not only wasn’t lost in her thinking, she didn’t even know how to read the compass.

The Word of God is vital to us if we want to go forward.  We are going to wander around in circles, end up distraught and weak like my husband was that day in the Amazon if we don’t open up our Bibles and study what God has shown us.  He has given us examples, He has given us instructions and He waits for us to obey His voice in all things.  Don’t be like the people Jeremiah was preaching to and allow Truth to perish from among you.  Seek it with your whole heart!

John 8:31-32 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

Quit looking for the next new devotional book that all your friends are talking about.  Quit searching the internet for a sermon that tickles your ears and makes you feel warm and fuzzy.  If you are not looking at the Word of God and walking in the precepts written on It’s pages, you, my friend, are wandering in circles and will end up going backward instead of forward.  Don’t you want to be heading towards God instead of turning your back on Him? Maybe it is time to check your compass.

Until next time, Lord willing,

Sheri