Monday 20 Aug 2018

August 20: Jeremiah 2:1-5

Key Verse: Jeremiah 2:5
This is what the Lord says: “What fault did your ancestors find in me, that they strayed so far from me? They followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves.

Devotion:
There are so many things in life which need us to persevere before they succeed; if we start to think we can get fit and then give up half way through, we will not continue to be fit. We need to stick at things when we start them. Just like a normal relationship, our relationship with Christ has to be maintained from both sides; if we give up on our side of the relationship then it is going to go cold. We need our constant companionship with Christ to continue our relationship with Him right up until the moment when we meet Him face to face.

It is very sad to see someone go cold in their relationship with God. It is even worse when you see them going down-hill and facing all manner of problems which they then blame on God rather than thinking about what they have been doing or what life and this world is really like. As we walk with Christ we grow with Him and we see how much He does for us. When we start to walk off on our own, do we really expect Christ to have to follow us on our sinful path or should we be the ones turning back to Him? Those first steps seem to be taken when we have a bountiful blessing in our lives – it is when we are most comfortable we start to look at our blessing and count them for our own. The next step is to celebrate by ourselves, leaving God out of it. From then on, we are walking by ourselves again, turning our backs on the very Christ who gave us those blessings in the beginning!

How vain we are to think we are the ones who can maintain our own spiritual lives. How vain we are to think it was all down to what we did and not what Christ has done for us. But, when we are down, we blame God! What has He ever done against us? He who cannot bear sin, He who will not tempt us? How can we ever think it is He who turns His back on us when we have already turned our backs on Him? We need to celebrate our relationship with Christ by continuing to keep Him involved in everything!

Points to Ponder:
How often do you forget simple promises you have made in the past?

How can we ever think God can ever break a promise when He never has so far?