God Blindspots

Tuesday, August 30, 2022

During the reign of King Josiah, the Lord said to me, “Have you seen what fickle Israel has done? Like a wife who commits adultery, Israel has worshiped other gods on every hill and under every green tree.  I thought, ‘After she has done all this, she will return to me.’  But she did not return, and her faithless sister Judah saw this.  She saw that I divorced faithless Israel because of her adultery.  But that treacherous sister Judah had no fear, and now she, too, has left me and given herself to prostitution.  Israel treated it all so lightly—she thought nothing of committing adultery by worshiping idols made of wood and stone.  So now the land has been polluted.  But despite all this, her faithless sister Judah has never sincerely returned to me.  She has only pretended to be sorry.  I, the Lord, have spoken!”  Then the Lord said to me, “Even faithless Israel is less guilty than treacherous Judah!  Therefore, go and give this message to Israel.  This is what the Lord says:  “O Israel, my faithless people, come home to me again, for I am merciful.  I will not be angry with you forever.  Only acknowledge your guilt.  Admit that you rebelled against the Lord your God and committed adultery against him by worshiping idols under every green tree.  Confess that you refused to listen to my voice.  I, the Lord, have spoken!  “Return home, you wayward children,” says the Lord, “for I am your master.  I will bring you back to the land of Israel—one from this town and two from that family—from wherever you are scattered.  Jeremiah 3:6-14

Even the most dedicated believer has God-blindspots.  We fail to see how we slip off the narrow pathway of following as a disciple.  Distractions, failure to act on the urging of God’s Spirit, unconfessed sin, idleness, lust, greed…virtually just any of the Seven Deadly Sins can be the culprit that leads to backsliding.  When it comes to being a disciple there are only three possibilities:

1.    you are in a closer relationship, growing by learning and serving, or…

2.    you are farther away, because you choose to walk away, or…

3.    you aren’t aware that no change or growth is happening, and that you are slipping away from fellowship with God.

Now, that can happen with anyone….ANYONE!  Jeremiah said God put the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and the Southern Kingdom of Judah (including Jerusalem) in that second category, willfully turning their backs on God, and in danger of the third category, getting further down the path to hell with each passing day.  He added insolent pretentiousness to the charge against Judah, calling them worse sinners for pretending to be sorry for their insult to God’s holiness.  In short, their God-Blindspot had become their focal point, treacherous faithlessness towards their Lord, a comfortable mantra of self-content you hear quite often today.  It sounds like this:  Well, I’m very spiritual…I’m just not religious…organized religion turns me off.  How very deep.  It takes a very special kind of spiritual blindness to subscribe to dismissing everything God’s Word says about faithful worship and service.  To give just the CliffsNotes outline of what Jesus said…we are to love the Lord with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength…and our neighbor in the same way.  To neglect the body of Christ (what He said we would be as we join together for worship and carrying the message and mission to the world) is to move farther away from Jesus.  No amount of claiming “spirituality” comes across as genuine in that feeble excuse.

For You Today

If you are a disciple of Jesus Christ…be just that…every day, all the time.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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