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Good morning to you my ‘Walking with Jesus’ friends,
On this the first Monday of 2025 the whole world wonders what this year will bring, to every nation, every city, every family, every person. World leaders, of course, are watching closely as two weeks from today a new American President and his leadership team assume responsibility to lead the free world.
For God, of course, there are no questions about what will transpire this next year. God already knows. God is omniscient, there is nothing past, present or future which is unknown to God. Do you believe that? Is. 46:9,10 declares this about God’s Sovereignty over all: “I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.”
Psalm 33:11 says, “The plans of the LORD stand firm forever, the purposes of His heart through all generations.” Proverbs 21:30 proclaims: “There is no wisdom, no insight, no plan that can succeed against the LORD.”
In view of these and similar Scriptures, what do you suppose God’s overall purpose will be for our world in this new year of 2025? Might God be thinking REFORM?
Yesterday, you and I looked at a powerful message from God through the prophet Jeremiah spoken to the leaders and people of Israel in Jerusalem about 2600 years ago, in times very similar to our times today in 2025! Sadly, in Jeremiah 6 God pronounced approaching disaster for Jerusalem, because the leaders and Jewish people of Jeremiah’s day refused God’s invitation to live as God honoring people and they too often embraced the wickedness of nations around them.
Today, Jeremiah chapter 7 gives us another very important message from God for their time and ours: “This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD “Stand at the gate of the LORD’s house and there proclaim this message: ‘Hear the word of the LORD, all you people of Judah who come through these gates to worship the LORD. This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel says: ‘REFORM your ways and your actions and I will let you live in this place... If you really change your ways and deal with each other justly, if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, then I will let you live in this place in the land I gave your ancestors for ever and ever...” (Jeremiah 7:1-7)
Do you hear God’s challenge? He was calling His people Israel to change their ways, reform their thinking, their attitudes and behavior. Is God calling for the same in your city and mine today? Did you notice WHERE God told Jeremiah to proclaim this message of reform? At the entrance to the great Temple of God in Jerusalem. Why there? Because central to the culture of Israel society, by God’s design, should be their spirituality, their morality, the relationship between the Jewish people and Almighty God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their ancestors.
Did you notice God offering Israel the opportunity to remain in their land IF they reformed? One of the uniquenesses of the people of Israel is that God Himself determined their homeland way back in His Covenant with Abraham when God first explained His vision for a unique people who would be an example to the world of living in a very close relationship with God.
The Bible shows us those people are the descendants of Abraham & Sarah and their miraculous son Isaac. That special lineage continued through Isaac and his son Jacob and Jacob’s 12 sons who became the 12 tribes of Israel, as God changed Jacob’s name to Israel. (Genesis 35:10) God’s covenant with Abraham and this lineage of descendants included a very special and specific geographical place to be their homeland which became known as the land of Israel. (Gen. 15:18-21; 35:12)
When God called Moses back to Egypt, after their burning bush encounter, it was to lead to freedom nearly 1 million Hebrew descendants of Jacob’s 12 sons who had been slaves in Egypt for several generations. God met with those slaves at Mount Sinai and declared to them God’s covenant promise: “If you obey Me fully and keep My covenant, then out of all the nations you will be My treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation…” (Ex. 19:4-6) While those Hebrew slaves at Mount Sinai took a blood oath covenant with God that they would live as His people, (Ex. 24:8) within a few weeks they had built a golden calf, calling it their god and they forsook the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses. (Ex. 32:1-24)
Over and over, through the following centuries, God reached to His people Israel challenging them to live up to their covenant promise and honor God with their lives while enjoying God’s love, His presence, provision and protection. Despite the fact that God brought them into their God promised homeland and blessed them greatly with Jerusalem as their city of divine encounter with the great Temple of God built there, the people of Israel continually drifted or even often rebelliously turned away from God. Now, in the days of Jeremiah, God was issuing one last call. Deaf ears and rebellious hearts this time would result in God driving them OUT of their Covenant homeland!
If you’ve been with me for some time on this “Walking with Jesus” journey, back in the fall of 2021 we spent several weeks following that story of Moses and the Hebrew slaves out of slavery and through Exodus. Then from January – March ’22 we worked through the Bible books of Numbers and Deuteronomy; and from October ’23 – December ’23 through Joshua, Judges, Ruth and some of 1 Samuel. Then last year, in ’24 from January – March we continued with the story of the last prophet of Israel Samuel, and the kings of the United Kingdom of Israel, Saul, David and Solomon. Finally, from April – November of ’24 we journeyed through the Kings and Chronicles and the division of Israel into two kingdoms, Judah and Israel. All those editions of “Walking with Jesus” are archived, available to you on our website under the ‘daily archives’ tab.
Now in Jeremiah 7, as the last honorable king of Israel Josiah is followed by wicked kings who turned Jerusalem into a city of debauchery, God offers His people one last reprieve from the judgment we saw God predicted yesterday in Jeremiah 6.
“This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel says: ‘Reform your ways and your actions and I will let you live in this place...“ (Jer. 7:3)“Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods…and then come and stand before Me in this house which bears My Name and say ‘we are safe – safe to do all these detestable things? But I have been watching!’ declares the LORD.” (Jer. 7:9-11)
God detested the hypocrisy, the duality of His people embracing the wickedness of neighboring nations while still claiming to be God’s people as they came to the Temple of God in Jerusalem for their festivals and worship. God’s patience was running out. REFORM was needed immediately. It was their only hope in the face of impending judgment.
Oh my, let’s pause right here and consider what God has been seeing as He has been watching your city and mine, especially the people living there who claim to be religious or spiritual or even God honoring? Is God calling us to REFORM in 2025 especially if we claim to be God’s people? And what if we ignore God’s call?
Let’s reflect deeply on that and let’s meet back here again tomorrow to see the rest of this important message from God to Jeremiah and to us. No song today… just reflection about God’s invitation to REFORM! What reform might God want to see in our hearts and lives in 2025? And what if we don’t?
Today’s Scripture: Jeremiah 7:1-11.
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Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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