“Catfished” Believers

Has a nation ever changed its gods,
even thought they are not really gods at all?
But my people have exchanged me, their
glorious God, for a god that
cannot help them at all. Jeremiah 2:11

The Prophet Jeremiah has been instructed to address God’s people where they are about the sins they have committed. God gives him a list of concerns and issues that have emerged while they have been in covenant with God. Mind you, these issues were not addressed or even prevalent before they entered into covenant. The people of God accepted the covenant formed by God and held by God, and gently broke His laws, and turned their backs on Him once they encountered new cultures with different gods.

Isn’t this 2018?

While reading this, it was as if God was writing to Western Christianity. Here we are, in relationship with the one true and living God, and we find many blood bought believers compromising their faith, and turning their backs on their God just like our ancestors. As of late, it seems the body of Christ has again approached the Word of God with a license to edit. Our forefathers used white out to look over God’s truth, their sons used faulty interpretations, the next generation used a plethora of translations, and today the desire is to edit the Word, at best update it to match American trends and values. As the country adopts new habits and cultural norms, it desires to model the Bible after its adaptations, as opposed to governing its character and laws by Gods Word.

This mirrors our personal perspective on faith. Many of us edit God’s Word, and omit God’s truths, justifying our lifestyle and choices by overlooking what He has commanded. This is harmful and foolish! The devil has deceived us into becoming out own gods, offering us the same fruit he submitted to Adam, and have bitten once again.

Our faith has become synonymous with the nation in which it exist, confusing followers, and serving as a distraction and detraction to non-believers. And Jeremiah first, and now I present to you God’s Word! It must stop!!!!

Lord forbid that our greatest example would come from those who don’t believe, but God instructs us to look to the East and the West to learn a valuable lesson. He said look at the surrounding nations. Look at the surrounding faiths. Look at the neighboring cultures. Non of them are willing to change their gods. Non of them are interested in altering their gods word. Non of them are willing to bow to any other god. Yet, the people of God find themselves willing to compromise for politicians, power and perverted living.

Why are you willing to compromise?

And how is it that you believe God should change?

What is it you believe about God’s Word?

Is it God breathed?

God says the dedication of these unbelievers is admirable. Their loyalty worthy of mention. Their faithfulness worthy of imitation. God says to look at them. They worship statues and animals, pictures and drawing, items and possessions, and they are faithful to these items though they are powerless. And we; are called by the name of the one true and living God, who has displayed His power, revealed truth, delivered his people, gave them land and riches, defeated false Gods, empowered His prophet to defeat the magicians of Israel and they still abandoned their God. Sadly, so have we.

He has protected, provided, and proven himself to generation after generation, and we are sadly confused about our covenant relationship. It seems that the notion or understanding that He is our God has given people the false understanding that we control Him. For some reason, the understanding that God honors His Word has mislead people into thinking that God is property or a tool by which they can advance themselves on earth. People have studied God’s Word not to get closer to Him, but to learn how to manipulate Him into doing their bidding.

Jeremiah stood flat footed and spoke boldly to the people about how they had “exchanged” God. It is as though they have returned God like a pair of jeans that didn’t fit. They took God for granted. After being delivered and elevated from their position as slaves, they neglected the God that had formed covenant with them and became concerned with the cares of the world. God was left watching His bride spread her love amidst false God to whom had no love for him.

How tough it must be for God to watch us be “catfished” by a statue posing as a God. God watches us carry on two and 10 years love affairs with a false god, using up our resources and time, humiliating us before the world as we are dragged along by our nostrils. How painful it must be for God to be so close to His people, only to have them falling in love with images on a screen. How painful it must be for Him to continue providing and being faithful, while we explore our options and share our most intimate moments and thoughts with someone who can not, see, hear or speak, and for that matter, act! How frustrating it must be for God to bring us through and have us attribute His handy work to and after marked god.

Lord help us. We have been fooled again! Let us return to our God, confessing our sin, and communing again with our God lest we continue in this exile like state. May God convict our hearts, and may our first love be our remaining true love.

#PastorJDO3