What Is Clear Is Not Easy - Jeremiah 7

Take a moment to prepare your heart for God’s word and how you can deepen your relationship in this time apart from everyday’s business.

Read Jeremiah 7 and focus on how much God wants us to come to him and how he is calling us to live.

Reread verses 1-7. God clearly states what we have to do to be able to dwell in the Lord’s place and to have a relationship with him. He calls Jeremiah to “stand in the gate of the Lord’s house, and proclaim there this word…Amend your ways and your deeds and I will let you dwell in this place.” It is a repeated message throughout the bible, and in Jeremiah. God lays it out before his people on how God desires for them to live; it seems so clear as to what they should do and where their hearts should be, but repeatedly they turn away from God. From the outside looking in, their actions seem so dumb and many times we won’t understand why they continuously turn away from the Lord. Take a moment to examine your life. God has made it clear to us that he desires a relationship with us, God says to us in Matthew 11:28-29, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” What are you choosing to spend your days doing and are you drawing nearer or farther away from God?

In verses 8-15, the Lord emphasizes how he has persistently called for his people, but they did not come and have lived apart from the Lord. This chapter continues to describe how the Lord is displeased with how the people who have ignored his calls will receive his anger and wrath. He recognizes that they are living apart from him and will let the world know that, “my anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place, upon man and beast, upon the trees of the field and the fruit of the ground; it will burn and not be quenched.”

Again, in verses 16 to 29, God emphasizes how clear he has made it for the people as to how they should live, and how consistently they turn away from him. In verse 23, “But this command I gave them: ‘obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. And walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’” It doesn’t get much simpler than that. The Lord will let out his wrath against these people, “for the Lord has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.” To be forsaken from the Lord is a frightening thought. When the things of this world are temporary, and what is eternal in Jesus leaves you, there is not much else.

In the last part of this chapter, the Lord continues on how the sons of Judah will be punished. Having a relationship with God and truly living after him is not about avoiding his wrath and anger though. It is not just about obeying God so that one-day we won’t be forsaken from the Lord or has to receive an outpouring of his anger and wrath. There is so much good that comes out of following Jesus and just the opportunity to be reborn again and to have eternal life with him is something that many of us need to be reminded of. Reflect on this passage and on what God is saying to you with this passage.