So do not pray for this people nor offer any plea or petition for them; do not plead with me, for I will not listen to you. – Jeremiah 7:16

Today’s Scripture Reading (February 24, 2017): Jeremiah 7

I love a house of mirrors. You know, they kind that you see on a police show. The hero chases the villain into a carnival, the villain runs into a house of mirrors followed closely by the officer. Except that by the time our hero shows up all he sees are a dozen reflections of the villain and no idea where the real one is standing – the one that he needs to shoot or apprehend before he gets shot or beaten. Will the real villain let me know where he is standing?

Sometimes life resembles a “House of Horrors” and the question your friends are forced to ask is “Will the real you stand up?” We seem to think that we can wear many hats and then relegate them to different areas of our lives. We think that the advantage is that we can be who we need to be in different situations. The ‘me’ that appears in the boardroom needs to be different from the one that meets with the family in the evening – the ‘me’ that walks into church on Sunday morning is different from the one that walks into work on Wednesday morning. In every situation a different ‘me’ is required.

But it doesn’t take long to lose focus on the the real you – or confuse a false front from a core value. I see this in the church all of the time. People tell me that they love God – but on Monday their lives don’t reflect that love. We refuse to make the simple decisions for God. When sin presents itself, sometimes we don’t even to try to resist. It is at this point that we have to wonder if the self that says that we love God isn’t more likely to be just another one of our false fronts.

So God speaks through Jeremiah about a people that are willing to practice religious ritual, but unwilling to let God work a real change inside of their lives. And God’s hard word is, don’t even pray for people like that – because I am not listening. According to this passage, the problem lies not with the one saying the prayer – but with the one for which we are praying.

In Revelation Jesus tells the church that they are neither hot nor cold – but they are lukewarm, and for that reason I will spit them out of my mouth (Revelation 3:16). According to Jesus, we are simply not living our real selves. God can speak to you if you are on fire for him (if you are hot), but he can also speak to you if you are honestly questioning the things that come from him. But where he can’t speak to us is if we are busy doing the rituals of God, but our faith never goes beyond. For people like that, according to Jeremiah, don’t even pray.

We need peel away the false front until we find the core – and then find out if God is there. If you are a seeker after the things of God, then a violation of God’s law should be a fight and it should produce guilt. Even though you are forgiven, you should regret the times that you have come up short – those times should be the reason for the tears that you shed. But that will only happen if the real you – the core you – values God.

So – who are you – really? Are the forces of God the ones that are shaping your life? Or is the you that values the things of God just one of the many false reflections of your life inside a house of mirrors? We need to come up with an answer.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 8