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

I will destroy Daughter Zion, so beautiful and delicate. – Jeremiah 6:2

Today’s Scripture Reading (February 24, 2017): Jeremiah 6

We chase after beauty. But the truth is that we are shaped by genetics. We may desire to have the outward appearance of someone that we see on the front of our favorite magazine. But the reality is that unless that is your mother and father on the front of that magazine – well, you will resemble more of them than your magazine dream. There is a reason Aunt Sally keeps on telling you how much you like your mother – you really do.

Beauty – the beauty that we are sometimes obsessed with – is often a misplaced dream. We never recognize beauty in ourselves (it is too easy to dwell on what we believe to be are our faults) and the beauty that we seem to chase after is usually born out of indulgence. The beautiful seem to have to live a life of privilege in order to be beautiful.

The Bible draws a solid line between the beauty that comes out of pleasure and a beauty of strength born out of a solid personal character. The character that is beautiful always wins – it is more likely to persevere and more likely to do the right thing even in times of intense persecution. Biblically, this is the beauty that really matters

Jeremiah speaks to a people that have become beautiful by following after pleasure. And his message is that they are totally unprepared for what is about to happen to them. The battle that lies just ahead threatens their very existence, but they do not have the strength or character to resist because the pursuit of pleasure has weakened them. We don’t like discipline – but discipline prepares us for the struggle.  And what Jeremiah saw in the future was struggle.

An old saying states that if you are not in a struggle right now – you either are just emerging from one or about to go into one. The truth in the saying is that our journey is made up of both hard and easy times. Essential to being able to successfully navigate life is a beauty that results from character - a beauty that won’t let us down when the going gets rough.

Struggle is natural and strength is earned. Because there will always be an element of struggle in our lives, we really need the strength.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 7

“Yet even in those days,” declares the LORD, “I will not destroy you completely.” – Jeremiah 5:18

Today’s Scripture Reading (February 23, 2017): Jeremiah 5

William Shakespeare wrote in his comedy “The Merchant of Venice” that -

The quality of mercy is not strain'd.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes.

It is almost a perfect description of the character of mercy. It does not work if it is forced. Mercy is a gentle shower that falls on us. And I love Shakespeare’s concept of mercy as being twice blessed, blessing both those on the receiving end of mercy and those on the giving end. It would seem that we are no closer to the character of God than when we dare to extend mercy.

There was no reason that God should not have destroyed Judah.  According to Nahum, God had promised to make a full end of Nineveh (Nahum 8.) There is absolutely no reason that God should stop his hand with Judah – and yet that is precisely what Jeremiah says God would do. It is one of the most predictive and contrasting passages in scripture, one nation is exterminated and the other will be brought to the very edge of extinction only to be extended mercy and allowed to come back to life.

True mercy is only available from God. But mercy also needs a human conduit to work through. For Judah, even though the Babylonians brought the exile, there was mercy. The people were taken away, but they were also protected by Babylon. The Babylonians educated them and allowed the Jewish people to play significant roles in their government. And when the Babylonian Empire failed and the reign of the Persians began, that mercy that was started with Babylon was brought to its full effect by the Persians as Judah was sent back home. But the other side of the reality is that there was no one there to extend that same kind of mercy to Nineveh and the Assyrian Empire. The Assyrians simply disappeared from the pages of history.

Mercy flows and it drops like a gentle shower. First, it must flow from the hand of God into our lives. But mercy is never complete until it flows out of our lives and into the lives of those around us. And at that moment we are the ones who are truly twice blessed, because at that moment we are both the ones who have received mercy, and the ones who have given it away.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 6