Monday Reflection – March 09, 2020

The Deprivative Force of Sin

Your sins have deprived you of good. Jeremiah 5:25

Every day we are invited to reflect on ourselves and see where we are, not in comparison to others, but rather in relation to God’s expectations of us. Yet, we must also evaluate those we have chosen to surround ourselves with and whether we are positively impacting them, and them us. Our inner circle is a clear reflection of us. In Jeremiah 5, God looks for a righteous person, someone who seeks truth, and reports that he finds none. God is here exposing the corruption and widespread infectious sins of Jerusalem. It was as if there was not even one person who did right and sought after truth.

In response to this dilemma, Jeremiah prays to the God who sees and cares about truth among men. He prays with a sense of amazement at the hardness and stubbornness of heart among God’s people. He then decides to appeal to the great men of Jerusalem. He thinks that perhaps it was because the people were poor and uneducated why they do not know the way of the Lord. So Jeremiah turns to the great men, the aristocrats of Jerusalem. With all their education and advantages, surely a righteous man could be found among them. Sadly, Jeremiah’s search among the great men of Jerusalem ended in disappointment. They also were rebels; worse educated rebels.

Jeremiah announces judgement for the people, yet a destruction without a complete end. God would not forsake his covenant people and would bring restoration. Through Jeremiah, God speaks to Judah and Jerusalem, exposing their spiritual and moral foolishness in resisting and rejecting him. Jeremiah uses the illustration of the ocean and the sand. The waters of the sea continually pound upon the sand, yet the sand remains, and the sea remains within its bounds. The analogy is clear – if the ocean cannot prevail against the sand, God’s people will never prevail in their rebellion against him. God’s people did not learn the lesson that nature clearly teaches – it is foolish to fight against God.

We struggle in our walk with God and sin ever so often. Yet, we must take note of today’s text that reminds us that sin deprives us of God’s blessings. We grope around in the dark seeking to find purpose and meaning in life, yet that can only be found in Jesus. It requires a denial of self and self-will, yielding ourselves to the Lordship of Christ, and deliberately following God’s ways. This cannot be achieved with a cavalier attitude, but with resoluteness and determination of heart and spirit. It is to purposefully pursue the path of God. However, hear Paul in today’s New Testament text in Romans 7:19: “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” Admittedly, our best efforts are not enough. We cannot do God’s will without the enabling presence and power of the indwelling Holy Spirit.

Let’s invite God’s Holy Spirit to indwell us and nurture an attitude that deliberately desires to do God’s will. Let’s not allow our sins to deprive us of God’s blessings.  Jermaine Gibson