Jeremiah 16:14-15 “However, the days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when it will no longer be said, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the Israelites up out of Egypt,’ but it will be said, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the Israelites up out of the land of the north and out of all the countries where he had banished them.’ For I will restore them to the land I gave their ancestors.
The NCAA basketball tournament begins this week. As a lifelong Hoosier, I fondly remember the times we have won the title. But that was long ago, as I am so often reminded. History is important. But my coffee mug with the image of five national championship banners on it is fading. We hope for a new story to go with the old!
The Spirit has directed Jeremiah to give a lot of bad news. Dark days were coming. The people would be taken captive by a foreign aggressor. But there is more to the story. Israel had long remembered that God was ‘the God that brought you out of Egypt.’ It was a great story! It was a formative story. They were never to forget their history for it told them who, (and Whose) they were. But God was about to do a new thing. There was a new story to go with the old! Soon, they would know that God was going to be ‘the God Who brought them out of the north.’ The history, their story, was still being written.
When we read the Bible, we cannot get away from the fact that it is an old book. For most people, it is the oldest book they will ever read with no real competition for second place! But we should be careful to realize that, though it is an old book, though it is a history of sorts, it is not dead. God is still at work. The God Who was alive and moving in the book of Exodus moves in the book of Jeremiah and in the book of Acts. The God of the Church in the book of Acts is active in the world today. That very God wants to be active in our lives, too! Not just generally in the Church, but in our church, and even in our own life!
If the only interaction we have with God is a story of other people’s lives in other times, we will have great difficulty maintaining a good relationship with Him. But He wants so much more than that! He wants an on-going, up-to-date relationship with each one of us! He wants to constantly be adding to the story! He wants to work in our lives and show Himself strong! Do we want that, too?
if we draw near to Him, He will draw near to us. As we do, we will begin to see a God alive and at work. We will see a God, not only of the past, but of the present, and definitely of the future! We serve a living God. We should remember, when Moses was to lead the Israel-ites out of Egypt and asked God what His name was, God told him, “I AM WHO I AM.” Not, “I WAS WHO I WAS.”
Blessings
Pastor Russ
