Amend Your Ways

7/9/26 Bible Thought (Jeremiah 7)

Photo by Edward Cisneros on Unsplash

Main Idea: Genuine repentance is proven through genuine change.

A Look at the Text:

God, through His prophet, offered Judah a condition: amend your ways, and you can stay (Jer. 7:1-7). If they wanted to continue in the blessedness of the Promised Land, they must show allegiance to the Promiser.

But sadly, the people’s trust wasn’t in God, but in His temple (Jer. 7:4). They believed that based upon sanctuary worship, their lives outside of the sanctuary were of little consequence. They would commit all manner of atrocities and then come to the temple to offer “worship” (Jer. 7:9-10).

To this, the prophet pointed them to Shiloh, the town where the tabernacle of Moses was first permanently set up (Josh. 18:1). There, because of the consistent sins of the priestly class, God turned the city over to its captors. It is understood that after the Philistines defeated the Israelites in 1 Samuel 4, they went on to destroy the city of Shiloh.^[1]

God was willing to sacrifice the dignity of His house rather than to put up with phony worship.

The people could find forgiveness if they would amend their ways, but they had to stop pretending that a little worship sprinkled on top of an utterly godless life would be sufficient to please the One who was supposed to be their King.

Sadly, because they refused to return, the Jerusalem temple in all of its glory would be destroyed just as the sanctuary at Shiloh was many generations before (Jer. 7:13-15).

Bringing it Home

Worship doesn’t smooth over a life of disobedience. As the prophet Samuel once confronted King Saul many years before Jeremiah’s time, “To obey is better than sacrifice” (1 Sam. 15:22).

It’s not enough to worship God in word if we don’t also worship Him in deed. If we claim that He has our heart, then He should also have our hands and feet to obey.

If we find ourselves distant, we only need to amend our ways and come back to Him. True repentance begins with a change of mind and heart that ultimately results in a change of life. Our internal disposition manifests through outward action.

This doesn’t mean we will live perfectly, but it also means that if we’re really sorry, we’ll really show it. To try and smooth over a lawless life through worship is actually an insult to God and shows a complete disdain for both God’s mercy and God’s holiness.

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Challenge:

Is my outer worship truly a manifestation of an inward change?

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^[1] F. B. Huey, Jeremiah, Lamentations, vol. 16, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1993), 107.