May 20, 2023
Passage Read: Jeremiah 5-8
Meditation Verses: 7:22-23
Thought
The Law is all about how to walk in God's ways, how to do what is right and avoid what is evil. There were many commands, all of which teach what it means to love the Lord with all the heart and to love a neighbor as oneself. The sacrificial system was established and prescribed for the occasional breaking of a command; it was never meant as a means to ignore the commands and get away with it by killing some animals! Yet how eagerly we look for those loopholes, for what we think are loopholes. What can we do to make up for our lack of diligence and care about the ways of God? What can we do to satisfy God while still living however we want? Sacrifices and offerings! Just buy God off with some treasure, somebody else's blood. Ask forgiveness with no intention of change. Endure a weekly Sunday service: Mass became the new sacrifice, carried over as the Sunday worship service, a weekly offering to let me live the rest of the week for myself.
Application
God is not mocked. He is not deceived. He takes no pleasure in sacrifice, but in submission and obedience. God is pleased by humility, when I acknowledge that He is God and teaches me the way I should live, and I do what He asks. I can't fool Him; He sees my heart and my days, and knows whether I care about what He says or not, whether I'm determined to conform my life to His desire. Jesus' sacrifice set me free from the penalty of sin and made me new so that I could and would finally and truly walk in God's ways. I must not look to offerings and sacrifices to cover a disobedient life; I must train myself to walk in obedience, or else I am not saved at all!