Jeremiah 6:1-7:29
Has this house become a den of robbers to you? (7:11a). About 650 years later the same mouth spoke this phrase again, except on that occasion he coupled his voice with a whip. Jesus was making it clear - he is the Lord who has been watching all that that Israel has been doing (7:11b). Jesus is the Lord who spoke to Jeremiah. Jesus is the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel (7:3). And what was it that made the temple a den of robbers? It was claiming that the temple was the Temple of God - the hothouse of his presence - and yet refusing to reform actions or change ways in recognition of that. God does not desire statements. He finds words annoying... if they are not backed up by action. Do we really work hard to change our ways? Are we pushing ourselves and straining to become holy and pleasing to Him, acknowledging his power over us and his immense provision for us? Going-through-the-motions Christianity is no Christianity at all. Just wanting to have an acceptable-working-relationship with Jesus is actually wanting to have no relationship with him at all. The Lord will not have it that way. He won’t have lip-service; he wants life-service. The worst offense to Him, the sure-fire way of getting him tipping over tables in our lives is to live outside obedience to Him and to say “peace, peace”. Life outside obedience to Jesus is not OK. Even the slightest hint of rebellion against his call sows the most rampant ruin in our lives. If we are living that way we need to cut off our hair and throw it away. We need to mourn and repent and beg Him for his mercy. You never know, he might just send it our way.
Philippians 4:2-23
Another treasury. Another chapter we could explore for months and still have only just begun. I’m tempted to focus on the repeated image of our lives being fragrant offerings to God - it is definitely something I need to press into, I think it is a defining theme in Philippians. But instead I just want to think about ‘rejoice’. I will say it again: “rejoice” (I like the way Paul does that so I thought I’d copy it - it is about the closest I’ll ever get to being apostolic). For all the straining and pressing and doing Paul has been on about you could start to think of him a just a little bit earnest. Maybe he starts to seem a bit like that annoying boy at school who always wore his trousers too high, his tie too long and, when answering questions, put his hand up so hard that he lifted himself off his chair. At our school they called them “keenos” in a denigrating way. It was just a defence mechanism I guess - trying to protect our egos against one who would always make us feel bad. But Paul is not a “keeno”. Or at least that is not the full extent of who he was. He was also incredibly enabling of others. He wasn’t trying to prove himself as better than others but was trying to help others do better in life. He rejoiced in what others could do well. He encouraged them to do the same. He encouraged people to focus on the good and the excellent. He called people to copy him and to emulate his pursuit of God and at the same time to laugh and to celebrate and to gaze in wonder at great stuff. Paul wanting there to be great rejoicing in the church. I think there is quite a lot of rejoicing at SWLV. But I’d love to see more.
Proverbs 24:5-14
“Men detest a mocker”. Oh, that’s what I’ve been doing wrong...
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