the Third Week after Easter
Click here to join the effort!
Daily Devotionals
Day by Day Devotional - Year 3 of 5
Jeremiah 2:19-37
Leaving our first love is always the beginning – though we may not realise it at first – of many other evils. God had called Israel out of Egypt to serve Him (Exodus 4:23) and here the people brazenly say to Him: "I will not serve" (v. 20 JND trans.; cf. Nehemiah 3:5, the example of the Tekoite nobles). Sadly it is also the reply of many Christians to the One who has saved them, even if they dare not say so out loud! We can assure them that they are deceiving themselves. For it is impossible not to serve any master at all. Refusal to yield obedience to the Lord lets us fall into the slavery of idol worship (v. 28).
Going even further in their rebellion against the LORD these wicked people have deliberately turned their backs on Him (v. 27). With unspeakable ingratitude they have forgotten the One who has done them nothing but good (v. 32). Poor people! God seeks to open their eyes. He invites them to return to Him and to consider the wandering ways which lay behind them (v. 23; see Jeremiah 14:10). Dear Christian friends, we sometimes need to consider our own ways. How many wrong steps, how many detours, how many dead ends we have encountered in our wanderings, because we did not want to follow the right and plain path of the Lord’s will for us!
