Over the past couple of chapters in Jeremiah, we see people asking Jeremiah the question basically, “What does God say we should do?” Only to see them call Jeremiah a liar and do what they want. This is not a one-time event that only happened in Jeremiah. Throughout history we see people hearing what God says to do and then doing what they wanted to do because they thought they knew better than God.
This is what is called sin. It is an act of pride in which one thinks that they know better than God for there life. Sin and pride share one letter which is found in the middle of each word, “I”. The “I’ in prIde was the original sIn with Adam and Eve. Eve had been tricked by the serpent to believe God was stopping her from being everything she could be. It was her prIde that he used against her to sIn by eating the fruit.
Jonah, one of God’s most faithful prophets, chose to run in the opposite direction from where God wanted him to go. He felt he knew better than God. Come on, give the people of Nineveh a chance to turn from their evil ways?!?! There had to be some sort of mix up in God’s instructions. He was not going to have any part of this. Until his actions threatened innocent lives did Jonah surrender to do God’s will. Yet, his prIde kept him from celebrating the miracle God worked in Nineveh.
Even today there are people that think they know God better than He knows Himself. They take and put God in a box as to how He works things. Like in the time of Jeremiah people follow what man says God is than what He says in Isaiah 55:8-9,
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
They ask for what God wants and His ways but then when He doesn’t match up to what they want they tighten the walls because they deny His ways not being their ways. But when people follow those that try to put God in a box they tend to get hurt and by those that made the box. Sometimes this has led to spiritual death because God didn’t do what they said he would do when they interacted to the box.
This is what happens when people listen to men and not researching for themselves what the Bible says against what the people are saying. We need to be like the Bereans in Acts 17, did when they heard Paul and Silas teach they compared what they said to the scripture. May we follow the words of Paul to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:15NSAB;
Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.
(Photo by Emily Morter on Unsplash)
Bonnie Sue Writes 