Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is.
Jeremiah 17:7 KJV
The Context:
Jeremiah was a prophet who had the distinct privilege of speaking to Judah at the height of its apostasy and punishment by God for its sin. He warned Judah continuously about its evil, but Judah would not listen. Today's extract is taken from a chapter where God again warns that he will punish the evil of idolatry that Judah had engaged in. God is a jealous God, and whatever it is you know about jealousy, imagine a God who does not brook any competition for attention in my heart. It is either God sits on the throne of my heart, or he is not involved at all. We deceive ourselves into thinking we can play both sides, appealing to God to take what he can and leave the rest to us. It does not actually work that way. Ask Amaziah, the king of Judah, who men must have seen as a committed king, but God's verdict about him was: And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord , but not with a perfect heart.
2 Chronicles 25:2 KJV. You can't fool God with the external show of piety or hypocrisy; the one who made the heart knows all its tricks.
The Message:
It is in this context that todays extract applies to all of us. How's my heart? Is it fully committed to God or are there options that are able make themselves appealing to me? Check out the words used: blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord. Trust is not first seen; it is the result of a settled inner man; one that is not fazed with what is going on around him. Trust is first internal, before you can see its evidence out of the life of the one who trusts. And it matters in whom the trust is anchored. Man is wired to trust in something or someone. At all times, we need to be confident that something will work out the way it was built to. We get on the bus, trusting it can take us to our destination. We enrol in a course, confident that we will be better off for the knowledge we will gain. If this applies to the earthly and the temporal, imagine the impact in the spiritual.
How do you work out the blessings that come to the man who trusts in the Lord? If God knows my heart, and that it is fully devoted to him, he knows that if he commands, I will be quick to obey. He knows that before I take a decision, I consult him and only act on his instructions, no matter how odd they may sound. He knows that nothing else can catch and hold my attention except him, and that even in the face of trials and tough times, my love for him will not let me turn my back on him. Can this be said of me? Can it be said of you? Do I pay lip service to commitment to God, or does God know that I am indeed his own?
Remember, we deal with a God of absolute knowledge, one who knows the end from the beginning. The latter part of the verse under consideration today says: whose hope the Lord is. I believe those words are instructive. Not really who hopes in God alone, but whose totality of hope is God. God is my hope, not just the one I hope in. It is not so much of possessing hope, but being defined by it, so that it becomes my identity. When you meet me, God, who is my hope, is so evident in and on me that he cannot but be noticed. Am I the one who has to shout it out that: 'don't you know that I am a Christian' or is that allegiance and relationship so evident that it shines out of me?
The Response:
It matters what I do going forward. The path of blessedness runs through total submission to God and an embrace of all that He is and wants. One of the verses before today also talks about the opposite too, so you know what you are getting into:Thus saith the Lord; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord. You can't stay on the fence when it comes to commitment. There is no middle ground. You are either all in or all out. Where are you located? In God, or content being around what looks like God? You need to be sure; your eternity depends on your inner state. His time of favour is here.
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