photo #5619279

Reading Jeremiah 29 today. There are a couple of very famous verses in this passage that people like to quote. It is probable that many don't know that those verses were directed at a people who were in captivity because of their own sin. Jeremiah tells the people that the Lord said for them to be content in their captivity- to build houses and have families and that he would deliver them at the end of 70 years. That's not the message anyone wants to hear. We want to hear "The Lord is going to deliver you OUT of this captivity", not "The Lord will be with you if you'll be content and accept the consequences of your actions."A pervasive theme in Christianity today is this idea that people can live whatever way they want and that anything bad that happens to them is because they are being persecuted or it's someone's else fault. There is no self evaluation and no owning of their own sin and the consequences thereof. I am all for grace and mercy being balanced with judgment, but the ultra-Grace crowd isn't producing a holy people. It's producing Laodicea by the masses. It's a self-centered, I'm right, I can do what I want and no one better say anything about my life because I have grace. Grace was meant to help you live by the dictates of the NT, to be holy inward which will produce the right outward state. It's grace to treat others right, to be humble and honest about your own sin and to accept the consequences of your actions and learn from them. At the end of the chapter, God condemns those preachers that preached against the captivity. He said that they caused the people to trust in a lie and taught rebellion against the Lord (vs. 31-32). I fear for many modern preachers as they are pandering to a self-centered attitude among the average Christian. This is a war we are in. We're not here to play the victim, to "live our best life now" or make this world our home. This world is not our home, it's our battlefield. Our best life is not now, it's later and it's for eternity.