Jeremiah 5, 13

At this point in Jeremiah, we see that the Lord has destined his people to experience exile.  Exile for their sin and their worship of foreign gods.  Although God still sees them as his people, he places them in judgement and they refuse to repent.  Even though the Lord has given them chance after chance to turn away form their sin, they do nothing but refuse.  The language used in Jeremiah speaks all to familiar to what we are seeing even in the world today.  Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, look and take note!  Search her squares to see if you can find a man, one who does justice
and seeks truth, that I may pardon her.  ² Though they say, “As the Lord lives,” yet they swear falsely.  We see this all over the place.  People say that their affections and desires are for the Lord, but in all reality they do not desire him at all.  It is only words.  The fear that we should all analyze in these statements is this true about us.  Do we actually think that we have our hearts bent to the Lord's will and that he is our own desires, when in all reality that we are really just saying this?  Is the Lord really the God we serve are are they just words.  If I am authentic about my own life, I would say that I live in these statements all to often.  I actually say that I would live for the Lord and that I really desire him above all else, but sometimes is is just words.  Words that I say to just say them.  This is something we should look at and authentically be convicted over.  God is desiring for us to repent to him and it be real.  That is a challenge that we must all take each day.

That last portion of this blog I want to devote to this concept of the loincloth in Jeremiah 13.  This cloth that he is asked to take in water, wear, buried, and it would eventually spoil.  This loincloth was supposed to represent something.  Lets unpack this.  The loincloth in that time period was to be worn specifically under outward garments.  This loincloth was worn and placed on the most intimate parts of the body.  Only the person wearing the loincloth and a spouse/partner would see the intimate parts under the loincloth.  I know this may be kind of gross or explicit, but it is important to understand that this was to represent intimacy.  What Jeremiah was told to do was to dip this loincloth where it was not intended and to bury as it was not intended to be.  It was intended to be worn and experience in a proper way as it was designed.  When it was not, it came out rotten and ruined and its use had been taken away.  This is the picture that you see with the intimacy that Israel lost when its intimacy with the Lord was taken, and given to other gods and other things.

The intimacy that was intended for the Lord was misused, it became ruined and rotten.  It was tainted and it had to be thrown out.  Who is to blame?  The one who had ruined the use of the intimacy and there were consequences.  Israel had done this.  They had taken the intimacy intended for the Lord and put it in other places.  Once that happened, the intimacy was tarnished forever.  Think of this with our own relationship with the Lord.  If our affections and our intimacy is placed in other things, it is very clear that we tarnish our intimacy with the Lord.  I challenge you to look at what things in your life may cause this to happen.  I challenge you to look at these things and ask you to consider if they are tarnishing your intimacy with him.  This is something we must look at each and everyday, and in every aspect of our lives.