Always doesn’t mean always anymore – maybe it never did – maybe all ways are not human ways but God does ALL WAYS none of the time and ONE WAY – thru HIM – ALL the time. His ONE WAY is HIS WAY is our New Way, today.
Always is for human daze days – our memories are short – and things like “always do this – always do that” are dreams because maybe we can’t always do this and do that. And then we don’t do what we always do, we are sad. Maybe we complain about things that we thought that were burdens and then became sad to not do them anymore. Human life is funny isn’t it.
But Life in God is a march and a progressive stepwise motion into NEW – even if it is reliving old. Then again maybe old is not old – it is new in a traditional way. Each time we approach things we “always do”, there might be new situations and new people. God does not change but His intentions are new for our new moments to see His direction in a new way. In other words, we got nothing on our ways as God’s Ways are higher – and yet we are allowed to explore our way.
In Jeremiah 13, God equates the Israelites that are supposed to be His pride and people to a linen belt that is not taken care of and becomes useless. God had set aside this set of people – Jeremiah has to go and warn them what is going wrong, and they will be swept to exile again. We see this as a pattern in this old covenant. We are to be grateful – jew and gentile – when Jesus comes to separate us from our sin in the eyes of God – our merciful God does want us to be with Him – listen to Him – and especially acknowledge that HIS WAY is the only way and the best way and why wouldn’t we go the way of the Way…
God’s Way is to bring us back to Him – it may take us a long way humanly – but with turning to God – we are there instantly and with Him – and He does find a WAY to bring us – He makes new ways to get us into His Direction.
I’m going with God – He is my Hope.
Amen
A Linen Belt = told to Jeremiah 13:1-11
This is what the Lord said to me: “Go and buy a linen belt and put it around your waist, but do not let it touch water.” So I bought a belt, as the Lord directed, and put it around my waist. Then the word of the Lord came to me a second time: “Take the belt you bought and are wearing around your waist, and go now to Perath and hide it there in a crevice in the rocks.” So I went and hid it at Perath, as the Lord told me. Many days later the Lord said to me, “Go now to Perath and get the belt I told you to hide there.” So I went to Perath and dug up the belt and took it from the place where I had hidden it, but now it was ruined and completely useless. Then the word of the Lord came to me: “This is what the Lord says: ‘In the same way I will ruin the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem. These wicked people, who refuse to listen to my words, who follow the stubbornness of their hearts and go after other gods to serve and worship them, will be like this belt—completely useless! For as a belt is bound around the waist, so I bound all the people of Israel and all the people of Judah to me,’ declares the Lord, ‘to be my people for my renown and praise and honor. But they have not listened.’
Paul in 2nd Corinthians 5:17-21 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.“
Debbie Upper 