4/23/13. KNOW THE LORD WHO EXERCISES KINDNESS – my devotional

Key Verse: 9:24                                                                                           Kevin E. Jesmer

“but let the one who boasts boast about this:  that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness,  justice and righteousness on earth,  for in these I delight,” declares the Lord.”

      Dear Lord Jesus Christ, I thank you for being in my life, and in the lives of all believers. Thank you for giving us the Gospel which satisfies our hearts. What else would there be if not for you, the kingdom of God and the word of God in the Bible? I would simply be inundated with thousands of news feeds and trivia galore. My mind would be spinning with so many useless facts with no purpose tying them all together. But you help me to have focus on what is truly fruitful and life giving. Thank you Lord. Help this Gospel permeate the hearts of people across our land, that they may be truly satisfied with Christ. Please help me to learn something deep from this passage. I thank you and I pray in Jesus’ name. Amen!

Sin is an affront to the Holy God. Look at verses 7-11, “Therefore this is what the Lord Almighty says: “See, I will refine and test them, for what else can I do because of the sin of my people? ⁸ Their tongue is a deadly arrow;  it speaks deceitfully. With their mouths they all speak cordially to their neighbors, but in their hearts they set traps for them. ⁹ Should I not punish them for this?” declares the Lord. “Should I not avenge myself  on such a nation as this?” ¹⁰ I will weep and wail for the mountains  and take up a lament concerning the wilderness grasslands. They are desolate and untraveled, and the lowing of cattle is not heard. The birds have all fled and the animals are gone. ¹¹ “I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins, a haunt of jackals; and I will lay waste the towns of Judah so no one can live there.”  Since the people forsook the law of God and stubbornly followed their feelings, they became unfaithful to God and deceitful to one another. They followed idols like their fathers. What could God do? God is holy. He created us in his image so that we could share in his holiness and have a personal relationship with him. But sin breaks our relationship with God. It creates a huge chasm between us and Him. It keeps us from spending eternal life with God forever. That is why God is so angry with sin. He weeps and laments all that damages his relationship with us. He really wants to solve the sin-problem. In the Old Testament time, God dealt with the sin problem of mankind by punishing sin. In this passage he decided to make Jerusalem a heap of ruins. He would refine and test them in the furnace of affliction, bringing death and destruction that would produce deep lament and wailing (17-22). After a lot of national suffering, the peoples’ hearts would hopefully turn back to the God who loved them so.

In this New Testament time, God still hates sin. Verse 9 still stands, ^“Should I not punish them for this?” declares the Lord. “Should I not avenge myself  on such a nation as this?” God has every right to punish us for our sins. But he chose not to punish us directly. Instead he sent his One and Only Son, Jesus, as the Lamb of God. The Father poured out his wrath that is due us, on Jesus Christ. The price for our sin was paid. Our hearts are moved by this love and grace and we are changed. We return to God, not because of his punishment. We return to God because of his love and forgiveness. This is much more effective than receiving a whole lot of wrath. My sins of bitterness and vengeance in my heart deserve God’s punishment and wrath. I deserve to become  a heap of ruins and be laid waste. Yes. But Jesus died for me. I could be forgiven. I could be set free from condemnation and the power of sin by the grace of God.

God still does refine and test us. But it is not in a punishing way. It is in the way of a loving, concerned and an engaged father does to his kids. God is treating us as his sons and daughters. He wants to help us to share in his holiness so that we can enjoy eternal life with him. Things have changed a lot since Jesus came into this world, 2,000 years ago.

Verses 12-16 read, ^“Who is wise enough to understand this? Who has been instructed by the Lord and can explain it? Why has the land been ruined and laid waste like a desert that no one can cross? ¹³ The Lord said, “It is because they have forsaken my law, which I set before them; they have not obeyed me or followed my law. ¹⁴ Instead, they have followed the stubbornness of their hearts; they have followed the Baals, as their ancestors taught them.” ¹⁵ Therefore this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: “See, I will make this people eat bitter food and drink poisoned water. ¹⁶ I will scatter them among nations that neither they nor their ancestors have known, and I will pursue them with the sword until I have made an end of them.”

For those who refused to repent and turn to him he invited them to wail, or cry out for salvation and to teach the next generation to do the same. Look at verses 17-22, “This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Consider now! Call for the wailing women to come;    send for the most skillful of them. ¹⁸ Let them come quickly  and wail over us till our eyes overflow with tears  and water streams from our eyelids. ¹⁹ The sound of wailing is heard from Zion: ‘How ruined we are! How great is our shame! We must leave our land because our houses are in ruins.’” ²⁰ Now, you women, hear the word of the Lord;  open your ears to the words of his mouth. Teach your daughters how to wail; teach one another a lament. ²¹ Death has climbed in through our windows and has entered our fortresses; it has removed the children from the streets and the young men from the public squares. ²² Say, “This is what the Lord declares: “‘Dead bodies will lie like dung on the open field, like cut grain behind the reaper, with no one to gather them.’”  The way that I see this is that people need to care about their sin and the wayward condition of their hearts and cry out to God. When I was lost in the depth of my sin, at the age of 22, I cried out to God in my pillow one day, “Oh God!” That is all that I could muster. But it was enough. God started to send Christians my way. They preached the Gospel to me, loved me and served me and prayed for me until I could accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior. The point I am making is that we need to care enough about our sin that we should weep and wail over our sin. But we should not remain in our weeping and wailing. We need to come to Jesus and be forgiven.

We need to boast about Jesus and the Gospel and not in worldly things.  Look at verses 23-26, “²³ This is what the Lord says: “Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength  or the rich boast of their riches, ²⁴ but let the one who boasts boast about this:  that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,” declares the Lord. ²⁵  “The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will punish all who are circumcised only in the flesh— ²⁶ Egypt, Judah, Edom, Ammon, Moab and all who live in the wilderness in distant places. For all these nations are really uncircumcised, and even the whole house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.”

Seeing the situation, Jeremiah asks, “Who is wise enough to understand this? Who has been instructed by the LORD and can explain it?” Their failure to understand was not out of ignorance. They boasted of wisdom, strength and riches, but none of these could save them. They rejected the law, followed idols, and became fools. Rom 1:21 reads, “ For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.” .

We need understanding that leads to knowing God, the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth. God’s kindness is meant to lead us to repentance Rom 2:4 reads, “Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?”  Lord, please grant me and all of my people the understanding that leads to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.

True righteousness is in delighting in Him, not in outward religion like observing the law of circumcision or overly delighting in our human achievements.  Of course it is OK to be proud of our achievements and our kids’ achievements or the achievements of our nation. But we need to see the one who made all these possible. We need to see that it is only by the grace of God that we are able to achieve these things. We need to give glory to God. Riches and strength are fleeting. All of my 401 K can be depleted in one year or less if I got some serious illness. I feel my body getting slowly weaker as I get older. My achievements are important, but in light of history and 4 billion people, what have I achieved humanly?

Prayer: Father, cleanse my heart of falsehood, help me to hold and understand your word of truth, and circumcise my heart through repentance so I may delight in you and delight you.

One Word: The LORD exercises kindness