Jeremiah 17:27 – The Purpose of Life's Gates
27 “But if you will not heed Me to hallow the Sabbath day, such as not carrying a burden when entering the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, then I will kindle a fire in its gates, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched.” ’ ”
I once brought a gun to school. My parents were out of town and didn't ask the usual questions, didn't help perform the usual rhetorical inspections before crossing one of life's thresholds from one setting where one set of practices was perfectly acceptable to another. Thus, I accidentally violated the civic sanctity of middle school with a cap gun, which in days lessons necessarily suspicious I promptly turned over to a wise teacher without consequences.
We cross thresholds all the time from one setting and set of norms to another. We often do so heedlessly. Thus, Jeremiah 17:27 warns us that without circumspection what we carry can define us. God's people are given both the commandment and opportunity to come to Him not as butcher, and baker, and candlestick maker but, each of them, as a unique reflection of His glory both in what we can do and what we can't. We are invited to come with Job's vulnerable candor, come as we were made, without tools or weapons to justify or defend ourselves.
If we are heedless, however, of the ways in which God reveals Himself and would sanctify us in various settings, He will change them up. He will remove the blessings and boundaries we have taken for granted. This is not particularly a punishment. To lose gates and palaces, or their equivalent in our hearts and routines, may seem painful or even vindictive, but the appreciation of His glory and our need for it is far more precious. All else, everybody else, by comparison, serves temporarily to point to Him.
What's taking up space in your mind and heart, then, as you cross the threshold, go through the gates, into the newness He grants in this day? Have you kept back a little something from yesterday unto tomorrow? Examine yourselves. You know what are the prudent savings and reflections of gratitude, the warding off of presumption, and what is, in fact, a reserve in case God doesn't validate you in whatever a new setting demands.
You are more than your toys and your tools, brothers and sisters in Christ. Be they cap guns to play at defense or conquest or actual carry and palaces to ward off by ostentation, He will have them before they serve as barriers between Him and you. Hold loosely, beloved, to what, and even to whom, He grants you in one setting, for He will show Himself greater by other means hereafter. Consider even the fires of correction which He might kindle for faulty, assumption-ridden transitions to be but an opportunity for offering to Him.
In passages like this, the Word points us to another threshold. Paul is more explicit in the fiery transition of 1 Corinthians 3:15. He writes, " 15 If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire." Our hearts are sticky, Paul and Jeremiah worn. They attach to the things and the settings God would have us use for His glory but not define ourselves by. As you pass through the gates you are aware of, then, and heed the possibility of thresholds you are not, renew yourself in Him with open hands for what He might give or take away.
I once brought a gun to school. My parents were out of town and didn't ask the usual questions, didn't help perform the usual rhetorical inspections before crossing one of life's thresholds from one setting where one set of practices was perfectly acceptable to another. Thus, I accidentally violated the civic sanctity of middle school with a cap gun, which in days lessons necessarily suspicious I promptly turned over to a wise teacher without consequences.
We cross thresholds all the time from one setting and set of norms to another. We often do so heedlessly. Thus, Jeremiah 17:27 warns us that without circumspection what we carry can define us. God's people are given both the commandment and opportunity to come to Him not as butcher, and baker, and candlestick maker but, each of them, as a unique reflection of His glory both in what we can do and what we can't. We are invited to come with Job's vulnerable candor, come as we were made, without tools or weapons to justify or defend ourselves.
If we are heedless, however, of the ways in which God reveals Himself and would sanctify us in various settings, He will change them up. He will remove the blessings and boundaries we have taken for granted. This is not particularly a punishment. To lose gates and palaces, or their equivalent in our hearts and routines, may seem painful or even vindictive, but the appreciation of His glory and our need for it is far more precious. All else, everybody else, by comparison, serves temporarily to point to Him.
What's taking up space in your mind and heart, then, as you cross the threshold, go through the gates, into the newness He grants in this day? Have you kept back a little something from yesterday unto tomorrow? Examine yourselves. You know what are the prudent savings and reflections of gratitude, the warding off of presumption, and what is, in fact, a reserve in case God doesn't validate you in whatever a new setting demands.
You are more than your toys and your tools, brothers and sisters in Christ. Be they cap guns to play at defense or conquest or actual carry and palaces to ward off by ostentation, He will have them before they serve as barriers between Him and you. Hold loosely, beloved, to what, and even to whom, He grants you in one setting, for He will show Himself greater by other means hereafter. Consider even the fires of correction which He might kindle for faulty, assumption-ridden transitions to be but an opportunity for offering to Him.
In passages like this, the Word points us to another threshold. Paul is more explicit in the fiery transition of 1 Corinthians 3:15. He writes, " 15 If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire." Our hearts are sticky, Paul and Jeremiah worn. They attach to the things and the settings God would have us use for His glory but not define ourselves by. As you pass through the gates you are aware of, then, and heed the possibility of thresholds you are not, renew yourself in Him with open hands for what He might give or take away.
Comments
Post a Comment