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Sunday, January 04, 2004 Belgrave HeightsMy inspiration from BHC this year came from two talks by Robert Coyle who is Executive Director of Youth Dimension. First talk was based on the elderly prophet Jeremiah when he was cast into a pit and left to die (Jer38:1-13) - talk was called "Alone with only God" and the take-home message, in response to the question why Jeremiah, who was having a miserable life, didn't just give up, was "the greater the sense of call, the stronger the hold". If we know God's clear call to our heart in what we're doing, nothing will cause us to give up! Jeremiah knew that God had called him to his unpopular ministry, and he was never going to let the pits he found himself in throughout his rather wretched life cause him to let go of God (as well as the physical pit, there were pits of opposition to his unpopular message, and relationship pits including rejection by family and friends).Second talk was of a much younger Jeremiah, and was called "The Aching Heart of God for the Lost" (Jer20:7-18). The gist was that God had passed judgement on Judah and their evil king Manasseh - God said that he would wipe them as you wipe filth from off a bowl and Robert painted this (familiar to some of us!) picture of a long-forgotten bowl of green mould from the back of the fridge. Utter useless filth!! And this was unconditional judgement, it was going to happen, the bowl would be wiped clean - so why did God allow seven (I think) more kings of Judah, and the prophet Jeremiah (who had a rather unsuccessful and naturally miserable ministry amongst this filth) to be raised up? Why Jeremiah's anguished and depressed life? Robert suggested one reason - that we see reflected in Jeremiah's broken heart the feelings in the heart of God as he loved these people of His who were nothing more than filth and who were destined for eternal damnation and torment. This was breaking God's heart, just as we see the broken heart of Jeremiah. We were left with the question - what is our attitude to the lost sinner? Does our heart reflect the heart of God towards that individual? God loves the sinner, while he hates the sin. Is this really our attitude? To all sinners?? Judgement has already been passed on the world at the cross, yet God in these days of grace offers all a way back to Him. We need to recognise that he loves us - full stop! Just like Robert's little brown-eyed grand-child (6 months old) - "no grandchild could be loved more - but why?" What has he done to earn a grandfather's love? Nothing; he's simply loved because he's family. Equally, we've done nothing to deserve or earn God's love. But he loves us dearly, sinners and all. # posted by geoff @ 10:57 pm 0 comments
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