The second half of Jeremiah 7 is very clear. God is not going to be mocked. Check out what God instructs Jeremiah: “don’t waste your time praying for this people. Don’t offer to make petitions or intercessions. Don’t bother me with them. I’m not listening”. Are you paying attention here? God tells Jeremiah to quit wasting his breath on these people. They have tuned God out and He is going to do the same. They are living life the way they want, not the way God instructed, and they are going to pay a price. God says his “white hot anger” is on the way. Life is not looking good for these folks. They have crossed God and He is done being bothered by their requests and doesn’t even want His messenger, the prophet Jeremiah, wasting his breath any longer.
So what is the problem. Obedience. Or lack there of actually. Check out what God says here: “Obey me. Do what I say and I will be your God and you will be my people. Live the way I tell you. Do what I command so that your lives will go well”. It really is not all that difficult. If we obey, God will be our God and we will be His people. If we live like He tells us – all will go well. The key is one word – obedience. Over and over in scripture He makes it perfectly clear. Obey me, be obedient, walk in my ways, live like I commanded. He says it in many different ways, but it is the same message. We have to obey. We have to obey. We have to obey. It is not rocket science. It is about execution – living life the way God has instructed us in His Word. It is not hidden from us – He wrote it down in black and white, well, actually on a rock or a scroll but our message today comes in black and white in the form of a book called the Bible. It is clear and gives us a lot of very obvious things we need to do. Love God, love your neighbor, love yourself, love you spouse, love your kids. Love is a central theme and there are lots of other things we are commanded to do too. Are you executing on what God has told us to do? Do you know the Word so you even know? Learn it and live it. Obedience is the only way!
