Forsaking God

Read Jeremiah 2:1-13

Two very serious charges are leveled against the people of Israel. You will find them in verse 13.

1. They had forsaken their God. They are reminded of the wonderful 'honeymoon' (v.2) they enjoyed with the Lord in the old days. But their love for Him had quickly cooled. The old, eager question, "Where is the Lord?" as they constantly sought His presence is no longer heard. Now that He had rescued them from Egypt and established them in the Promised Land, God was quietly left out of their national life.

Does God mean all to you that once He did?


2. They had changed their God. If a nation abandons God it must fill its life with something else instead. For many years, materialism, nationalism, and humanism have been the preferred substitutes for the Christian God: things to live for, which make the minimum of moral demands and call for no faith in anything greater than the human intellect. In more recent years the spiritual vacuum has been filled, increasingly, by Islam. And so, the second charge which God brought against His people through the words of the prophet Jeremiah was that they had "changed their God" (v.11). For the one, true, living God whom they had been taught to serve and worship, they had substituted the false gods and idols of the nations all around them; instead of spiritual worship they practiced idolatry.

Have we abandoned our spiritual heritage? Does God rule your life, or do you live by another standard?

Rekindle in my heart, O Lord, the love I had for you at the first; may I lose no chance of seeking You in prayer and in Your Word. For the sake of Christ my Lord. Amen.

Image: Manasseh's idolatry