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Serious In 2015

From @DailyHope

All Made New: Old Is the Real Illusion

Oh, this piece from Jon Bloom at Desiring God is so good!

So many of us love these words written by Jeremiah, the lamenting prophet, which have sustained us in dark days:

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
(Lamentations 3:22–23)

Have you ever wondered why Jeremiah says that God’s steadfast love and mercies never cease and yet they are new every morning? How is something that never ceases, new?

Every Single Moment Is New

We might say that Jeremiah is simply speaking phenomenologically, meaning itappears like God’s love and mercies are new with each new day, even though it’s not really new. But I don’t think that’s true. Jeremiah is not merely being more than poetic (which he is). I think there is a very real sense in which God’s enduring love and constant mercies are not only new every morning, but new every moment.

“God’s enduring love and constant mercies are not only new every morning, but new every moment.”  Tweet

Every single moment is new. Every moment is a completely unique creation by God the Father through God the Son who is upholding the universe at that moment by the word of his power (Hebrews 1:2–3). Never is a moment neglected. Never is a moment repeated. Each moment is a new, infinitely powerful and complex word spoken by the Word with deliberate intention (John 1:1). Every moment God makes he decides to be utterly faithful to his character and his purposes. Every new moment God commits to fulfill what he says he will do.

“Old” Is the Real Illusion

When it comes to experiencing things as new or old, I think we tend to interpret our phenomenological experience backwards. The real illusion is not that old things appear new to us (like God’s mercies or a sunrise), but that new things ever appear old. We think of things as new or old mainly because of our mortality. We, and all terrestrial life in this age, die. So we observe creation as it changes and life as it progresses toward death and call it aging. But that’s phenomenological; that’s how it appears. In reality, every thing is new every moment.

God is not old. God is. He calls himself the Ancient of Days to help us time-bound creatures grasp something of the vastness of his eternal nature (Daniel 7:9). But time itself is a creation of God. He is not defined by age.

Neither are you in essence young or old. You are. Young and old are phenomenological terms we use to describe our experience of time in this age and where we think we are on the progression toward physical death. But that’s a relative measurement. Measured against God or the created universe we are extremely new. But in reality, we exist in each brand new moment and each momentary experience is new. And everything we do is new. Whatever you are doing, no matter how many times you have done something similar before, you are not doing the same old thing. You are doing something new, something that has never been done before and will never be done again. We always exist in the new and always do what’s new.

“Behold, I Am Making All Things New”

In the age to come, I doubt very much that we will speak of things being old. All things will always be new because we will live with a far greater, unfiltered awareness and wonder of the continual creation of God without the time constriction of impending death. I think we will find that a world of wonderful mystery is packed into the promise, “Behold, I am making all things new” (Revelation 21:5). And I think we will find that there was more than we’ve ever imagined packed into the statement, “the old has passed away” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

God’s steadfast love and mercies for you are indeed new every morning. In fact, they are new with every new moment as he commits with a continually fresh resolve to keep his great faithfulness working for you.

Enjoy the gift of this new moment, whatever it brings, knowing that he who is “making all things new” for you is working all things together for your eternal, ageless good (Romans 8:28).

Context is Everything

The Most Misunderstood Verse

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. - Jeremiah 29:11 ESV

Jeremiah 29:11 is one of those "promise box" verses that people love to  quote as a promise of present blessing. Hey people, context is everything! That verse is in a letter from the Prophet Jeremiah to the exiles in Babylon. It is a promise of God being with them in exile, and blessings for their descendants, with an ultimate fulfillment in the coming of Christ's kingdom. It is a text about outliving your life, passing on a legacy, and seeking the welfare of others. It is NOT a promise of a problem and pain free life NOW. It is probably one of the most misunderstood verses in contemporary American Christianity.

I think Jared Wilson is right in his comments on that text in the post quoted below. It's long, but well worth the read.

Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon . . .-- Jeremiah 29:4

Exile -- which is the ongoing state of the Church today as it was for Israel then -- presupposes that we are in Babylon, not Jerusalem. And one of the major mistakes the Church has made is expecting Babylon to act like Jerusalem, to be like Jerusalem, to even recognize Jerusalem as something ideal to be. We see this in the way Christians keep trying to convince non-Christians that America is really a Christian nation and needs to start acting like it again. 

The reality is that we should not expect Babylon to start acting like Jerusalem. Our calling instead is to live like Jerusalem within Babylon. What does this look like? The prophetic words are helpful:

Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. 
-- Jeremiah 29:5-6

First of all, does this give in any way the sense of "just passing through"? Does it look temporary?

Does this give the sense of living, as some say, like "the world is not our home"?

There is a sense in which the world is not our home, of course. But there's a sense in which it is. When we say things like "This world is not my home," we should not mean that this world is not the place God has called us to live out his kingdom. Here we are. Where else are we going to live? And in fact, the eschatological forecast of the new heavens and the new earth show us that this world is our home, albeit the transformed version of it that is coming. 

When we say "This world is not my home" we ought to simply mean the way of the world that is passing away - the sinful system of the world, the corruption, the injustice.

Therefore: Suburbia may be your home, but consumerism should not be. And America may be your home, but nationalism should not be. Your house may be your home, but Christ should be your security. We ought at all times to remember that even the good gifts God gives us are not eternal.

The Longest Book in the Bible

Everyone knows it's the Book of Psalms, right? Guess again! Read this:

"What Is the Longest Book in the Bible? – Justin Taylor" 

Would you believe it's Jeremiah?

Known in the Womb

A visual exegesis and application of Jeremiah 1:5. How could the implications be any clearer?

Hat Tip: Vitamin Z

Utterly Useless

"But where are your gods that you made for yourself? Let them arise, if they can save you, in your time of trouble; for as many as your cities are your gods, O Judah." (Jeremiah 2:28)

 “The worst thing about idols, as the Hebrew scriptures so tirelessly point out, is that they are utterly useless when you need them most (Jer. 2:28).”
                                             — Christopher J. H. Wright

I Shock Angels

I must confess that I frequently shock the angels. How do I do this? The Blazing Center quotes Jeremiah as follows:

Be appalled, O heavens [angels], at this;be shocked, be utterly desolate,declares the Lord,for my people have committed two evils:they have forsaken me,the fountain of living waters,and hewed out cisterns for themselves,broken cisterns that can hold no water. JE 2.12-13

Thus every time I (or you) seek fulfillment in anything other than Jesus, the watching angels are appalled and astounded. Sorry fellows, but you should already know that I am a sinner who needs his Savior every single day.

The above referenced post goes on to quote these amazing but true words from C.S. Lewis:

We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” - C.S. Lewis

May the Lord deliver me from being too easily pleased.

Archaeological Discovery in Jerusalem Naming Biblical Figures

From an article at Israeli website Haaretz.com, archeologists have discovered seals that belonged to two officials mentioned in the Book of Jeremiah.

Israeli archaeologists have unearthed a seal impression belonging to a minister of the biblical King Zedekiah, which dates back 2,600 years, during an archeological dig in Jerusalem's ancient City of David. The finding helps corroborate the story pertaining to the biblical minister's demand to have the prophet Jeremiah killed.

The seal impression, or bulla, with the name Gedalyahu ben Pashur, who served as minister to King Zedekiah (597-586 BCE) according to the Book of Jeremiah, was found completely intact just meters away from a separate seal impression of another of Zedekia's ministers, Yehukual ben Shelemyahu, which was unearthed three years ago.

Both ministers are mentioned in the Book of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 38 1-4) along with two other ministers when they came to King Zedekiah demanding the death of the prophet Jeremiah for preaching to the besieged city to surrender.

The impressions, measuring 1 cm in diameter each, were found among the debris of the destruction of the First Temple period, by an excavation team led by Prof. Eilat Mazar of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Other News or Blog Coverage:

Biblelandpictures.com
Charismatica
ChristianToday