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Pastor's Blog June 13, 2019
"The Lord Still Gives You His Holiness"
{Scroll over scripture reference to read the scripture or reference.
Jeremiah 2:3 confronts us with the challenge of holiness by recalling an episode in the life of Israel; the verse states, "'Israel was holiness to the Lord, the firstfruits of His increase. All that devour him will offend; disaster will come upon them,' says the Lord" (NKJV).
Contextually, Jeremiah 2:3 is talking about the wilderness wanderings that Israel engaged in, when God led them out of their slavery in Egypt. Verse 2 reminisces on the fact that God guided Israel through the desert, "a land not sown" with crops or food. But Israel faced a problem: they were not faithful to God. Jeremiah 2:5-8 recounts how Israel was unfaithful to God in the wilderness: their idolatry, the reality that they often longed for other kinds of deities, a failure to remember that it was God who had led them out of Egypt and was leading them to the promised land (as opposed to themselves or some other deity), and a general suspicion and lack of trust in God on their part.
The picture which God paints of his people in this chapter is not a pretty one, to be sure. What is interesting, however, is that God calls Israel "holiness." God identifies Israel by the name "holiness" in Jeremiah 2:3, but Israel is anything but holy in Jeremiah 2:5-8; in fact, their behavior has been so rebellious and hurtful that God is now taking them to court (cf. v. 9). Yet nowhere in the entirety of chapter 2 does God tell Jeremiah, "I once considered Israel to be holiness, but I don't anymore." Why does God call Israel holiness and then charge them for not loving him? What is going on in Jeremiah 2?
It appears that Jeremiah 2:3 indicates something astounding about God's holiness: when it is given to you, it is not conditioned on your behavior! God calls Israel "holiness"; while the NKJV says that Israel WAS holiness to the Lord, there is no verb in the original Hebrew. This means that what God calls holy keeps on being holy. Further, God does not stop giving his holiness to his people, even if they are not holy.
If you find your relationship with God needs improvement, you can be assured that God has not abandoned you. The Lord still gives you his holiness. And that's encouraging news.
God Bless.
Pastor Nathaniel Gamble
