A Rejected God

I have been reading the books of the Old Testament prophets and I can’t even describe how I have felt as I read Bible verses after Bible verses about God being rejected by His own chosen people. I have been thinking about how hurt He must have been. I know there are many times His anger was stirred up and He lashed out at the ones He loved. But, He constantly forgave those obstinate people and reconciled with them, in spite of their rebellious ways.

I have stretched out My hands all day long to a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good, according to their own thoughts; A people who provoke Me to anger continually to My face; Who sacrifice in gardens, and burn incense on altars of brick; Who sit among the graves, and spend the night in the tombs; who eat swine’s flesh, and the broth of abominable things is in their vessels; Who say, ‘Keep to yourself, do not come near me, for I am holier than you!’ These are smoke in My nostrils, a fire that burns all the day. Isaiah 65:2-5

I have had to pause and think about the ways in which I may have rejected the Lord. How many times have I walked in a way that is not good even though I think there is no problem with it? I know I can be stubborn, so I may have done this many times, and probably sometimes I didn’t realize I was doing it because it is in my nature to be rebellious. I recognize that I am not much different from the Israelites in the age of the prophets.

The Lord said also to me in the days of Josiah the king: “Have you seen what backsliding Israel has done? She has gone up on every high mountain and under every green tree, and there played the harlot. I said, after she had done all these things, ‘Return to Me.’ But she did not return. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it. Then I saw that for all the causes for which backsliding Israel had committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a certificate of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but went and played the harlot also. So it came to pass, through her casual harlotry, that she defiled the land and committed adultery with stones and trees. And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah has not turned to Me with her whole heart, but in pretense,” says the Lord. Jeremiah 3:6-10

There is a lot of pretending going on in the church today. Many of us are not fully committed to Christ because other lovers have gotten our attention. We seek fame and fortune, spending hours to achieve our goals, but our relationship with the Lord is at risk. We forsake Him for our pleasures far too often and we expect Him to understand, because He is compassionate and merciful. He has loved us unconditionally and He has given us so much, but we take His goodness for granted.

Thus says the Lord: “What injustice have your fathers found in Me, that they have gone far from Me, Have followed idols, and have become idolaters? Neither did they say, ‘Where is the Lord, who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, who led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and pits, through a land of drought and the shadow of death, through a land that no one crossed and where no one dwelt?’ I brought you into a bountiful country, to eat its fruit and its goodness. But when you entered, you defiled My land and made My heritage an abomination. The priests did not say, ‘Where is the Lord?’ and those who handle the law did not know Me; the rulers also transgressed against Me; the prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked after things that do not profit. Jeremiah 2:5-8

There are times we reject God by abusing His blessings, instead of giving Him the glory for them. We did this with the greatest gift He could have given humanity, when He gave us His only Son to make the ultimate sacrifice for us so we could have everlasting life and be reconciled with the Father. But, still many have not believed and received Jesus, the Son of God.

He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. John 1:10-11

Time and time again God has reached out to humanity for us to love Him and worship Him, but we don’t recognize Him as Lord and we have not understood His love. Oswald Chambers wrote about God’s love in Utmost for His Highest.

Most of us don’t know what we mean when we talk about love. Love is the supreme preference of one person for another. Spiritually, Jesus demands that our preference be for him (Luke 14:26). When the Holy Spirit fills our hearts with the love of God, we easily place Jesus first.

I believe why we can easily reject God is because we have not allowed the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with His love. When we have this love we will put Jesus first in our lives. Instead, we have found other idols to love. However, we need to pray that the Holy Spirit fills us with love for the Lord who so many have rejected.