Cisterns

"My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water. Jeremiah 2:12-14

There is a cycle God's people have always been caught in, because of the curse of sin in the world that surrounds us, and the sin that resides within each one of us. It's like marriage: the honey-moon, the settling down, the multiplying of personhood, the rearing of those children, empty nest, retirement, etc. At any stage in this walk with God, we can become pulled away from that "first love" because of sin. Usually, guilt will set in and we just keep a (safe) distance from whatever will make us face the facts and deal with ourselves according to the Truth (God's Word). We become callous and "numb," and we fall into sin.

The first sin is forsaking of our God. We don't stand up and make a loud proclamation, or post something in the newspaper or on facebook "I am now forsaking God!" It's very, very subtle. We stop listening in church, even if we're doing the preaching (ahem!). We pull ourselves from fellowship with the brothers and sisters in the Lord, slowly. We stop praying, really praying. We become slanted toward depressive feelings and thoughts. Wrestlessness overcomes us, and our family relations become strained. Pretty soon we don't want to do anything that has to do with God or the Church. And that's when temptation for the second sin arises.

The second sin is digging our own cisterns. Better put, it is finding our OWN way to cope with life-the spirit of the age. We reach for things that bring some sense of immediate gratification, "little sins." There may be a little bite of conscience as we move on past it, becoming more and more engrossed in that immediate gratification. But soon, we don't even notice the pinch any longer, and as we become more comfortable, the distance between us and our rightful place in God's economy increases. Instead of finding peace and comfort in doing what God has for us, we find it in other things. Only those things leak. And its not long before those cisterns are dry, and we have to dig another one-go looking for the next thrill.

These are not Godless people the prophet was talking about. These are God's own people. This could be happenning to any person IN THE CHURCH! They could still be coming every week: "God bless you, Earl, how're you today?" "Oh fine, I'm blessed..." Earl says, "This is the day the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it..." and all the time he's hurting, or angry, or has already pulled away.

HEY CHURCH!!! ARE YOU PREACHING THE WORD, not just saying some nice-sounding semi-helpful popular psycho-babble? Pastors, are you teaching people what God's Word says about daily living? Are you serving the Bread of Life that really satifies the soul, and making available the pure and living Spring Water? Are you, Pastors, more concerned with keeping peace in your local body than actually loving people and developing their faith and ministries? What's really taking place? What's really going on?

The Children of Israel, after a while, strayed from their first love. They kept up all the outward worship of God, so it looked like they were connected to God's heart. But they were distant towards each other, nasty, mean, selfish. And God's heart was broken for His love, His people. He is so longsufferring toward us, so incredibly merciful, so gracious, and immensely kind to us. But we do not emmulate that so well; we, His people.

God hates the attitudes of fakey nice sounding people. Jesus did not come to this earth to make nice with Pharisees, or the Romans, or anyone else. He was found in the homes of SINFUL people, UNBELIEVERS, eating and drinking with them, loving on them, being real and teaching them. He was mocked behind his back and openly because he regularly reclined at the tables of people in a town of outcasts-Bethsaida-where he would go for respite.

Suit-wearing pastors with plastic smiles, who only stand at the doors of places of worship, taking up collections, preaching shallow, clone-creating gospels that emulate what makes them "feel and look" religious, who don't ever get their hands dirty loving on people, or who try to constantly demonstrate their "perfection" by all the sin they "don't" commit, are blind and stupid and they disgrace themselves and the purpose of the Church. That purpose is to be the body of Christ on this earth. We have to be looking at what He did and do THAT! Not things that merely look like that.

If we, the Church, are not really, really loving people, we are digging our own broken, leaky cisterns and encouraging others to drink from them, and God is extremely disappointed with us. We can't make decisions for people-that would be the opposite of how God created us (pause for reflection). WE CAN just love the tar out of them, and ask God to help us REALLY give ourselves away, doing the opposite of forsaking Him, and filling our lives with all the things that really, really please our Father's heart.

MY PEOPLE have committed two sins, the Word says. How about some real confession and some real repentance? 2 Chronicles 7:14 "if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land."