Only fear the Lord and serve him faithfully with all your heart. For consider what great things he has done for you.
1 Samuel 12:24
The past sin and lack of true repentance by the Israelites resulted in God raising up surrounding nations to punish them. When the people repented, God forgave and rescued Israel from their enemies. Despite this new beginning, the people of Israel plunged headlong into sin once again by rejecting God.
As Christians living in the 21st century, it is easy to criticize the people of Israel as a feckless and selfish people. After all, we would never be tempted to reject God for a carved or engraved idol. Regardless of the time separation between us and the people of Israel, our sin is no different than their sin.
Just like the people of Israel, we are often careless in our spiritual walk with God. We excuse our own sin as inconsequential or bury it in hopes that it is not discovered. We ignore the sin of fellow Christians by dismissing it as “none of my business” or by being frightened of what they might think if we confront them. We have exchanged the physical idols and false gods of the ancient world for consumerism, the easy life, and excessive recreation. The forms of our 21st-century sin may look different than that of the people of Israel, but sin is still a rejection of God for something else.
We are not too different from the people of Israel. They were called to obey and serve God faithfully with their whole heart. This is our calling too. God’s gracious New Covenant gift of new hearts and the faithful assistance of the Holy Spirit enables us to live out this calling faithfully before him.
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