Choice

Jeremiah 17:5-10

What do Christians really believe? Perhaps another question could be – What do Christians trust in? In Lutherʼs Large Catechism, he explains the first Commandment this way:

A god is that to which we look for all good and in which we find refuge in every time of need. To have a god is nothing else than to trust and believe him with our whole heart. As I have often said, the trust and faith of the heart alone make both God and an idol. If your faith and trust are right, then your God is the true God. On the other hand, if trust is false and wrong, then you have not the true God. For these two belong together, faith and God. That to which your heart clings and entrusts itself is, I say, really your God. (Martin Luther)

We have all found our hearts torn, divided and even confused by conflicting worldly values and desires. The Apostle Paul confessed,

“For I donʼt know what I am doing. For I donʼt practice what I desire to do, but what I hate, that I do.” (Romans 7:15)

If we have difficulty understanding our own hearts, how can we expect to understand the hearts of other people? Have we become like a shrub trying to survive in a desert, a parched place, a salt land (v6) or are we planted by streams of water (v8)? That water is Godʼs Holy Word, Jesus the Word, made flesh. His sacrifice on the cross and his resurrection is our guarantee for an eternal salvation in the presence of God. That is the promise we are offered in Christ.

Pastor Darryl