“But where are your gods that you made for yourself? Let them arise, if they can save you, in your time of trouble; for as many as your cities are your gods, O Judah.” (Jeremiah 2:28, ESV)
Everyone has faith in something. Many years ago, I stepped out in the hope of running my own business. It was a consulting business to improve productivity in manufacturing facilities. I focused on an industry that I knew well after some twenty years of both engineering and manufacturing management. It seemed like a natural and I had the expertise to make it work. In the beginning I had a large contract. It was in two parts. Each part would provide about six months’ worth of expenses, sufficient for a relatively good salary and to keep the business going. However, after about six months there was a problem. The contract was cancelled. Suddenly, I had no income and no prospect of any income for the foreseeable future. In fact, I was without any work for six months. Suddenly, the income that I trusted for survival disappeared.
Needing money, I went on the road visiting various manufacturing facilities to generate some sales. Yet there was nothing. Nothing came in. We had many people praying for us to get some work. Then after we had depleted the business account and our family savings, I started receiving phone calls for potential clients. You might have thought that they were from the ones that I had visited on sales calls. However, you would be wrong. These calls came in from businesses that had never contacted. It came to my mind immediately that God was answering prayer. The Lord is our provider and that He was teaching me to trust Him for the business and the income.
Very often in our lives, we can create false gods. In this case, mine was the business and that initial contract that fell through. When we trust in things of our own invention rather than the Lord who provides all, we lead ourselves to struggle.
This is what happened to Judah. They had trusted in human wisdom by seeking to establish alliances for protection with foreign nations. They also had indulged in the worship of idols. As the Lord brought these charges against the nation, He brought this convicting thought to them stating, “where are your gods that you made for yourself? Let them arise, if they can save you, in your time of trouble.” He sent them a challenge, a wakeup call. He tells them that they had gone to false gods and they should see if those lifeless idols could save them from the army threatening them from the north.
The application for us with this is to keep our priorities right. We are to seek the Lord God and His righteousness first. This does not mean that we should not work with our hands, make a living, or use the things of the earth for our wellbeing. But in using these things, we must remember that the Lord our God is sovereign over all. Throught these things we must not trust the things or our own human wisdom, but the one who provides all and the wisdom He makes available to us when we pray. We must not worship the created things but the Creator, our God.
Great faith is not a power that moves God to do whatever we want. It is to trust in Him with all our heart regardless of the situations we encounter in life. It is to trust in His promises to provide everything we truly need in our lives. It is to recognize His sovereign authority over all. It is to surrender our will to His in all things. This is powerful faith.
Renewing the Heart 