Glossing Doesn't Help

Write From My Heart

September 7, 2020

Glossing Doesn’t Help

Jeremiah 7:23-24 (NIV)

Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in all the ways I command you, that it may go well with you. But they did not listen or pay attention; instead, they followed the stubborn inclinations of their evil hearts. They went backward and not forward.

            Today’s title is not a mistake, it is a play on words about flossing one’s teeth each day. But today’s word is “glossing” with the intended meaning of covering over the true nature of something or to be deceptive in how we view or describe something. In other words, glossing over something in this sense is dishonest and just plain wrong. It rarely works and often brings harsh consequences.

            In this text Jeremiah is referencing the children of Israel and their exodus from Egypt. Yet it is appropriate for today as well. Our nation is clearly in a time of unrest, trouble, chaos in many major cities and it is not the fault of one man—it is disobedience, stubbornness, and the product of evil hearts. To gloss over it, or make light of it, or worse pretend it isn’t real is dishonest in the deepest sense and just plain wrong! More than ever before God’s people need to listen and pay attention! For as it was in Jeremiah’s day, failure for us to pay attention and listen will most likely bring similar harsh consequences.

Jeremiah 7:28 and 8:15 (NIV)

This is the nation that has not obeyed the LORD its God or responded to correction. Truth has perished; it has vanished from their lips. … We hoped for peace but no good has come, for a time of healing but there was only terror.

            Certainly, there are many precious promises in scripture to comfort us in time of need. But there are also abundant reminders of the consequences for failure to obey God. Sometimes we like to keep all that negative stuff in the background and only focus on the positive. Reality is that there will be a judgement day and the consequence is death—loss of eternal life. Glossing over that truth doesn’t help! There is a solution!

Jeremiah 7:23 (NIV)

Obey me, and I will be hour God and you will be my people. Walk in all the ways I command you, that it may go well with you.

Romans 10:13 (NIV)

Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.