It is amazing how direct Jeremiah is in his bitterness with God, especially in verses 7-8:

7 O LORD, you deceived me, and I was deceived;
you overpowered me and prevailed.
I am ridiculed all day long;
everyone mocks me.

8 Whenever I speak, I cry out
proclaiming violence and destruction.
So the word of the LORD has brought me
insult and reproach all day long.

I think one of the big takeaways here is that we are allowed to get angry with God. He can take it. I have found that following this up with an acknowledgment that God always is with me helps, even if it feels like I’m just mouthing the words, which is what Jeremiah does later in verses 11-12. I have never read a description of compulsion that is better than verse 9:

9 But if I say, “I will not mention him
or speak any more in his name,”
his word is in my heart like a fire,
a fire shut up in my bones.
I am weary of holding it in;
indeed, I cannot.

I just wish my compulsions were better focused. That’s definitely something to pray about. Next comes paranoia in verse 10:

10 I hear many whispering,
“Terror on every side!
Report him! Let’s report him!”
All my friends
are waiting for me to slip, saying,
“Perhaps he will be deceived;
then we will prevail over him
and take our revenge on him.”

In response to this new feeling, Jeremiah, resorts to what may be a mechanical chant of reassurance in verses 11-12:

11 But the LORD is with me like a mighty warrior;
so my persecutors will stumble and not prevail.
They will fail and be thoroughly disgraced;
their dishonor will never be forgotten.

12 O LORD Almighty, you who examine the righteous
and probe the heart and mind,
let me see your vengeance upon them,
for to you I have committed my cause.

As I have often found myself, the relief that comes through prayer is like a hypomanic episode. Jeremiah’s elation comes out in verse 13:

13 Sing to the LORD!
Give praise to the LORD!
He rescues the life of the needy
from the hands of the wicked.

Then right after that, Jeremiah comes crashing down with a crushing despair that is amazing in its depth:

14 Cursed be the day I was born!
May the day my mother bore me not be blessed!

18 Why did I ever come out of the womb
to see trouble and sorrow
and to end my days in shame?

It’s not often I use a secular quotation on this blog, but this one has been on my mind. As I’ve mentioned in an earlier post, there is a strong feeling of separation from God during times of depression - thus the quiet desperation instead of the peace of Christ. God is love, but even more appealing to me these days, He also is a God of peace.

Jeremiah 17:9
The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?

Looking up the word “heart” in the Book of Matthew alone, I found these verses, every one of which contains a quotation of Jesus Himself:

Matthew 5:8
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Matthew 5:28
But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Matthew 9:4
Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, “Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts?

The following verse reminds me of the taming of the tongue discussed in James 3:3-10:

Matthew 12:34
You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.

The following two verses are particularly interesting to me. They shows how a heart can be hardened, which is described in more detail in Romans 1:20-25:

Matthew 13:15
For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.’

Matthew 13:19
When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the seed sown along the path.

Matthew 15:8
‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.

Matthew 15:18-19
But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man ‘unclean.’ For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.

Matthew 18:35
“This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.”

Matthew 19:8
Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.

And here is the greatest commandment. It’s noteworthy how we are supposed to use our God-given brains as well as our transformed hearts.

Matthew 22:37
Jesus replied: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’

The following verses indicate describe how we are given a “heart transplant” through the Holy Spirit - through no effort of our own.

Romans 5:5
And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

Romans 10:9-10
That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.

2 Corinthians 1:21-22
Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

2 Corinthians 8:16
I thank God, who put into the heart of Titus the same concern I have for you.

Galatians 4:6
Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.”

Ephesians 3:16-18
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,

Philippians 4:7
And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus

Colossians 3:15
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.

1 Thessalonians 3:13
May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.

2 Thessalonians 2:16-17
May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.

And the list goes on and on…

It is definitely something to pray about - that God will both guard my heart and continue to transform it. Amen.

Love means deeply caring about someone’s welfare. As a father who loves his kids, I am going to judge and discipline them, instead of apathetically turning them loose to their own follies and bad consequences. This concept and how it relates to God’s judgment and discipline of those he loves is stated beautifully in Hebrews 12:

Hebrews 12:4-11
In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons:

Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

The title of the book comes from the movie Hardcore, starring George C. Scott. There is a scene in this movie in which George C. Scott’s character (Jake van Dorn) explains his Calvinist beliefs to a prostitute while they’re waiting in the Las Vegas airport. He does this by describing TULIP, which is like trying to explain calculus to someone without a background in simple arithmetic.

I can understand this blunder. I find that hard-learned concepts are the most fun to share because of the personal satisfaction that comes with eventually understanding them. There also is a tendency to be pedantic with anything newly learned. However, one must learn to walk before they can run. Love is the first step, although ironically it may be that the unconditional agape love that Jesus demonstrates is a harder concept to grasp than justice, which involves retribution - a much easier concept for people to grasp in a dog-eat-dog world.

To repeat, the excellent point made in the book is that God’s love for us is the first and most important thing to get across to a non-believer. Instead of the difficult and harsh-sounding doctrine of Limited Attonement, for example, why not first focus on the fact that God loves us unconditionally and longs to have a relationship with us. It is true that in His infinite holiness and our fallen nature, there also must be judgment, but nobody is going to respond well to judgment from someone who isn’t first portrayed as loving and caring.

“My Eternal Preference” (anon.)

“When we are given our rewards, I would prefer to be found to have erred on the side of grace rather than judgment: to have loved too much rather than too little; to have forgiven an undeserving rather than to have refused forgiveness to one who deserved it; to have fed a parasite rather than to have neglected one who was truly hungry; to have been taken advantage of rather than to have taken undue advantage; to have believed too much in my brothers rather than little; having been wrong on the side of too much trust than too much cynicism; to have believed the best and been wrong, than to have believed the worst and been right.”

I have to admit this is true. Alexander Tyler, writing about the fall of the Athenian Republic, remarked, “The average age of the world’s great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage.”

The Old Testament documents many examples of this cycle. It is our sinful nature to hoard more than we need, just like in the parable of the rich fool. I then think about my own storehouses of books, electronic goodies, etc.

2 Cor 8:9
For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.

So, the question becomes how much do we empty ourselves in this way? At what point are we ignoring our obligations to our families? Like the parable mentions, we tend to keep our financial cushions and comfort zones a bit too large.

I’m not criticizing wealth, because it has its place. A person who makes it a point to accumulate wealth so it can be shared with the church is an essential part of the body of Christ. Interestingly, even the seemingly ascetic Hindu philosophy includes Artha, which calls material prosperity a noble goal.

However, I’m becoming increasingly convinced that unfettered capitalism ultimately will lead to the cycle that is described above. Therefore, I’ve become interested in the idea of Jubilee, which is a 50-year cycle of returning all property to its original owners. I believe some people are more gifted at creating prosperity than others (I’m not one of them). It makes sense to give them time to exercise their gifts and “raise all boats”. However, knowing that there will be a time when everything is “reset” should help to prevent the selfishness and class warfare we’re currently experiencing. But now that I think about it, I don’t think it’s possible to overestimate human greed, selfishness and impatience, so even this probably wouldn’t solve the problem. I wonder if Jubilee was made to be so long so we could be convicted of this truth.

As I’ve said before, any government in theory should work perfectly - but in the hands of men, all forms will be executed imperfectly. The key, therefore, is to look for the version with the most checks and balances so that a minimal amount of damage is done.