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Ring of Truth provides 366 daily ‘proofs’ that the Bible is consistent throughout from Genesis to Revelation, and relevant for our lives today!
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Lamentations 1:1
How deserted lies the city, once so full of people! How like a widow is she, who once was great among the nations! She who was queen among the provinces has now become a slave.
God had ordained her to be a queen.
Judah was ordained to be a lion, and yet she was like a frightened deer. What caused the lament? Disobedience, turning away from God, independence and making friends with the wrong company.
A recipe for disaster. Yet one we see all around us today. This lament is really no more than the cry of every heart that has turned its back on God. So often we look at the circumstances and moan, and yet if we looked for the root cause, it would be the same as that of Judah and Jerusalem.
We have all been made image-bearers of God from conception; we are born to have a relationship with God, the Father through Jesus Christ, His Son, by His Holy Spirit, but somewhere along the way, we have chosen to go it alone. We have turned our back on Him and sought our happiness and security elsewhere.
To use a good old English expression – we find out that we have actually ‘shot ourselves in the foot.’ We reap what we sow. If we turn away from God, we walk into all the ‘pleasures’ of the enemy and reap destruction and despair.
God doesn’t bring it upon us vindictively – it is the sure and certain consequence of our own misguided choices. Living in tune with God brings peace, prosperity, and joy. If we turn away from Him, by definition, we turn away from those things too, as they are found in Him alone.
As we saw in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were told not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (see Genesis 3:1-7). Why? To cramp their lifestyle? Of course not. But because they had to live there, by their own free will, out of choice. If they ate from that Tree, there was only one thing they could possibly experience. They knew good. They knew only good. The only thing they did not know was evil. But they chose evil and the rest is history.
So whilst this lament, written by an eyewitness, is about Judah and Jerusalem, it is also a lament for all who turn their backs on God. But the Good News is that, as Isaiah prophesied, “The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6).
Here we get a glimpse of the suffering Messiah. “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look around and see. Is any suffering like My suffering that was inflicted on Me, that the Lord brought on Me in the day of His fierce anger?” (1:12) (See also Psalm 22:1-18; Matthew 27:32-44.)
Can you see Jesus on the cross? Yes, He has paid the price for us, to save and redeem us back to God. Are you grateful?
And that’s the ‘Good News’. There is always a way back to God. If we will but come back to Jesus, confess our sins, repent and follow Him once more (see 1 John 1:9).
You see, we were not born to be slaves; we were ordained to be kings, queens and priests to God.
Which one describes you the most accurately at present?
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