God, Our Focus of Service

Did you ever give someone something he or she really wanted, even if you knew it was bad for him or her?  In the proper context, doing so can be used for great teaching.  I had a dog once that insisted on knowing what was in my coffee cup.  She was a real pest about it.  I finally decided to let her understand what coffee was (it was hot, but not burn-your-tongue hot), and I lowered the cup to let her see, smell, and even taste, she was never again curious about it!  She never forgot that, and from then on, I could have put anything in my cup, and she would have had no interest.  It was an amazingly-teachable moment.

Reading through Jeremiah 24-30 this morning, I came across a passage that demonstrated God's desire to teach, even through a painful experience.  Jeremiah 27:12 explains God's plan for those in Judah who wanted to live.  "I spoke words like all these to Zedekiah king of Judah, saying, “Bring your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon and serve him and his people, and live!"

Without rehearsing the first 26 chapters here, Judah had been found guilty by God of serving other gods.  God repeatedly urged them, begged them to worship and serve Him, but they refused, choosing rather to serve and worship imaginary, false gods.  Finally, after generations of this occurring, God seemingly decided to give them what they yearned for, a god to serve.  In Babylon, similar to Egypt's Pharaohs, the king could be considered deity.  Nebuchadnezzar certainly felt himself worthy to be worshiped, as can be ssen in the book of Daniel.  So God sent Judah into exile to serve Nebuchadnezzar, a "real" god, or at least a false god who was at least living. 

God makes it clear that He does not want His people destroyed, and He will even promise to judge Babylon for its treatment of God's chosen, but first, they needed to learn a painful lesson, one they would never forget.  The faithfulness God displayed is so very evident by His desire for His people to change, to fully devote themselves to Him. 

It is no different for us believers, and it's not a new theme.  God wants us to give Him our full devotion, too.  At times, I know we must wear His patience thin.  Any time we sin, His Spirit convicts us of the error, and we have to make a choice to be corrected or ignore Him.  Correction can be painful.  Ignoring Him is disastrous.  We must be teachable, ever growing, ever learning, ever serving the only true God.