God in a box (Jer 5-7; Psalm 75; 2 Cor 10)

God will accept me, I’ve been baptised, I go to church and I take Communion. God will accept me, I go to a church that takes the Bible really seriously. God will accept me, I read my Bible and say my prayers every day. It’s so easy to fall into the trap of the people in Jeremiah’s day.

For them, it was the temple of the Lord. They thought, as long as they had the temple of the Lord they would be ok. Look what they were saying “this is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD.” (Jeremiah 7:4) But the LORD is not impressed with outward religion. He tells them to “amend your ways.” They thought they had God in a box, God contained in the temple. As long as they had the temple they were ok, they could live how they wanted.

They thought they could commit adultery, and God wouldn’t mind as long as they went through the religious motions. They thought they could lie on their tax return and God wouldn’t mind, as long as they turned up at the temple. They thought they could worship their careers, or turn to others gods and all would be ok, as long as they still had their temple. God says, that is to make his temple into a den of robbers.

If they think God doesn’t care, then they should head off down to Shiloh (v12), another place where God had previously made His name dwell. What would they find there? Only ruin and destruction. We can see the same in old ruined churches today. Don’t trust in your building, or even in your religious services. Don’t think you can manipulate God, He doesn’t owe you anything! One writer (David Day) says that our church services are “no more than a religious pantomime-unless they become vehicles for knowing God and finding him at the centre of our lives.”

When Jesus speaks to the church of Ephesus, He warns them “you have abandoned the love you had at first.” (Revelation 2:4). It’s so easy for us to slip into formal religion and forget what it’s all about. Our reading from 2 Corinthians tells us that the apostle Paul took every thought captive and made it obedient to Christ (2 Cor 10:5). That is what we need to do, our security is in Christ. As you head to church this coming Lord’s Day, pray that you wouldn’t just go through the motions, but that you would know Jesus better and make Him the very centre of your life.