Lent - His Love EnduresSample

Have you ever received an empty apology? Maybe it was from a sibling accompanied by an eye roll and a nagging parent forcing them, maybe it was from a gym coach giving you another hard set, or maybe it was from a colleague giving you a bunch of work before disappearing on a holiday.

Real apologies aren’t just words—they are words of genuine feeling married to new actions. Apply that on a cosmic, spiritual level, and that’s where we find the Israelites in Jeremiah chapters 4 through 5. The people are unrepentant, unwilling to marry their words with genuine feeling or change. And the Lord, in His mercy, can no longer stand idly by while they sin themselves into destruction.

Countless times over this passage, we hear God’s heart in the words He uses to try and woo back the people He loves: Return to Me. I long to make you My sons. I will not be angry forever. Return, I will heal. Through Jeremiah, the Lord is telling His people that the way they live their lives matters. At one point in this passage, He calls them to “remove the foreskin of [their] hearts” (Jeremiah 4:4). It’s a harsh picture, no doubt, but one that reminds us that an outward sign like circumcision means nothing if not paired with an inner heart that values holiness, purity, and connection to God. Real repentance is accompanied by a change in heart and behaviour—a desire to turn away from sin and turn back to God.

Through Jeremiah, the Lord called the Israelites to look through the streets of Jerusalem, to search for a single person who acts justly, yet they couldn’t find a single one. On a good day, my life is full of folly, selfishness, and vanity. I’m sure if I had been alive in Jeremiah’s day, I would’ve been as unrepentant as the Israelites, “who made their faces harder than rock, and… refused to return” (Jeremiah 5:3).

But there is good news for each one of us: in Christ Jesus, we have been blessed “with every spiritual blessing in the heavens,” and “sealed with the promised Holy Spirit when [we] heard the word of truth, the gospel of [our] salvation… when [we] believed” (Ephesians 1:3,13). This does not change, even when we fail, even when we struggle to match our words to our actions. Jesus, who loves us, is forgiving and does not run out of invitations for us to return to Him. What God is looking to find in us is not perfect faithfulness—only Jesus can be perfectly faithful. What God is looking for in you and in me is a heart that longs to seek Him. By His Spirit, may we turn to Him.