(Jer 16:14-15) “Therefore behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord, “that it shall no more be said, ‘The Lord lives who brought up the children of Israel from the land of Egypt,’ 15 but, ‘The Lord lives who brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north and from all the lands where He had driven them.’ For I will bring them back into their land which I gave to their fathers.
Have you ever met a fellow believer who was stuck in the past? You start talking about the Lord and what God is doing in your life and they get excited about all the days of old and what God did back then. After a while you catch on and you begin to discover that every time they talk about the Lord it’s about something long ago and nothing current. For Christians like this we need to encourage them and say it’s time to UPDATE YOUR TESTIMONY!
For a long time, the Jews would refer to their past deliverance from Egypt as the reference point in their relationship with God. But after many years they fell away from the Lord and were taken into captivity to Babylon for seventy years where they were purged from their idolatry. Jeremiah encouraged them that they would no more refer to Egypt as the place where God had delivered them. They would now have a new story to tell of how God brought them back from Babylon. Jeremiah was essentially telling them to UPDATE YOUR TESTIMONY.
Many believers need to come up current in their relationship with the Lord. They speak about and glory in the past. (Psa 42:4) . . . For I used to go with the multitude; I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept a pilgrim feast. Notice how the psalmist says I USED TO and I WENT. That is language of bygone days.
What happens to Christians that make them freeze in the past? It could be many things. The hard blows of life hit them. They got depressed. They stopped growing. They didn’t read their Bibles. Eventually they fell out of church. They still seem to love the Lord, but every reference to their experience with Him is of long ago.
Are you one of those Christians that have enjoyed a relationship with God in the past but has no glow for the present? It’s time to forget the past and move on. (Phil 3:13-14) . . . but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Don’t be a yesterday Christian! (Heb 13:8) Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Rededicate your life to the Lord and start having a TODAY relationship with Him.
God wants to do a new thing in your life so you can give fresh praise for Him. (Isa 43:19)
Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth . . . It’s time to UPDATE YOUR TESTIMONY!
Louie