A Real Post - Not on a Blog

Kenny, good to see you post. Yes, it's been Dave posting all along. But I knew someone else in GFC leadership would become brave enough to try sometime. After all, everyone writes blogs and nobody ever reads them.

Jeremiah 31.31-34 talks about a real post, not one that's out there somewhere in cyber-space. God declares in verses 33-34 (ESV), "I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more."

I've heard sermons about this passage, mostly bad sermons, destructive ones, because they didn't understand a very simple grammatical construction God uses with his people. I'd like to observe something about the concept of "mood" in language. The mood shows the type of action in a sentence. The most common moods we see in languages are the indicative, which describes action, and the imperative, which commands action. Armed with that simple concept, look over Jeremiah 31.33-34 again. What mood is it? It's indicative.

God is describing the life of the believer. He is describing what our life is like when he has changed us and called us to himself. We don't wrestle to put God's law within us. He puts his law within us. We don't make ourselves God's people, we are God's people because he has done it. And ultimately, in eternity, there comes a time when we don't remind one another to love, trust, and serve God, because it is built into the new nature God has given us. It will be the very most natural thing for us once this mortal life has passed away. God summarizes his point at the end of the quotation. "I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more."
We see that forgiveness fulfilled in the resurrected Lord. As a partaker of the resurrection, the believer is a partaker of the new nature. It's something God has done. He has posted his law in our life.

In all our activities over the next few days, may we remember that in our new nature, given by God in Christ, we carry his presence and his true law into every situation we find ourselves in. Pray the Lord will shine through you and other believers, bringing this message of true forgiveness, resurrection life, to our lost and dying world.