Morning

December 10

Jeremiah 2:11-13 ¹¹Has a nation ever changed its gods? (Yet they are not gods at all.) But my people have exchanged their Glory for worthless idols. ¹²Be appalled at this, O heavens, and shudder with great horror," declares the LORD. ¹³"My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.

Glory is the image of God upon us. When we act according to the attributes of God, people get a glimpse of the glory of God. Israel was to display to the world what it was like to be in relationship with God. That task is now entrusted to the Church. This passage declares God's astonishment at man's senselessness. How could they exchange the Living God, who had brought them out of captivity in Egypt, for things made by the hands of man? Why would they want to exchange the Eternal God for some worthless images?

Then the LORD points out the two great sins of Israel with an analogy. He says they have forsaken the spring of living water. Water is very scarce in Israel. Springs are like gold! Cities are built around them because of their consistent supply of cool, fresh, life-giving water. Why would anyone forsake a spring in Israel? But they forsook the LORD who was their source of life.

The second sin was digging out a cistern. Cisterns are large holes cut into the limestone at low points on the earth's surface. When it rains, the terrain drains the runoff into these holes the size of a swimming pool below the surface. But when the cistern is cracked the water drains into the earth. The life-giving spring was forsaken for useless cisterns.

Consider: Where are you going for a drink of life? Only the spring of living water will truly satisfy. Let us make our dwelling around the spring and go to it often. Then the world will see the glory of the LORD upon us.