A Life that Brings God Honor

Jeremiah 13:1-11(NLT)
“This is what the Lord said to me: “Go and buy a linen loincloth and put it on, but do not wash it.” 2 So I bought the loincloth as the Lord directed me, and I put it on. 3 Then the Lord gave me another message: 4 “Take the linen loincloth you are wearing, and go to the Euphrates River. Hide it there in a hole in the rocks.” 5 So I went and hid it by the Euphrates as the Lord had instructed me.

6 A long time afterward the Lord said to me, “Go back to the Euphrates and get the loincloth I told you to hide there.” 7 So I went to the Euphrates and dug it out of the hole where I had hidden it. But now it was rotting and falling apart. The loincloth was good for nothing.

8 Then I received this message from the Lord: 9 “This is what the Lord says: This shows how I will rot away the pride of Judah and Jerusalem. 10 These wicked people refuse to listen to me. They stubbornly follow their own desires and worship other gods. Therefore, they will become like this loincloth—good for nothing! 11 As a loincloth clings to a man’s waist, so I created Judah and Israel to cling to me, says the Lord. They were to be my people, my pride, my glory—an honor to my name. But they would not listen to me.”


“Haven’t you learned anything!” This is what my grandmother would say to me if I made the same mistake repeatedly, especially if she had told me several times not to do something. I cringed when I saw that look of disapproval on her face. I never wanted to disappoint her. God’s people in the passage of Jeremiah 13:1-11 took a very different approach. They didn’t think twice about the harm they’d do to their relationship with God by repeatedly disappointing Him. They were consumed with their own agendas. They did very wicked things that were against His Will, and they refused to listen to Heavenly Father. Romans 8:7 tells us that this is a mindset that is an enemy against Him, and it is the worse place to be in life.

As we mature into adults, life becomes a bit more complicated than when we were children. Everything was much simpler when we relied on our parents and caretakers, but as we grow and develop, our expectations change, and we want more. Wanting more is a sure sign that more will be required of us. We’ll have greater responsibility, and we will be held to a higher level of accountability. For many of us, this is where fear kicks in as well, because we feel as though we don’t have what it takes to measure up to life’s’ demands. This fear can also cross over into relationships with the significant people in our lives.

We all have an idea of how we want things to turn out. The kind of house we want to live in, the kind of person we want to marry, the job, the car…we see ourselves having all these things. They are included in our dreams and aspirations but acquiring them isn’t nearly as easy as we imagine, and sometimes the things we want do not line up with God’s will and plan.

God always wants what’s best for us. He tells us in Proverbs 3:5-6 to trust in Him with all our hearts and don’t lean on our own understanding. He knows the path we should take in life and He will direct us on this path if we will acknowledge Him in everything we do. This is where some of us fall off the wagon. We don’t acknowledge God’s power, guidance, and provision. Like the people in Jeremiah 13:1-11, some of us stubbornly follow our own desires and worship other people, relationships, and things rather than the Creator who made them.

When we take this kind of attitude and behavior, nothing works out the way we want it to, and it is because we will not listen to God. We must change this. God reminded His people living in Old Testament times of the covenant He had made with their ancestors. This covenant was that as long as they worshipped Him and kept His commandments, they would be a blessed people. But they continued to do as their ancestors did and worshipped idol gods. They would not turn from their wicked ways. The world we live in today may not look like it did two thousand years ago, but God’s Word and Will has not changed. He demands obedience.

Because of what our Lord and Savior accomplished through his sacrifice and resurrection, today you and I live under a new and better covenant. His blood was shed for the remission of our sins, and through Jesus Christ, we have been made clean and given the gift of righteousness. There’s nothing more we have to do but choose to live for God. He desires an intimate relationship with each of us.

The loincloth used in the record of God’s instruction to Jeremiah was indicative of what happens when our lives are not used for God’s glory. Our dreams and aspirations turn to mush. They rot and our lives fall apart, but through Christ we can change this. We must choose to let the Lord lead us, even when things don’t look and feel the way we want them too. We must be confident in His love for us and follow the example of Christ so that our lives will be for God’s glory and bring honor to His name. ■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

"A Life that Brings God Honor”, written by Kim for https://rescuefromdomesticviolence.blogspot.com© 2020. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.