Week of 2/17-2/23: Scattered - The Rise and Fall of the Southern Kingdom

Day Two: Jeremiah 31:31-34 “Look, the days are coming”—[this is] the Lord’s declaration—”when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. [This one will] not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant they broke even though I had married them” —the Lord’s declaration. “Instead, this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days”—the Lord’s declaration. “I will place My law within them and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be My people. No longer will one teach his neighbor or his brother, saying: Know the Lord, for they will all know Me, from the least to the greatest of them”—the Lord’s declaration. “For I will forgive their wrongdoing and never again remember their sin.”

IMAGINE GOING TO THE JUNK YARD and purchasing a vehicle that did not run. Now imagine taking that vehicle and putting some brand new, expensive tires on it. You shine the wheels so that they shine and look amazing. Then imagine that you painted that vehicle a beautiful candy red and tint the windows with a mirror tint.

Now imagine that in addition to the exterior of the car, the entire interior of the vehicle received a makeover. Brand new black leather seats, top-notch stereo and speakers, and a lot of neat accessories are added to it.

But let’s also imagine that nothing is done to the engine or mechanics of the car. The transmission does not work. The engine does not start. There is no battery in the vehicle. It is still a clunker beneath the hood and undercarriage.

Nobody, with any sanity, would purchase this vehicle from you, no matter how nice you have made it look. If you stopped short of fixing the vehicle so that it could run, you have done nothing but waste your money. The heart of the vehicle needs to be made new or the vehicle is worthless.

This is the case with the human heart. If we believe that we can be “cleaned up” and run properly, we are sorely mistaken. We need a complete overhaul of our internal function. We need a new heart. This is what God promised in Jeremiah 31 that He would do for His people. He would not settle for trying to clean up the outside, but He knew it was the heart that needed the overhaul. The new covenant promised and anticipated the day in which God would fix the engine of the human condition: the heart.

PAUSE AND REFLECT

▷▷Why can’t our lives merely be “cleaned up”?

▷▷How do our lives receive a “complete overhaul”?

▷▷Why does God freely give “complete overhauls”?