Child-Like Faith. First Love of Christ.
Those terms describe the simplistic and pure faith we have when we first come to know the Lord and put our trust in him. Those early days when we choose His ways over the world’s, and want to spend eternity with Jesus.
And somehow, over time, the distractions of the world creep in and pull us away from our heart’s true desire.
I love how God describes the Israelites in Jeremiah 2:
I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness, in a land not sown. Israel was holy to the Lord, the first fruits of his harvest.
Devoted, Loving, Following, Holy.
So… what happened?
The same thing that happens to all of us. We stray. We lose our path. We choose the temporary in place of the eternal.
As we continue in this chapter, we see how God describes the Israelites and their turning away:
For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water. — Jeremiah 2:13
God is our spring of living water, and like the Israelites, we turn away from him. We leave him. And not only do we turn away, we then try to create our own water source. We create imitations of him. We try to fill our hearts with cheap idols, when we have access to the real true and living God!
Can you think of the cisterns in your world that you’re digging, instead of relying on the the living water that’s available to us?
