"Superficial Treatments"
"From prophets to priests,
they are all frauds.
They offer superficial treatments
for my people's mortal wound.
They give assurances of peace
when there is no peace. (Jeremiah 6:13, 14 NLT)
Picture this: a man comes to the ER after having a fight with a lawn mower (he obviously lost). He is ushered into a room & the doctor approaches. Assessing his wound, he orders the staff to quickly bring him a bandaid for this man's missing limb. A bandaid? Where did this guy do his schooling? The receptionist could tell this man that he needs surgery, surely this doctor's gone crazy. You don't put a bandaid where there needs to be stitches. It won't hold. And in the end, the wound will be worse off. It could even be life-threatening.
This is what the pastors of the day were offering God's people. Bandaids when surgery was clearly needed. They have mortal wounds here not scratches.
What the people most needed was a heart transplant not a blood transfusion. They had gone so far away from God & his ways that they didn't know right from wrong, left from right, up from down.
We do this in our lives. We operate in our walk with God in superficial treatments. We do the least amount possible to manage the situation when surgery is really needed. We place bandaids where we need an amputation.
I find this truth particularly true in my own life. I don't want to do what's painful but what's easy. I want the short cut & not the long road of rehab. Instead, what we should do is what's needed, not what's easy.
In the long run, if we allow God to do surgery & get at our hearts, we will heal better in the long run. If we just place a bandaid on our lives' mortal wounds, we will find ourselves lame & infected. And neither us nor God gets anything out of that.
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