Consumers Or Contributor
Jeremiah 3:1-5 Amplified Bible (AMP)
1THAT IS to say, If a man puts away his wife and she goes from him and becomes another man's, will he return to her again? [Of course not!] Would not that land [where such a thing happened] be greatly polluted? But you have played the harlot [against Me] with many lovers--yet would you now return to Me? says the Lord [or do you even think to return to Me?] 2Lift up your eyes to the bare heights and see. Where have you not been adulterously lain with? By the wayside you have sat waiting for lovers [eager for idolatry], like an Arabian [desert tribesman who waits to plunder] in the wilderness; and you have polluted the land with your vile harlotry and your wickedness (unfaithfulness and disobedience to God). 3Therefore the showers have been withheld, and there has been no spring rain. Yet you have the brow of a prostitute; you refuse to be ashamed. 4Have you not just now cried to Me: My Father, You were the guide and companion of my youth? 5Will He retain His anger forever? Will He keep it to the end? Behold, you have so spoken, but you have done all the evil things you could and have had your way and have carried them through.
I am of the thought that anyone that is involved with family, relationships of all types, ministry, a work environment, or any place that we are committed to that we should be a contributor. Yes it is true that in everything that we do that we consume a specific amount of some things, whether it is working to receive a paycheck, doing dishes, cooking a meal, giving an encouraging word, praying for our pastors and leadership, volunteering, for an event or attending ministry functions. Whatever and wherever our support is needed we need to be happy to give it, and not just get from that situation or the environment or relationship we are involved in. This made me think of Bill Whither’s song “Use me”, although He is cosigning on being used which many of us do the thought in the song does serve is purpose, pars of the third verse says: “Oh sometimes yeah it's true you really do abuse me… You get in a crowd of high class people and then you act real rude to me… Oh you just keep on using me until you use me up… Until you use me up.” Many of us know someone like this are involved in relationships or environments where there are people like this or we have become this person.
Society as a whole has gotten into a practice that it is all about us getting ours, even when we lack the respect for our situation and environment to do anything to contribute to us obtaining it. Our young people are consistently talking about “nigga rigging” a situation or getting over without having to do much of anything. Many people have come to feel such a sense of entitlement that they think that it is their right to get without giving something or contributing something to the relationship, and many of us do the very same thing with God. We want Him to hear us when we call, answer when we need Him to and to jump when we are in trouble, to love us unconditionally in spite of what we do, say or how we are living but we aren’t giving anything to the relationship. We lack the understanding for how things work so much so that we do not even bother to reverence and honor God because we haven’t bothered to take the time to know who He really is and who He should be in our lives. We call on God, we even use His last name like we are married to Him, but we just use Him for what we can get and cheat on Him on a regular with all of our other gods, whether they are things, like houses, cars, status, children, even church and our pastors, friends and family, can be in a place of exaltation over our relationship with God. We only feel the need to get with God, when we are need, we turn on the “Lord I promise” and we are nice to Him, giving Him only then what He always deserves and then once we get it we are back to placing Him on the back burner and treating Him worse than a red headed step child.
For some reason many of us have gotten to a place of becoming users, becoming people that do not genuinely love, or enter into relationship, it is only about what we can get out of connection and association with people. In this pattern of behavior we have come to think that it is cool to treat God in the same manner. When do we stop just consuming God’s time, talent, resources, and abilities? His mercy, grace, favor, strength and protection; when do we start giving back to the relationship? When do we start honoring God with our lives and all that we are? When do we stop consuming all He has to offer and start contributing to all that He desires for us and for us to be and more importantly all He deserves to receive from US? It is time for us to stop being users, adulteress, consumers, surplanter and narcissist. It is time for us to give like we have nothing to lose, to contribute like we have an endless supply, be faithful like we do not even know what it is to be unfaithful and honor as if we understand who God is and who people are that God allows to be around us, as we understand the value of God’s mercy, grace and favor upon our live and that we appreciate it. Lastly we need to love through the giving of who we are as if it was the things that we were created to do!
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