Where Is the Passion?

Where Is the Passion?


Recently a study in Jeremiah (chapter 22) brought a fascinating discovery.

Do you want to see the passion of God and man’s proper reciprocating passion? Think in terms of “twenty-two”:

Genesis 22 – The passion of Abraham to trust God, whatever the cost.
Psalm 22 – The passion of Messiah, God’s Suffering Servant.
Jeremiah 22 – The passion of God to preserve His standards and His community, as revealed through the prophet.
Matthew 22 – The passion of the Father of the Groom.

The portion of Jeremiah reflects God’s thoughts on the Kingdom of His beloved David and its sad declension in subsequent monarchs. He says that Jerusalem had been as precious to Him as the beautiful forests and landscapes of Gilead and Lebanon. But without obedience and passion all would collapse:

6 For thus saith the Lord unto the king’s house of Judah; Thou art Gilead unto me, and the head of Lebanon: yet surely I will make thee a wilderness, and cities which are not inhabited.

7 And I will prepare destroyers against thee, every one with his weapons: and they shall cut down thy choice cedars, and cast them into the fire.

8 And many nations shall pass by this city, and they shall say every man to his neighbour, Wherefore hath the Lord done thus unto this great city?

9 Then they shall answer, Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord their God, and worshipped other gods, and served them.