Where do you place your trust?

Jeremiah 7:4
"Do not trust in these lying words, saying, ‘The temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD are these.’"

In the days of Jeremiah, the people of Israel wandered from God's truth and did not follow all His commands and all His ways. They made sacrifices to other gods and celebrated false traditions yet they still returned to the Temple to make offerings and sacrifices. They were hedging their religious bets by adopting many traditions in addition to their faith in the God of Israel. Their trust was found in the plurality of their beliefs and they celebrated their broadness of mind as a virtue.

And regarding the God of Israel, they did return to the Temple and add to their plurality of worship the traditional sacrifices and offerings required by the Law of Moses. They were attempting to appease their creator as well as the other gods of the neighboring lands. They had accepted the lie that as long as they were found in the Temple, God would spare them; for He would never destroy His own dwelling place. They viewed the Temple as a sort of talisman of protection from the wrath of God; similar to how the Israelites treated the arc of the covenant (1 Sam 4). Yet God's presence was not bound to the Temple nor His protection. They believed a lie and placed their trust in a religious symbol rather than the God of that symbol. They trusted in the tool that God chose to connect them to Him rather than trust fully and only in Him.

So where do you place your trust? Do you trust in a religion? Is church membership a talisman for you? Is your confidence found in a ritual like baptism, communion or confession? Is your faith in a prayer, a set of doctrinal truths or even the Holy Bible? These are all good but should never be the object of one's faith. These are all tools that God has created to connect us to Him. Our faith, trust and confidence should be found in no one else, nothing else but Jesus Christ.

In 1834, Edward Mote penned the words of his cherished hymn "My Hope is Built" or otherwise referred to as "On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand." These words capture perfectly the lesson Jeremiah was trying to convey to Israel and the truth of salvation for us today.

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly trust in Jesus’ Name.

On Christ the solid Rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand;
All other ground is sinking sand.

When darkness seems to hide His face,
I rest on His unchanging grace.
In every high and stormy gale,
My anchor holds within the veil.

Refrain

His oath, His covenant, His blood,
Support me in the whelming flood.
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my Hope and Stay.

Refrain

When He shall come with trumpet sound,
Oh may I then in Him be found.
Dressed in His righteousness alone,
Faultless to stand before the throne.

Refrain


Father - may this be true of me. Amen.