"41Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.
"42We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned." (Lamentations 3: 40-42)
When Jeremiah uttered these desperate, sorrowful pleas, Jerusalem had been invaded, the Babylonians conquered the Israelites, and many of them were dragged off to Babylon as slaves.
Today, whenever we read the prophets of the Old Testament, we must remember that Jesus Christ has cut a New Covenant for us, and thus everything in the former must be read through the light of the latter.
Let us search and try our ways and turn again to the LORD.
Under law, men and women had to search themselves and turn to God.
Under grace, under the New Covenant, God has comes to us:
"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5: 8)
Jesus came for us when we did not care, and He now sits at the right hand of God the Father serving as our justification (Romans 8: 33-34), the mercy seat for our sins (1 John 2: 2)
Instead of trying our ways, God has given us new ways:
"12Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. 13For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." (Philippians 2: 12-13)
The New Covenant announces that He places His laws, His direction in our hearts and minds:
"10For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
11And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.
12For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." (Hebrews 8: 10-12)
We are not trying to get to Him anymore. He does not count our sins against us , either, because they have all been paid for.
When Jesus returns, this is what He will find in us as far as we are concerned:
"That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish." (Ephesians 5: 27)
Not lamentations, but a celebration of the perfect work which Jesus has done for us!
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