My father frowned on the notion of married people renewing their vows. “When you renew your vows, it implies you broke those vows—or at least that you didn’t take them seriously the first time.” Daddy took vows seriously. There was no way he would need to renew his—not when those vows shaped his life like a spine.
But the leaders of Israel understood human nature: not everyone has the backbone of an Ernie Wales. Serious sin calls for repentance and restoration—often more than once.
THE FROG IN THE POT.
If you throw a frog in a pot of hot water, it will quickly jump out. But if you put a frog in cool water and slowly turn up the heat, he may sit there until he is cooked, never noticing the gradual change. Have you been that frog?
Sometimes our lives are like that. We are ‘fat and happy,’ ‘at ease in Zion,’ (Amos 6:1) and we gradually drift further from God and closer to sin. Soon, sin and bad habits heat up the circumstances around us until we begin to really suffer. Then what?
Repent! Turn from sin. Turn back to God. Stop those bad habits. Re-kindle the good habits. Get back into the word. Get plugged in at church. Get involved with Christian ministries.
“You have lost your first love. Remember, therefore, from where you have fallen. Repent, and do the deeds you did at first” Revelation 2:4-5.
Nehemiah 8-11 reports on the nation’s month-long repentance and worship following their release from captivity. Though the people officially committed themselves to God after slavery in Israel, it needed to be done again after exile in Babylon. (Where to us it’s just another Bible story—‘Hey, don’t all these people know each other?’—the truth is 1,000 years had passed! The Exodus was ancient history by now, and the nation had fallen from God in the intervening years.)
So they renewed their vows. May we do the same, every time it’s needed!
ΑΩ
Household Words: 