Better Than "The Good Ol' Days"

What's better than "The Good Ol' Days?" It's a Spirit-filled work of God TODAY. But many Christians expect too little today; their expectations are well below what many in the past pursued and even pled to get from God. As C. S. Lewis said, "Christians have been far too easily pleased."

Jeremiah 3:15-16, 

¹⁵‘And I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding. ¹⁶ And when you have multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, declares the Lord, they shall no more say, “The ark of the covenant of the Lord.” It shall not come to mind or be remembered or missed; it shall not be made again.

My focus here is on the words of verse 16, "When you have multiplied and increased in the land . . . they shall no more say, 'The ark of the covenant of the Lord.'" When God is manifestly doing a genuine, vibrant work Christians do not fall to reminiscing about the “good old days” of revivals past or of their favorite, charismatic preachers. Such memories are a fine thing and worthy of reflection, but not if it’s due to a paucity of spiritual enlightenment today. Israel began to actually prefer Egyptian slavery and deprivation over wilderness freedom if only because it was predictable. To unbelieving Israel, God forsook them in the wilderness. And if he were to be absent there, then why not return to an oppression that at least boasted better onions, leaks and garlic?

We are no different today. People come to church—and if their spirit hasn’t atrophied—still hope to find a vibrant God and virile worship. But the Spirit has been disallowed from so many churches today that spiritual dullness prevents their ability to detect His absence! This is heartrending. We go through the motions of glorifying God, but demean it’s effectiveness at every turn. We come and we go with nary a word from the Lord. We grow accustomed to it, entering the sanctuary with little expectation for anything glorious. It’s one thing to suffer divine silence, quite another to accept it as the norm! What a distressing state to which the church has fallen.

Yet, it was Jeremiah’s word that sounds an opposite and clear invitation. He will provide shepherds whose leadership will ring so true with Spirit-power, that the people will simply forget all the glory days of yore in favor of the awesome presence of God today.