Jeremiah 6:16 (NIV): This is what the Lord says: “Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’”
Often when it becomes evident that a person or group of people has taken a wrong turn, the best advice is for them to go back to where they knew that they were on the right track, and start over from there. The advice God gave to His Old Testament people through Jeremiah is essentially the same as He gave to His off-track New Testament saints through John: “Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.” Revelation 2:5 NIV) “Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; obey it, and repent.” (Revelation 3:3 NIV)
Many Christians today have a hard time receiving this word. For a lot of them the old ways are the tired ways, the stale ways, the ways that have been tried and found wanting. They believe that what is really needed is a new way – a path that has never been tried before, that will somehow hold the key to making the Church the dynamic organization they know in their hearts it should be.
But what many do not realize is that the powerlessness that they see in the Church today is exactly the result of multiplied decades of wandering from the old ways into a succession of new and different paths, each one of which held the promise to be the sure-fire thing that would renew and reinvigorate the Church. But each one of them has proved to be a false trail that only led the Church farther away from God and His power.
Only rarely have God’s people realized that the correct way forward is to go back – back to the ancient paths, the ones that were walked by the powerful saints of the first century Church. Very few can ever claim to have walked in the Spirit-driven power that they possessed!
God’s message to today’s Church is the same as it has always been to those who have struck out on their own, determined to leave behind the old paths for the promise of new, uncharted ways: Repent! Turn around and rejoin the ancient paths, the paths of power and fruitfulness; the paths of holiness and obedience; the paths that God laid down for His people to follow from the very beginning. Only the ancient paths can guide us into the future that we desire.
Father, help us to find again the ancient paths; to leave behind all of the trappings of “church” that we have substituted for simple faith, simple obedience to Your commands, simple power from living in vital connection with You. Help us to turn away from our own ideas, and simply find again the paths that You have laid out for us to follow. Amen.