“But if you refuse to pay attention to what Adonai your God says, and do not observe and obey all his mitzvot and regulations which I am giving you today, then all the following curses will be yours in abundance…”-Deuteronomy 28:15
What does it really mean to forsake the Lord?
The commonly accepted idea is that it means to abandon God.
However, in retrospect, when we take a good look at what happened to Israel, we don’t find them completely abandoning the Lord.
Israel never reached the point where they said…“God doesn’t exist, so we don’t have to obey Him and His commands”.
So what exactly was the nature of their rebellion?
The answer is simple.
Over time they mixed in worship of other gods while still claiming allegiance to HASHEM.
To forsake the Lord doesn’t necessarily always mean to fully renounce Him.
Biblically speaking, it means to BREAK THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THE COVENANT.
It means to turn our back on Him and wander away to do our own thing so the Lord becomes second place in our life.
It can also mean to twist the instructions in the Torah to suit our own desires and convenience or to obey only those instructions that are easy to do and don’t pose any inconvenience to our lives.
Sounds pretty familiar, doesn’t it?
That’s right.
I’m just as guilty as everyone of you reading this right now.
To put God on the shelf and let your faith be weakened by the things of this world is I think a good Biblical definition of forsaking the Lord.
That’s exactly what “to forsake the Lord” meant 3000 years ago and that’s still what it means today.
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