““But who has stood in the council of Yahweh, That he should see and hear His word? Who has given heed to His word and heard? “Behold, the storm of Yahweh has gone forth in wrath, Even a whirling storm; It will whirl down on the head of the wicked. “The anger of Yahweh will not turn back Until He has done and established the purposes of His heart; In the last days you will clearly understand it…..“But if they had stood in My council, Then they would have caused My words to be heard by My people And would have turned them back from their evil way And from the evil of their deeds.” Jeremiah 23:18-20, 22 LSB https://bible.com/bible/3345/jer.23.18-22.LSB

The expectation of God is that we avail ourselves to His word and by reading it we apply it to our lives. God has recorded for us Who He is and what He requires of us so that we can know Him and do what He commands. To ignore God is to dishonor God and to demonstrate before God the height of arrogance. Yet most christians spend almost no time in Scripture, reading it for themselves in order to do all that God has commanded us. Not only are we to obey the Scriptures upon reading and studying them for ourselves but we are to encourage one another in obedience to those Scriptures. The vast moral decay in our culture, and among so many who claim to be christians but whose lifestyles are in direct disobedience to God’s recorded Word, is the result of our personal ignoring of God and of not holding each other accountable to the Word of God. This is a hard work, the work of challenging each other to obey God and to call each other out when we are not doing so as Christians. It is easier when we all ignore God and all pretend that we are doing fine with God. God is not deceived. God will measure each of us by the standard He gave to us found in the Scriptures. Jesus the Judge, Who died for sinners, will bring before Him every person to determine if they loved God with all of their heart, soul, mind, and strength demonstrated by their daily effort to obey everything He commanded us. Let us repent and resolve ourselves to read the Scriptures daily and to meet frequently with those doing the same in order to encourage one another in the ways and works of God.