9 Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known,

10 And [then dare to] come and stand before Me in this house, which is called by My Name, and say, [By the discharge of this religious formality] we are set free!—only to go on with this wickedness and these abominations? – Jeremiah 7: 9-10, Amplified Bible (AMP)

It’s nothing new. People bask in their sin, rolling around in their vileness like a pig rolls around in a mud hole. Then, they run to church, say a few prayers, and read a verse or two from the Bible to make themselves feel a little better about their sin. As soon as they are done at church, they return to the mud pit from whence they came, acting like nothing is wrong so long as they give a quick nod to God from time to time.

The convicting reality is that, more often than we’d like to admit, “they” includes “us.” Maybe we don’t steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, or worship other gods outwardly. But inwardly, we are guilty of many – if not all – of these horrible trespasses. As Jeremiah 17:9 (AMP) states:

The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is exceedingly perverse and corrupt and severely, mortally sick! Who can know it [perceive, understand, be acquainted with his own heart and mind]?

In a calm and silent moment, the deceitful heart will attack with vain, unholy thoughts. If we’re not careful, we’ll give place to those thoughts, and inwardly we’ll be just as much the thieves, murderers, and adulterers, that God chastised through Jeremiah. Worse yet, we may feed those wicked thoughts by consuming the worldly scenes and sayings from our favorite movies, television shows, music selections, and books. And, very possibly, we can become so numb to the foolishness of it all that our thought life eventually manifests itself in our outward behavior.

Whether inwardly, outwardly, or both, we have all trekked down the same path of hypocrisy that God chastised in Jeremiah 7:9-10. The trick is to recognize our wrong direction when God shows it to us, repent of it, and seek God’s forgiveness. If we will repent, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But if we won’t repent, we can be assured of punishment sooner or later.

The question you and I need to ask ourselves is this: do we want to be clean, or would we prefer to keep wallowing in the mud hole?  We’d better choose cleanliness while God is still offering His mercy. If we don’t, He’ll eventually address the issue with a painful application of His holy and just wrath.