"You're Only Hurting Yourself"

"You're only hurting yourself."

What child hasn’t heard those words a time or two, or three?  What parent hasn't said them, over and over? And does the adult exist who hasn't come to the conclusion, at least once in their life, that the only person being hurt in a particular moment of anger was their own self?

While the idea that "you're only hurting yourself" may sound like common, practical wisdom, the other day I was surprised to learn it is also biblical wisdom.  I was reading Jeremiah 25, where the prophet Jeremiah is warning the people of Judah of the coming judgment of God. God's judgment is coming specifically because they have been repeatedly disobedient. They have engaged in evil ways, done evil deeds, and repeatedly committed the most serious of offense of pursuing false gods.  In verse 7 Jeremiah ends the first part of his warning by saying:

"Yet you have not listened to me, declares the Lord, that you might provoke me to anger with the work of your hands to your own harm." 

"…the work of your hands to your own harm" is Jeremiah's way of saying "you're only hurting yourself."  The people of Judah are ignoring God's words of warning, thereby provoking his anger towards them, an anger that finds its source in the ungodly ways they are choosing to live, which will end in being on the receiving end of God's punishment.  In choosing to sin against God they are choosing the suffering that will result. 

Jeremiah wrote those words about 2,600 years ago, and they still speak God's truth to us today.  We can think of the way that God outlines for his people to live as being rules, and sometimes as harsh rules. The Ten Commandments of Exodus 20 are perhaps the most basic rules. You shall not. You shall not. You shall not…  You get the idea.

They are rules, but they are often very clear rules, and they are rules given for our own good.  Seen from the point-of-view we have as sinners they look like ways to take away all the things that we enjoy.  But from the point-of-view of God they take away the things that bring us harm and give us lots of room to enjoy the good things God gives to his children.  Sometimes we look at them as being bare bones rules, without a lot of detail, but that is most often when we are looking for ways to make excuses to break them.  And when we do, at best, "we are only hurting ourselves."  At worst, we are bringing suffering onto others who are downstream of our sin.

So look at your life, look at the rules and the other wisdom throughout the Bible that God provides to shape your life, and look towards God to give you what you need to stay between the lines as you live in ways that bring him pleasure and shine his light into the world. Amen. 

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.