I confess that I can wake up in the morning and, before I get out of bed pray, “I give you this day, Lord. Anything you want me to do I will do it! I’m ready.”

But then when God lays on my heart the name of a person I need to call, I know I should, but I don’t. God nudges me to change the channel from an ungodly TV show, but I don’t. He prompts me to speak to someone about sin, but I talk myself out of it. I overeat, I gossip, I think bad thoughts, I get jealous. I don’t love like Jesus loves.

I am like the Jews who told Jeremiah that they’d do anything God told them to do. But when Jeremiah told them what God wanted them to do they said, “anything but that.” They flat out disobeyed God, and they paid the consequences.

I am reminded that God doesn’t want me to promise to obey Him. We demands that I obey Him. He doesn’t want me to say the words I think He wants to hear, He wants me do the things He asks me to do. God is not impressed with my promises, or my good intentions. He tells me to be holy, to love my neighbor, to go and make disciples, to flee temptation, and be set apart.

He will accept nothing less. And neither should I.