RTW August 11
Sometimes
My Takeaways
Something Old
- Sometimes we feel like we don’t have what it takes.
My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. (NIV) Psalm 73:26 - Sometimes our assignment wears us out.
Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. (NIV) Galatians 6:9 - Sometimes our assignments brings suffering.
But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. (NIV) 1 Peter 2:20
Something New
Prophets and priests led God’s people down the wrong path. WOW, to the shepherds God puts in charge of His sheep that falsely led.
Something to Do
Hang in there with God, and complete my assignments.
My reflection: It must have been so hard for Jeremiah! To be sharing a message directly from God and have no one paying attention. No wonder he is called the weeping prophet. It’s even hard for me to read – with all the gloom and doom. Then to be surrounded by false prophets, too…what a confusing and chaotic time. (And yet, sadly, sometimes this chaos sounds familiar to our world today. And I wonder if I lived in Jeremiah’s time, would I have listened???)
Then there is suddenly hope in Jeremiah 23:3-6. Perhaps I only recognize it as Hope because I sit on this side of history, but in the midst of the gloom and doom, I felt some relief wash over me. Verse 5 – “For the time is coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up a righteous descendant from King David’s line. He will be a king who rules with wisdom. He will do what is just and right throughout the land.”
Hallelujah! Real justice and wisdom and all that is right is on the way! Yet it was still hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus. Everything in God’s time. (And there is a lesson for me in that as well!)
My Takeaways: Jesus Christ is Coming to Make His World His Own
Something Old: Jeremiah continues to prophesize dooms day. But the people continue to sin against God. They were wicked idolaters, lovers of evil, who had broken their covenant with Him. But there was light at the end of the tunnel. Jeremiah also prophesied about the Messiah. “For the time is coming,” says the Lord, “when I will place a righteous Branch on King David’s throne. He will be a King who rules with wisdom. He will do what is just and right throughout the land, and this is His name — ‘The Lord is Our Righteousness.’ In that day, Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety” (23:5, 6). Great stuff! A righteous branch on King David’s throne…. rules with wisdom… will do what is just and right throughout the land… Think this is Jesus? Of course, Jesus is that righteous branch who came to save His people, and He is coming back to rule the earth-what a great day that will be!
Something New: The last verses in Jeremiah 23 go after false prophets. I know in reading Jeremiah I’ve been pondering how hard it would be to be Jeremiah, a prophet with some tough messages. Well, in this chapter it looks like being a false prophet is really the wrong way to live. Jeremiah had some harsh words for the false prophets of his day – men who told the king and people what they wanted to hear, that everything was going to be okay. Sadly, there are many false prophets in the Church today. They claim to speak for the Lord but their messages contradict His Word and the true Gospel of Christ. Instead of preaching the truth, they preach what the people want to hear, filling their minds with futile hopes of health and wealth and a religion of works. I guess sometimes I can even be a false prophet to my own self and others on occasion, when I don’t accurately communicate and live out God’s Word. When I share God’s Words to friends and neighbors they will look for its effectiveness in my life. Unless it has changed me why would anyone let it change them?
Something To Do: Live out what I know to be true. Be true to God’s Word.