I Don't Want To Be An Object Lesson

I lost the Bible that I normally preach from this week. I accidently left it on the roof of my van when I went to pick it up after an oil change. Now I have a few different Bibles, but this one was very special to me. I loved the way that it felt in my hands. It was the perfect size to fit my notes in. I reach for it every week to study from. I had a picture of myself as a child on my father’ knee in the front of it and it always is an inspiration to me as I preach from week to week. I have a few different Bibles, but I have to admit that my heart sank when I reached for it this week and realized it was gone. It was an awful experience for me and I went on a desperate search up and down Ontario St. a few times retracing my route to find it to no avail.

The people of Judah had lost the Word of God at this time in Jeremiah’s ministry. In fact they had lost more than that…they had lost the very presence of the Lord.

We will unpack the second message in Jeremiah's ministry to Judah, just before their final exile into the land of Babylon at the hand of king Nebuchadnezzar. It was delivered about five years after the first, in the eighteenth year of King Josiah. However, what begins to unfold for us now is how Jeremiah himself is personally affected by his own ministry.

Last week we were challenged by his message to always remember our relationship with the Lord likening it to a marriage, realize to the depths that we have fallen and the call to return into the fold, becoming His beloved children who say, Here I am, send me! I will be the living presence of Jesus in my world.

When we lose the presence of God in our life, we lose our own sense of worth and ultimate meaning. In fact Jeremiah made it clear that by chasing after worthless idols in our life we in turn become worthless. 2v5

When you lose God, you easily lose the value of human life. The nation had lost its sensitivity to God and the reverberations continued to deal death blows to their sense of self and others.

Today’s message is a challenge to stay true, stay focused, stay the course when life is way beyond us to understand God.

Losing Your Way To God – I CAN’T SEE YOU.

It is always tough for us to know how to respond when God acts in a way that is opposite from how we expect him to show up. There have been times where I have celebrated the God who heals, the God who gave a clean bill of health to my father, the father who showed me how to love your wife and your children only to see the cancer return with a vengeance two months later and his death 3 months following that.

I have celebrated the God who defied the doctor’s prognosis for my dear friend Carlos, a dentist who takes his whole dental staff to Uganda to work on the teeth of those families who could never afford it, a man who would return to his homeland in Columbia despite the warnings to minister to people there as well. A man with such a generous heart that when he bought a cabin in the mtns he made it very clear that it was not his, but to share with every ministry, especially the youth, for retreats only to fall into palliative care in July and die in August of this year.

But the hardest thing I had to watch was a little boy by the name of Robbie Newman die at the age of 7 because he contracted HIV and then AIDS as a result of being born with this condition. I sat by his bedside, held the pictures that he drew for me.

You may resonate with me in those similar places where God has left you in the whirlwind of the circumstances

However that is why God is mysterious. We would like God to be more predictable, but oh, He is not. We have picked out the promises that we have claimed and clinged onto. However we rarely take into account the whole of Scripture. We are more comfortable proof texting our preference of God. So, today we come face to face with some difficult verses, verses that are not so quick to understand, but really shake us to our core and require quite a balancing act.

God asked Jeremiah to do two things here that really seem out of character for God.

7v16 "So do not pray for this people nor offer any plea or petition for them; do not plead with me, for I will not listen to you.

How does that strike you? God commanded Jeremiah to stop praying for the people of Judah,…don’t intercede, don’t fast, don’t bring them before me. Most of us think that prayer is always the mandate…PUSH pray until something happen. Why would he command someone to stop praying??

I don’t think any of you have claimed this as your life verse.

As if that were not bad enough, check out what God tells Jeremiah in v27

"When you tell them all this, they will not listen to you; when you call to them, they will not answer.

As a pastor who preaches on a week to week basis, this would be all the motivation I would need to say, “God, I don’t think I am meant to be your man in this place”. Imagine going into that kind of assignment and being told that no one is going to respond to your message, they are not going to listen, they are not going to take it to heart and don’t even bother praying about it. Prayer is the fuel for my preaching, it would be so empty and meaningless.

Losing The Voice Of God – I CAN’T HEAR YOU

Well, let’s look at this whole chapter unfolds in v1-7

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD : 2 "Stand at the gate of the LORD's house and there proclaim this message:
" 'Hear the word of the LORD, all you people of Judah who come through these gates to worship the LORD. 3 This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Reform your ways and your actions, and I will let you live in this place. 4 Do not trust in deceptive words and say, "This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD!" 5 If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, 6 if you do not oppress the alien, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, 7 then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your forefathers for ever and ever. 8 But look, you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless.

The historical context for this message is also seen in 2 Chronicles 34,35 where we get more background into the events that surround this message from Jeremiah.

Young king Josiah was conducting an attempt to turn this nation back to God. At this precise moment he had given orders to clean up the temple. For the temple had been turned into a storage room and had begun to accumulate a lot of junk.

So, in the midst of doing their clean sweep and getting ready for the temple garage sale. It is the high priest, Hilkiah, who very likely was the father of Jeremiah, that found an old scroll of the Law from Deuteronomy. So the King and his advisors were working hard to challenge the nation to return to the Lord. They had a proper Passover celebration, the first one in such a long while and the king went all out! There is a great procession, song being sung about the temple of the Lord

They read about the Passover, and discovered that no one in that nation had celebrated the Passover since the days of Hezekiah, a hundred years earlier. So orders were given for a great celebration of the Passover. Scripture tells us that there never before had been a Passover in Israel like this one. This king went all out! He offered sacrifices according to the Levitical commandments, and had the priests prepare themselves to conduct the ceremony. Everyone is caught up in the moment of celebration and then they see Jeremiah and he is yelling out something like “Hold Fast” Hear the word of the Lord

He basically is telling them, "Whom do you think you're kidding? Do you really think God is like this, that all he is interested in is religious games, rituals that you go through? Do you really think that if you merely get all this religion going, God will be fooled and will spare this land? Don't you know that God knows what is going on?" And he went on to describe it in Verses 8-11:

But look, you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless.

9 " 'Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known, 10 and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my Name, and say, "We are safe"-safe to do all these detestable things? 11 Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching! declares the LORD.

It would be Jesus who centuries later came to the temple during his public ministry, quoting these very verses in John 2:16 and driving out the money changers, the very people who were taking advantage of the place of the church and turning a not-for-profit ministry into a very profitable one…

The people were thinking that the discovery of the Word of God and being in His temple were good enough. God will be pleased with us and they were so flat out wrong…

They were trusting in the appearance of righteousness, the ritual of being in His presence and Jeremiah is not finished. As God has commanded him, he continues to preach…It was at this point that Jeremiah was told not to pray for this people any longer, for God had decided to visit them with judgment.

14 Therefore, what I did to Shiloh I will now do to the house that bears my Name, the temple you trust in, the place I gave to you and your fathers. 15 I will thrust you from my presence, just as I did all your brothers, the people of Ephraim.'

Losing The Touch of God – I CAN’T FEEL YOU

Now if you think God is the type to take pleasure in seeing these people destroyed, then you are missing what He is really doing here in fact you can see God’s heart through the prophet in chapter 8

Chapter 8 goes on to tell us how he reacted. In verses 18-22 you can see the prophet's personal reaction:

O my Comforter in sorrow,
my heart is faint within me.

19 Listen to the cry of my people
from a land far away:
"Is the LORD not in Zion?
Is her King no longer there?"
"Why have they provoked me to anger with their images,
with their worthless foreign idols?"

20 "The harvest is past,
the summer has ended,
and we are not saved."

21 Since my people are crushed, I am crushed;
I mourn, and horror grips me.

22 Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
Why then is there no healing
for the wound of my people?

He could see their end and it made his heart sick. Jeremiah himself continued to be the object lesson for God commanded him as we see in the beginning of chapter 16 not to get married, to not take part in any wedding or funeral to further impress on the people that God has withdrew his blessing on His people.

Have you ever felt like that? Have you ever suffered over some loved one, and cried out, "God, where is the Great Physician?" So Jeremiah cries out, "Why don't you heal this people?" He simply doesn't understand what God is doing.

We love a God who speaks

In order to get all this together, we ought to look back in Chapter 7 and see the list of actions God says he takes when a nation or an individual begins to turn away from him. Verse 13:

While you were doing all these things, declares the LORD, I spoke to you again and again, but you did not listen; v13a

The first thing God does when you begin to drift is to warn you what the consequences are going to be. He is faithful to tell you

Galatians 6:8 The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.

There is no way to escape it. Even forgiveness for it does not remove that. If you sow to the sinful nature…guess what the weeds are going to show up in your heart. Sin will leave its scars even though the wound is healed. God warns that there is going to be hurt in your life, hurt in your heart, hurt for the loved ones around you. There is no way to escape it.

Then God speaks again…

I called you, but you did not answer. V13b

He is always calling, always seeking, longing for us to return. He is longing for us to come back, but when that does not work, he has one step left in the program: judgment.

He will not let His own continue to fall away, He will bring us a wake up call.

Hebrews 12 The Lord loves those that He disciplines.

C. S. Lewis put it very beautifully when he said, "God whispers to us in our pleasures; he speaks to us in our work; he shouts at us in our pain."

That is what Jeremiah had to learn. He did not understand that this nation had reached the place where the only thing that would heal it, the only chance it had left, was the judgment of God -- the hurt and the pain of invasion, and the loss of its national place. God's love was insisting that that happen.

We love a God who listens

Radical surgery was necessary, but it was the only way to remove the blockage to their heart.

Chapter 9, Verses 23-24:

This is what the LORD says:
"Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom
or the strong man boast of his strength
or the rich man boast of his riches,

24 but let him who boasts boast about this:
that he understands and knows me,
that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness,
justice and righteousness on earth,
for in these I delight,"
declares the LORD.

Don’t get wrapped in a false sense of security. Jeremiah knew that they saw going to the temple as a good luck charm and he warned them about it

It is good to talk about what God has done, but even better to talk about what God is doing! What is your security blanket?

Church attendance, a false sense of your own goodness, serving in a ministry, attending another Bible study….You need to know the Lord firsthand – not through others version of it. Know the Lord who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness in your life, in our lives, in the life of our church…

Paul reiterates this is 2 Corinthians 10:17 Let Him who boasts, boast in the Lord

The only time that we should be reveling is in the realization that God has spoken through us. He has placed a message on my heart and I was convicted in my spirit enough to share it because I love that person and I want to be obedient to His voice.

There is no point in boasting about what we have or who we are because it is all a gift from God.

Jeremiah continues to reflect in 10:23 I know, O LORD, that a man's life is not his own;
it is not for man to direct his steps. Proverbs 3:5,6

The sooner we realize this, the better off we will be. The lesson is simple- do not think that you are in the driver’s seat – Keep living that out practically – seek Him out, ask for His discipline, ask for His wisdom – keep seeking it out.

We love a God who feels

It was at this point that Jeremiah broke down and wept before God. I do not think you can read these passages expressing the anguish of the prophet's heart without seeing the echo of the sobs of God. For God was still working through this man, and weeping over this people himself, as expressed in the sobs of Jeremiah.

Jeremiah 9:1,2

These are the verses that gave Jeremiah the name ‘the weeping prophet’

Oh, that my head were a spring of water
and my eyes a fountain of tears!
I would weep day and night
for the slain of my people.

2 Oh, that I had in the desert
a lodging place for travelers,
so that I might leave my people
and go away from them;
for they are all adulterers,
a crowd of unfaithful people.

There is a difference between being alone and lonliness. He definitely wasn’t alone and neither is God, but lonliness is the ache that you feel when there is no connection, no initimacy, no relationship.

The Takeaway

Understand and know the Lord!

When we can’t speak, He still listens, when we can’t hear, He still speaks and when we feel numb, his heart aches.

Questions For Discussion

Share about a time of pain or grief when God felt distant or uninvolved? Is this situation still unresolved or how has healing come?

What verses do you cling to in a storm of life?

Has God ever given you a wake up call?

What enables you to keep your Christian life real and not ‘going through the motions’?

How will you seek to understand and know the Lord this week?

The Fine Art Of Follow Through

It is always easy to start something…you name it a home improvement project, an athletic competition, a marriage relationship. It is quite another thing to finish and finish well. It is a huge commitment to give your life to Jesus, it is quite another thing to let Him live his life through you. Jeremiah knew this all too well in his challenge to the people of Jerusalem. He called them to “stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, and where the good way is, walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls”.

Today we stand at the crossroads between a life lived for self or for others. Are you ready to stand in the gap? Are you ready to be the life giving, breathing message of God? If you are then be prepared to always remember, always realize and always return.

REMEMBER Jeremiah 2v1-3

Israel’s relationship to God is likened to that of a marriage relationship and the nation had lost the beauty of their connection.

When love grows cold they say that with couples half the battle with couples is getting them back to when they first met, the circumstances that were involved and what drew them together…

I will never forget the time that Sharon surprised me when I was a student at PBC.

It was so amazing, the element of surprise,

Can you relate what is what like when you first discovered a real sense of connection with the Lord. What made it special, the wonder ,the joy.

Your service for the Lord must be fuelled by a passion for a genuine love for Jesus or the flame quickly burns out. It is a story that unfortunately happens all too often…

The honeymoon had ended and the thrill of marriage had left all too quickly…

So, what is the downward spiral? Jeremiah 2v13

My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me,
the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
broken cisterns that cannot hold water

Forsaking God – the spring of living water – as their true source of fulfillment, definition and place in His family and going after other gods –

What kind of cisterns are people digging anyways?

You see the picture -- the incredible foolishness of somebody who has forsaken a living stream of water, with its freshness and its healing, refreshing quality, and has dug a cistern to catch the rain as it runs down the hillside laden with dirt and leaves and bugs and debris, and then stagnates in a broken cistern which leaks and will not hold the water

How much energy is spent going into defining ourselves by what we do or what others say about me or the stuff that I have accumulated? Answer these questions and you quickly find out where and how quickly you are digging.

It was Henri Nouwen who was convinced that the decisive point of Jesus’ public life was his baptism when he heard the divine affirmation, “You are my beloved on whom my favour rests” or “you are the one whom I love, with him I am well pleased”

We need to remember the love of God that drew us and is well pleased with us. It is hard to hear that voice in a world filled with voices of rejection telling you that you are no good, that you don’t have anything to offer unless you can demonstrate the opposite.

The greatest trap is not success, popularity or power but self rejection. Its true, I can give a message and a number of people can tell me how much they appreciated it. But, if one person comes up and tells me that was totally out in left field then what do I remember?

The quiet calming voice that calls me ‘beloved child of God’ comes in countless ways. It has come from parents, friends, ministry peers and that voice has had different tones urging me to stick with it, to remember my calling, to know that He is there.

REALIZE Jeremiah 2 v19, 20

It is important to note that the Lord does not bring charges against his people because of their thirst. He brings charges against them because of how they are satisfying their thirst. Desire is good. If you don't want something more than food, clothing, and shelter, you are not human. God created us with thirst. Don't kill it. Eventually, if you pay attention to it, the thirst in your soul will lead you to the Spring of living water.

v23,24 He gave animals a different kind of sexuality than he gave us, in order that we might learn from them, might have a vivid picture of how we look when we start lusting after everything that comes along, and being available for any kick, any thrill, any drive, other than God himself. So God holds up this vivid picture. This is the kind of figure God holds up and says, "That is what you're like. That is you, lusting after everything that comes by, living for kicks, wanting to be satisfied some way. He is challenging us to the core.

When we choose to satisfy our desires through indulgence, we're looking for a feeling, a buzz. We're looking for something that causes our soul to rise up and shout for joy. We find it, or think we will, in financial investments, another trip to the mall, check out the new Winners… Haagen Daaz, another drink of alcohol, pornography, an affair-or at the very least an active fantasy life. Whatever our drug of choice, it often becomes an addiction, because indulgence never delivers what it promises, and one always ends up begging for more.

When we choose to satisfy our desires through performance, we're looking for acceptance, applause, love. We're looking for someone somewhere to rise up and say, "You're okay." We're terrified of even one negative remark in a sea of positive feedback. We work hard. We crave accomplishment, success, achievement. We take the performance ethic with us everywhere-into the home, where we seek to be the consummate parents; into the workplace, seeking to put our best foot forward all the time. Performance often leads to perfectionism, because no performance ever wins enough applause.

What are you really addicted to? You name it and be honest with God –you get right to the root of it and stop just trying to cover up the symptoms. Maybe it is bitterness…God didn’t show up when you needed him or at least that is how you felt and you have been given over to complaining and negativity.

The nation knew that they had a problem and were quick to confess, but not quick to change and God had to take them through the ringer to come clean.

RETURN Jeremiah 3:11-13, 22, 25; 4:1

This is what the LORD says:
"Stand at the crossroads and look;
ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
and you will find rest for your souls.
But you said, 'We will not walk in it.' Jeremiah 6:16

We need to stop the drifting now.

The calling we have is to stand at the crossroads.

We need to stop the drifting now. We need to walk in the good way.

The only way that we have rest for our souls is going back to spring of living water.

The only way we have rest for our souls is to acknowledge our guilt and our shame…how far and how fast we have fallen.

The ancient path is the path that leads to the death of self and becoming alive in Christ.

The ancient path is prayer…prayer that follows through – prayer that is listening with obedience.

The ancient path leads us back down those the painful roads except now it is not about us anymore and our fulfillment, its about finding others on that path and letting them see the love of God through me.

As William Young writes in “The Shack”

Those who love me come from every system that exists. They were Buddhists or Mormons, Baptists or Muslims, many who are not part of any Sunday mornings or religious institutions…Jews and Palestinians. I have no desire to make them Christian, but I do want to join them in their transformation into sons and daughters of my Papa, into my brothers and sisters, into my Beloved. “Does that mean,” asked Mack, “that all roads lead to you?”

“Not at all,” smiled Jesus as he reached for the door handle to the shop. “Most roads don’t lead anywhere. What it does mean is that I will travel any road to find you.”

The Takeaway

We follow through when we let the truth of our being loved become fleshed out in everything we think, say or do. It transforms me into the beloved child of God, into one who says ‘Here I am, send me!’

Questions For Discussion and Small Groups:

1. What has become an artificial replacement for the presence of God in your life?

2. When did you feel most alive in your faith in Jesus? What circumstances surrounded that time?

3. Do you find that you are more given to treating the symptoms in your life as opposed to the root cause? What is really the sin that you need to realize and confess?

4. What will it take for you to know that you are a beloved child of God in whom He is well pleased? Is it more about doing or being for you?

5. What road is God leading you on to bring His presence?

Getting A Job You Don't Want!

Hmmn... Have you ever had a conversation with God like this…

Lord, I’m not sure I’m cut out for this. I don’t think I’m ready yet….well, you’ve given me certain spiritual gifts and you know I did that spiritual gift inventory with John so why do you keep calling me to do things that really don’t line up with who I am? My personality, gifting and make up…well, I don’t think we have a match made in heaven. Are you sure this job is for me?

It may very well be about your job, but it is more to do with the assignments that God gives us which can often happen ‘on the job’ so to speak. We are going to begin a series this fall on the life of Jeremiah. He is a real prophet who wears his heart on his sleeve. If you don’t know him very well, you might think he is neurotic.

He isn’t a simple man and his book isn’t really all that simple either. The first 25 chapters are a collection of sermons interspersed with some off the record comments between God and him. Then in chapter 26-45 we have a sketchy biography of his life and not necessarily in chronological order and then finally in 46-52 we find his prophecies against other nations.

Have you even been in a Jeremiah-like spot? It is when you are squeezed in the middle like a go-between and find yourself often misunderstood. It is being a rock in a very hard place. You have been given the job of telling others that they have no job or you are the one who has to confront a family member about their sin. It is often a no win situation and you unfortunately somehow come out looking like the bad one. There is no reward for your job and people don’t want to hear what you have to say. Then, to top it all off, God seems distant and removed from you. Enter the life of Jeremiah. As we wrestle through his problems, we will come to learn how to walk through our own. We can learn so much from his life as a prophet with maybe the exception of Daniel. However with Jeremiah, you will know and feel the inside, the gut level honesty with God that we all need to discover.

Getting to know Jeremiah’s workplace v1-3

He was born around 646BC in a suburb like place just 3 miles NE of Jerusalem. He lived in a community of priests and Levites and the most famous person that had lived there was Abiathar who counseled David for many years.

In Jeremiah’s day, there was more priests than jobs in the temple and Phoenician and Assyrian deities were worshipped more in the temples than God. He was the son of a priest, Hilkiah and they would be supported by the givings of the people but given their apathy and divided loyalties, they wouldn’t have seen very much support at all.

There was so much corruption and infidelity in the country during his time and leading to infants being offered on pagan altars.

Fast forward 20 years and Josiah is well into his reign. He was the young boy who began his reign at 8! When he was 16, he began seeking after the God of David after doing some housecleaning…. (2 Chronicles 34:3) How easy it is to lose God’s Word in the clutter of life..There was a ray of hope under His godly reign, but that soon would be snuffed out.

Getting to know the job description! v4-8

God had no business asking Jeremiah to do those nasty assignments…someone who’s psyche was more suited for the job… He appears to not be the best suited for the position. It is clear that Jeremiah is a poet and God is calling him to be a prophet. He could have easily been the guy that wrote folk songs for Judah to sing. Instead, he is called to a ministry of thunder and lightening instead of a gentle spring rain. From his writings, one commentator describes him as the shy, sensitive type, impatient, given to extreme highs and lows, courageous and yet torn by a sense of inadequacy.

However God gives him an incredible sense of calling. God has his life planned out for him long before He tries to figure it out. He has been appointed, been set aside…born for this mission

Getting to know the power tools v9

Then the LORD reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, "Now, I have put my words in your mouth.

When God calls you, He equips you with His power and His presence. God is used to our excuses and thankfully He is in the business of doing the unexpected with the unsuspecting! You have heard it said before that God doesn’t called the equipped. He equips the called!

He loves to shine in this type of situation because He receives the glory. It is His Name that is on the line. It is His strength that is made perfect in your weakness.

2 Corinthians 12:9,10

He puts His words into our mouth…Hebrews speaks of the Word being alive and powerful.

In Jewish thought a word was more than just a sound expressing meaning. A word actually did things. It was an effective cause like God in creation stating, Let there be light. The heavens and earth were made by the word of the Lord in Genesis 1:3

In Genesis 2:7 God breathed into man the breath of life and he became a living being

2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is inspired – God breathed

The Word of the Lord is mentioned 49 times in Jeremiah’s book. When the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, it was an active life giving message. It had this incredible grip on him. It possessed him and burned within him as Jeremiah 20:9 relates it was like a fire in his bones. There was no way he could contain it. He also speaks of eating God’s Word in 15:16. It caused him joy and it also caused him to stagger like a drunk man 23:9 and also caused him pain 38:6,9

Getting to know the fine print… v11-19

There were some bright lights in his message and verses that we quote, but for Jeremiah, he had a dark mission. It was negative in that he would proclaim judgment. God does not call us to be happy go lucky. He teaches us to number our days so we can gain a heart of wisdom. He calls us to repentance, to humility, but He also lifts us up and sets our feet on a rock and gives us confidence, grace, strength and never underestimate the power of His presence.

The challenge for Jeremiah was to show his people that God was not asleep. He knew exactly what was going on and what was happening was far from acceptable. If he lived in our day he might have grabbed hold of that commercial….WAKE UP PEOPLE and put his own twist on it.

However God gave him a vision of an almond tree and his attention was particularly drawn to a flowering branch. The word in Hebrew for almond branch is saqed which literally means ‘the waker’ because this tree was to first to bloom in spring like the peach tree or a robin showing up. It was a sign and the amazing thing is that it flowers even before its leaves begin to unfold.

The almond tree was God’s wake up call to nature and Jeremiah was to be the wake up call to the nations. He is not asleep, we are the ones who are sleeping.

In all of this, Jeremiah needs God’s assurance and He definitely gives that assurance along with a real challenge not to deviate!

In 1521, Martin Luther was summoned before the Diet of Worms. Standing before the secular and religious leaders of the church, Luther was asked to retract his writing which had been condemned as heretical. In his famous reply, the great Reformer answered, “I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted, and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not retract anything.”

Jeremiah too was captive to the Word of God. He could not and would not go back on the message that God gave him.

So, what can we learn from Jeremiah…

It is not wrong to admit your own inadequacy for what you are called to do. In fact, God appreciates that type of attitude more than any other.

It is not wrong to be honest and open about how you feel with God. We really would like more fine print, details, more details. The reality is that God does not simply reveal it all up front. We have to learn to trust him more in every situation.

We need to remember that not every mission is necessarily meant to succeed. It is ok to fail. God doesn’t judge success by our standards and definitions. What often looks like success to us is not necessarily success to him and the same is true of what we might look as failure.

At the end of the day, the job, the mission, the most reassuring thing that He gives us is His presence.

The Takeaway

When God gives the job description, His presence and power are all over it!

How to let the Word get to you.

1. Read the Bible apart from all the helps. Let the HS speak to you.
2. Flood your reading with prayer
3. Read different parts of the Word of God
4. Believe it to be the truth
5. Read it with an open mind, don’t try to put your own spin on it
6. Really let it sink into your heart
7. Take time to memorize it and internalize it.
8. Let it control all parts of your life, your eyes, ears, mouth, hands, feet…
9. Live on His terms, not your own.
   

Questions For Discussion and Small Groups:

1. What is your excuse for not following through on God’s calling? What is it that holds you back from sharing your faith or His compassion with others? How can God turn this weakness into strength in your life?

2. How can the Word of God really take hold of you? Can you share an experience where its words gave you the direction, focus or your marching orders so to speak?

3. Can you relate a time where you felt a situation you were involved in was a failure until God showed you at a later time that it was a success.

4. How can you let the word of God captivate you this week?

Excavating The Soul...

A heart to heart with God...

Where have I hidden my heart from you, O Lord? I have buried it deep within my being, far from You. I have separated my heart from Your presence or so I thought.

Lord, I laid my heart on the ground. That’s how it first got so dirty. My own desires drew my heart away from You and into the dirt. The more and more dirt fell on my heart as my desires led to sin and drew me away from You. At first it didn’t seem so bad, but now I realize that all this dirt has blocked me from your light.

The loneliest moment was when I could no longer see Your light at all. My sin had become a deadness I brought on myself. My soul was a dark place, far from You- buried under layers of self serving. My soul became the coffin of my heart. I don’t like it here. I try and try to dig myself out of this grave that I’ve buried myself in. I claw at the dirt to not avail. How can I reach the light of Your presence and love? Lord, please come and set my heart free. Lift it from this dark place. Lord, please dig through the levels of separation that I have put between us and excavate my soul.

The first layer that must be dug through is pride. I admit it Lord, its true. Pride is what packs down this soil so hard on my life. It is so easy to obsess about the externals and what other people think of me. There is this constant pressure to appear more spiritual than I really am, to give the appearance of righteousness, to say the right things, to not say too much. Maybe its true that I hold myself back from truly connecting with you. No, it’s more than that. I guess it is hard to really admit how far I have drifted from you…prone to wander Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.

I guess pride is what keeps me from being placed completely in your hands. Right now Lord, I ask you to break through this layer of pride, help me to be honest with You, with myself and with others.

Read Psalm 51:1-4

Lord, there are these weeds that have grown up in my heart from all the wrong thinking patterns that I have developed. I guess the biggest lie is believing that You can’t meet my needs for love, for satisfaction, for fulfillment.

It has created all these layers of sin that I’ve buried myself in. I fear that my desires have got the best of me and that I will never truly experience intimacy with You. I know that on my own I cannot break the power of sin in my life.

Lord, please show me where to dig. Thank you that You never rest in the pursuit of my heart and there is no sin or sins that are too much for You.

Thank you that as far as the east is from the west so far have you removed my transgressions from me – that You throw them into the deepest sea and remember them no more.

Thank you that you don’t leave me here and that You long to till and cultivate my soul and that You lead me to dig through the layers and that You can reach my heart.

Read Psalm 51:5-11

As God continues to show me where to dig my shovel hits bedrock where my loyalties rest. This bedrock consists of what I treasure the most.

It is one thing to admire God from a distance, its quite another thing to kneel at His feet and pledge your life to Him.

There have been many recommitments along the way and my rededicator is so easily worn out in my own strength.

I know that wherever my time and money is spent, my heart is right there in the mix. So, you have asked me to honor you with both and it is so easy to get distracted, to make excuses… but when I give you Father what is most precious to me, you unearth the bedrock of my soul and use it for the foundation for my faith. God, I know you want to keep digging right to the deepest level of my loyalties. You want to be my treasure. Your love oh Lord can reach my heart.

Read Matthew 6:19-21

When my heart is in Your hands then and only then can I truly celebrate and so do You. The treasure that was hidden in the dirt has become truly God’s. It is the most valuable treasure the world has ever known and it is the only treasure that will last. God’s excavation makes way for my heart to bask in His amazing light, bringing new life and healing. He takes my heart that I’ve placed in his hands, He carefully cleans it off and then holds it close to His own. My heart begins to beat strong again, my heart has found its true home.

Read Psalm 51:12-19

Afterthoughts...

If you let Him, God will hold your heart close to His. God will remove the barriers, He will make you clean, but He is calling for your devotion..not your devotions, not your church attendance, not your appearance of righteousness. He longs to clothe you in the righteousness of Christ. Are you willing for Him to do soul surgery?

Pour out your heart to God.