WEEK SIX - DAY TWO - GOOD PLANS AHEAD!

Could this be the hope we’ve been waiting for?!  It seems Jeremiah has been a long, dry road. It has been full of admonitions and warnings of upcoming discipline and destruction.  But here we have a day of God's good, good plans. We can say with joy in our voice the memory verse of this week, Jeremiah 10:11, “'For I know the plans I have for you', says the Lord, 'they are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope'”

Now that is reassuring, isn’t it? To know that our God is planning good things for us, mapping out lives full of hope! If we just didn’t have to look back to verse 10, we could rest in the joy!  But when we do back up, we see that God certainly does have good plans for Judah’s future, but that good future comes 70 years down the longer, drier road of captivity.  Does that caveat erase the fact that God is still planning good for them? Or does it mean that God is abandoning them for these coming 70 years? Does it mean that no good can come out of these 70 years? When God‘s good "big" plans for us are delayed, do we grow discouraged and weary and doubtful that He ever had good plans for us in the first place? Do we feel like all good things have been put on hold? 

The good plans that God has envisioned for his people, His very good plans, will certainly come about. They will need to be patient and they will need to be confident of his faithfulness to His promise.  As do we. We have a God who is working for us, all the time.   In John 5:17 Jesus tells us, "My Father is always at work..."  Even when we are in the period of waiting for His ultimate good plan, He continues to have good plans for each segment of our lives.  In fact, Paul writes in Romans 8:28, "And we know [with great confidence] that God [who is deeply concerned about us] causes all things to work together [as a plan] for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to His plan and purpose." Amplified Bible.  While the people of Judah lived in captivity in Babylon, God did not leave them and His plans were still ongoing.  His plans included a Jewish boy taken captive named Daniel, a servant to the King of Persia named Nehemiah, and an exiled priest named Ezekiel. In the time of waiting, His plans highlighted a heroic Queen named Esther, and a Jewish King named Zerubbabel. Was God far away, had he quit making plans for his people?  The stories of these Old Testament lives show how untrue that assumption is.   For all the other unnamed people of Judah living in exile, God had given them instructions of how to live in the time of waiting, Jeremiah 29:5 says, "This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says to all the exiles who were carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses and settle down. Plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters. Take wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Multiply there; do not decrease. Seek the prosperity of the city to which I have sent you as exiles. Pray to the LORD on its behalf, for if it prospers, you too will prosper.”  While we wait for God's promise, He continues His plans for good.  We don't wait in misery, we wait knowing we have a good, good Father who is always at work on our behalf. 

Just as in Judah’s time of waiting, as we wait we, too, need to be reminded that God has never left us and that He is always at work.  Just as we now can see all the other things going on in those 70 long years of captivity, we can be assured that God is working out what we often think are the subplots of our bigger story; and then sometimes those seemingly lesser storylines, surprisingly (only to us, never to God) become our life’s big story. The one that we thought would never happen!  All of a sudden we say, "Wow, God did that in a way I never saw coming!"

Sadly, for many of us as we grow older, it seems that life no longer holds a great future or the light of hope.  We’ve passed the ages of setting goals, starting families, and nothing seems to get us as thrilled with life as we once were. I’m sure for the older Jews who were in exile and knew they probably would never see their home country again, they, too, had their hope diminished.  

I have come to think that God purposefully uses our diminished excitement with earthly plans to further ignite in us a greater anticipation about His heavenly plan…after all, it is His big, forever plan of good for us!  It is the plan that God had from the beginning of time, His plan of salvation for us, to reconcile us unto Himself and to live with Him for eternity.  

So, YES, this is a message of good, good plans ahead...plans for a forever future and a glorious hope!  

Revelation 21:1-7 - "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying:“Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man, and He will dwell with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God.  He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the former things have passed away.” 

And the One seated on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” Then He said, “Write this down, for these words are faithful and true.” And He told me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give freely from the spring of the water of life. The one who overcomes will inherit all things, and I will be his God, and he will be My son."

WEEK SIX - DAY ONE - AN AUDIENCE OF ONE

The title of this lesson begs the question...who are we playing to?  Who are we looking to as we play on the stage of life to give us that longed for 👍?  What are the words we are longing to hear as we go through our day-to-day lives?  

"Great job with that presentation, today!"

"You really have such a great eye for decorating - your home is just so lovely!"

"Your family is just about picture-perfect!  You've been great parents!"

"You are one of the smartest people I know - you are just so knowledgeable about so many things!"

Those are great compliments - and none of the praised qualities are to be looked down upon in any way.  But if we're playing to the audience of our peers, our families, our friends, then we're always going to be seeking the next words of acknowledgement of our most recent and, hopefully, best performance.  Talk about stress!  Yet that's just what so many of us do - put ourselves in situations of performance for other people to give us their 👍 and bracing ourselves against the possibility of the dreaded 👎.  

Jeremiah was getting a lot of 👎, to the point of being threatened with execution!  Jeremiah was given specific words by God to proclaim to the King of Judah...not easy words, words of impending destruction and captivity.  King Jehoiakim wasn't too keen on hearing that he would be deposed and his kingdom taken from him, he didn't like the words Jeremiah proclaimed, and the Judean priests and prophets were right there with him.  "You must die!" ...they cried out...does it make you think of a similar scene approximately 600 years later?  The words then were "Crucify Him!" as our Savior spoke words from His Father that the priests and rulers did not want to hear.  Words of another King, another Kingdom, greater than they could imagine. When power and position are threatened, people tend to get very antagonistic! 

Jeremiah paralleled Jesus in another very striking way as he was interrogated...where Jesus said in John 10:18, "No one takes it from me [life], but I lay it down of my own accord", Jeremiah says, "I am in your hands; do with me as is good and right in your sight.  Only know for certain that if you put me to death, you will bring innocent blood on yourselves, and on this city and on its inhabitants; for truly the Lord has sent me to you to speak all these words in your hearing."  Jeremiah never backed off of the words that God was giving him, even in the face of death.  Jeremiah knew whose hands his life was truly in, and God would stay by his side no matter what the people decided to do with him.  Just as David had written in Psalm 118:6, Jeremiah understood, "The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid, what can man do to me?"

Jeremiah's fate seemed sealed until "some of the elders" spoke up.  They remembered Micah, another true prophet of God, who had prophesied during the days of King Hezekiah.  He had also preached a message of impending destruction and of needed repentance. Hezekiah had heeded Micah's message and Judah had been saved from God's hand of judgment at that time.  The elders, those who could remember a time of obedience, turned the opinion around and Jeremiah's life was saved.  An interesting note that Scripture includes is that "the hand of Ahikam the son of Shaphan was with Jeremiah, so that he was not given into the hands of the people to put him to death."  I am not familiar with this character, are you?  Looking back in 2 Kings 22, we find that Ahikam was indeed the son of Shaphan, and Shaphan was the scribe who had been given the Book of the Law that had been found in the temple.  Shaphan had brought the Book to King Josiah and when Josiah had heard the words of the Book, he tore his clothes and sent a group, including Shaphan and his son, Ahikam, to inquire of the Lord concerning the words of the Book.  Shaphan, Ahikam and the others in the group had to go back to the King with hard words, words of God's wrath against Judah due to their disobedience, and they had fearlessly delivered the words as they had been given.  So, dear Ahikam, had been in the place where Jeremiah found himself now, delivering hard words and standing true to God.  Ahikam was likely one of the "elders" that recounted obedience and adherence to God's prophets had been to Judah's favor in the past, and they needed to consider the "old, godly way" as they were at this critical crossroads!

The thing is...Ahikam, Jeremiah...all the other Old Testament prophets, didn't back down.  They didn't opt for the popular or preaching the message that would draw a crowd.  All they did was say, "This is what the Lord says...." and they didn't add to or take away from the words they had been given.  And then our ultimate example, Jesus!  He certainly didn't back down, He stayed true to His mission and obeyed His heavenly Father's voice, always and completely.  John 12:50 "I know that His commandment is eternal life. So the things I speak, I speak [in accordance with His exact instruction,] just as the Father has told Me.”  Amplified  Bible.  

If you, like most of us, fight the addiction of the approval of others, pray for a release from that painful and destructive compulsion.  It adds stress and confusion to our lives.  We must decide now who our audience is and then give it everything we've got...so that when the last curtain falls, we hear our One saying,  "Well done!"

WEEK FIVE - DAY FIVE AND WEEK RECAP

How very fast these weeks have gone!  Five weeks behind us and here we are heading into the last week of our study of Jeremiah.  I hope you have gotten as much out of it as I have.  Looking forward to one last week of diving into what this prophet of long ago has to share with us.

The last day of week five was titled, "Rescue with Repentance" - the only way to true spiritual rescue is through our true and broken-hearted repentance.  Key word in that sentence is "true"...we won't truly be rescued unless we are truly repentant.  The people of Judah voiced their repentance, but their lives didn't reflect the words that were coming out of their mouths.  Our text tells us, "The people were crying out for rescue, but God knew their hearts.  Their motives weren't right.  They wanted God's hand of help without any relationship or repentance...Like a good parent, God chose to allow Judah to experience the difficulty brought upon them by their bad decisions."  Until our hearts cry out for rescue, with pure motives and ready for restoration upon our repentance, God won't reach down to rescue us, just as He did not respond to Judah.  True repentance isn't just admitting our sinfulness and saying we're sorry, it is turning away from our sinfulness and asking God to give us the strength to remain turned away, to desire to distance ourself from what we know is opposed to God's will for our lives and to turn to God and the lives of holiness that He calls us to.

When we stand in opposition to God and refuse to turn, we find ourselves lying about God and about ourselves.  If we find ourselves thinking that God is less than who He really is or if we find ourselves thinking that we have as much authority over our lives as God does, we need to stop and review our lives and see where we might have gotten off track, where there is a need for repentance and a u-turn to get turned back around.  That's why Psalm 139:23-24 is such a good prayer to routinely voice to God, "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."  

From our text, "God is always faithful to redirect us, rescuing us from a road of dangerous pitfalls."  It's so much better to call out for rescue when we realize we're on the wrong road, but we haven't yet fallen into a pit.  The sooner we heed God's redirection, the better.  And the sooner we learn that God is for us, never against us, oh, so much the better....then we are not nearly so prone to get on that rocky road in the first place!  Lord, help us trust You....that's what you keep asking of us, isn't it?

Our fifth week was focused on Quitting the Blame Game, Personal Responsibility.  In our session on Friday, we spent quite a bit of time discussing the Scripture of  Jeremiah 6:16,  "This is what the Lord says, 'Stop at the crossroads and look around.  Ask for the old, godly way, and walk in it.  Travel its path and you will find rest for your souls.  But you reply, 'No, that's not the road we want.'"

Isn't that just a treasure of a Bible verse?  So, so much good advice packed in this verse.  And yet, the closing sentence shows the people of Judah, and the people of today, responding with the same stubborn comeback, "Nope - that's not the way we want to go."  There has just been an offer made of rest for our souls, and yet we reject that offer and think we have a better way.  And then we wonder why we have lives full of anxiety, stress and malcontent!  Again, God is asking us, "Trust Me!" and we say, "No, we really think we can find a better way to get to where we're going."  God has a better way for our earthly lives than we can devise on our own, and He has a much better way for our eternal lives.  He has THE WAY...the only way.   If we try to get there on our own, we're going to be sorely disappointed - we can't.  There's a chasm that is unmanageable for us to traverse, we won't make it.  

What is that old, godly way that we are to ask for?  Jeremiah knew the Torah, and he very likely was thinking of Deuteronomy 30:11-20, "Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, “Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, “Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.  See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.  But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, 1 declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.  This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

God gives us a clear message, He shows the way for us, we are the ones who have the choice to make as to how we will live.  Then  He made it even clearer for us when He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to tell us that He had come to let us know He was preparing an eternal home for us, and that if He was preparing that home for us, He would surely come again and claim us as His own and take us to that glorious new home.  

Stop, look, ask, walk, and find...

• Stop what we're doing now and see if we need an adjustment
• Look around us and see who we need to be helping along the way,
• Ask, continually ask, for God's direction, look to that old, godly way
• Walk in that way - travel that path
• Find rest!  The rest that only comes through the One who can provide...Matthew 11:28 "Come to me, all who are tired from carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest."

It's a great offer!  Don't turn it down!

WEEK FIVE - DAY FOUR - GOING THROUGH THE MOTIONS

There's been many stages in my life when I've felt like I'm just going through the motions with God.  Just checking off the "to do" list of church attendance, Bible study, prayer time...everything by rote, without much emotion or interaction of my heart.  I don't ever want to be there on any kind of long-term basis again, and yet there are still days that feel forced, when I wonder if God is listening, or if I am, or if either of us is connecting with the other.  While I think it's normal to experience some "dry" days occasionally, if these days come too often, or too close together, it's time for some examination of our lives, our hearts and what it is that is drawing us away from the heart of God.  Because God IS listening, God is ready to connect and, as the old saying goes, "Feel far from God?  Guess who moved?"  It's never our Heavenly Father who has drawn back...we can always trace the lost connection right back to our wayward heart.

Matthew West released the song "The Motions" in 2009 and the lyrics really speak to what we're talking about today:

"I don't wanna go through the motions, I don't wanna go one more day
Without Your all consuming passion inside of me.
I don't wanna spend my whole life asking, what if I had given everything instead of going through the motions?
No regrets, not this time, I'm gonna let my heart defeat my mind.
Let Your love make me whole. I think I'm finally feeling something."

God wants us to have His passion, His all consuming passion, inside of us.  He asks us to give Him our whole hearts, and abandon the emptiness of going through the motions.

The people of Judah had been in a very long dry spell.  Oh they were still offering the sacrifices, false prophets were still delivering soothing messages from the temples, but their hearts were far away, turned away from God, and turned toward their neighbors' pagan influences. In Jeremiah 7:9-10 God makes it clear that they are not fooling Him, "Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery and swear falsely, and offer sacrifices to Baal and walk after other gods that you have not known, then come and stand before Me in this house, which is called by My name, and say, 'We are delivered!' ---that you may do all these abominations?" and in Jeremiah 23:10b-11 we read, "...'the pastures of the wilderness have dried up.  Their course also is evil and their might is not right. For both prophet and priest are polluted; Even in My house I have found their wickedness,' declares the Lord."  They were both physically and spiritually dry and yet they had deceived themselves into thinking that God would be pleased with their superficial worship...He never is.  

When we are coming to God with hearts that are in every practical aspect turned away from Him, and yet stand in worship with hands held high and sing words of praises, He is no more pleased with us than He was with the people of Judah.  He wants our hearts...He wants our lives.  We read in Romans 2:29, "And true circumcision is not merely obeying the letter of the law; rather, it is a change of heart produced by God's Spirit.  And a person with a changed heart seeks praise from God, not from people."  Here's your sign - who are you seeking praise from?  When our hearts have been changed by the Spirit of God, we seek the praise of God alone.  And what does it look like to worship God in a manner that pleases Him?  

In Psalm 51:17 we are told that "The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit. God, You will not despise a broken and humbled heart."  We cannot worship God in a pleasing manner if we come to Him with a haughty spirit, without a desperation for His healing of our brokenness, without acknowledging Him as our only source of cleansing and restoration.  

Jesus tells the Samaritan woman at the well, that we must worship God in spirit and in truth (John 4:24).  In Matthew Henry's commentary on this verse, he states, "The spirit or the soul of man, as influenced by the Holy Spirit, must worship God, and have communion with him. Spiritual affections, as shown in fervent prayers, supplications, and thanksgivings, form the worship of an upright heart, in which God delights and is glorified."  My emphasis added to fervent prayers, supplications and thanksgiving because we can fall into rote patterns of prayer that are far from fervent.  We must continually ask for hearts that are soft and ready to pour out our every emotion in our conversations with God.  

This brings to mind how the people of Judah were viewing God's provision for them...they had this idea that their continued "worship" of Him, in whatever manner they were willing to bring it, ensured that God would continue to protect them, bless them and keep their cushy lives, well, cushy!  In Jeremiah 5:12-13 they say, "He won't bother us!  No disasters will come upon us.  There will be no war or famine."  We have to be very careful that our worship of God isn't reduced to worshipping Him for making our lives good and comfortable.  Our proclamation that "God is good" needs to be said when we've experienced wonderful times and equally proclaimed when we've gone through the valley.  Worship of God is due Him because He is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God, Creator of the universes and, yet, being all that, He knows us and loves us...individually, personally.  We worship Him for no other reason.  We praise Him for all that He has done for us through the sacrifice of Jesus and the forgiveness that His blood brings over our lives.

We thank Him for earthly blessings that He has brought to us, but we don't worship Him for that.  We worship Him for who He is and praise Him for what He has done for us.  If all our earthly blessings go away, we still will have hearts of worship.  For He will still be God.  Worthy of all honor, praise and glory!  

WEEK FIVE - DAY THREE - PERILOUS PRIDE

PRIDE - imho the root cause of all sin - our complete obsession with self.  Satan knows us so well; as he whispers in our ears, he prefaces almost every temptation with "You"..."You deserve it", "You need it", "You are more important", "You are smarter."  And our itchy ears say, "Yes, yes, yes, I do and yes, I am!"  And down the rabbit hole we go!  Chasing the elusive "something" that will feed our pride and make us feel complete.  While all the time God is calling to us to lay down our pride and allow Him to be our completion...but that takes admitting that we need Him and that we cannot find completion within ourselves.  Pride is the barrier to the relationship with God that He is calling us to.  We must recognize it within ourselves and then ask Him to rid ourselves of it, asap!  The sooner we humble ourselves, the sooner He will be able to have true Lordship of our lives.  There's only room for one on the throne of our hearts!

The nations that surrounded Israel were full of earthly pride.  They prided themselves on their accumulation of wealth and treasure, on their powerful horses and military might, and on their trade skills.  They were arrogant in their feelings of independence and self accomplishment.  And Judah, God's special people, had allowed their neighbors' attitudes to infiltrate into their own...they too were arrogant, and sometimes in the fact that they felt God had elevated them to a place of no reproach.  God would never turn on them, no matter how far they wandered away from His commands...or so they thought! Jeremiah 5:12-13 "They have lied about the Lord and said, 'He won't bother us!  No disasters will come upon us.'"  

Back to our memory verse of this week, Jeremiah 9:23-24, "This is what the Lord says, 'Don't let the wise boast in their wisdom; or the powerful in their power; or the rich in their riches.  But those who wish to boast, should boast in this alone:  That they  truly know me and understand that I am the Lord.'"  God is telling us that we have no reason to be prideful...all of our wisdom, power and riches are of no value to Him.  He has no need of them.  And the only thing that we can offer to others that is of any eternal value is our true  knowledge of God and the acknowledgement of Him as Lord over all.  Brag about that if you're going to brag about anything!

When Jeremiah's assistant, Baruch, grows weary of his assignments and complains of fatigue and being overwhelmed, Jeremiah admonishes him and asks him, "Are you seeking great things for yourself?  Don't do it!" Jeremiah 45:5a.  The same warning comes to us...are we seeking great thing for ourselves over and above the assignments that God is tasking us with?  Is our view of our importance, our wisdom, our abilities causing us to question the "lesser" things that God may have laid out in our lives for us to accomplish for His purposes?  Don't do it!  Don't let pride cause you to miss something wonderful, a moment when you truly see God allowing you to participate in His plan in a way you would have never imagined!  Jeremiah tells Baruch that because of his obedience, God will spare him from coming disaster.  "Great things" that Baruch may have dreamed of doing may have led him right into situations he could have never gotten out of and completely out of God's will.  

Pray for the areas of your life where you tend to feel prideful and ask God to rid yourself of that sinful pride.  Then ask Him to remind you of all the things that you boast about in Him, all the ways that He has shown Himself in your life.  Pray for yourself, pray for our nation to be humbled and to turn back to our Creator God.  He IS everything...He IS life....He IS our God!

WEEK FIVE - DAY TWO - FINDING A TARGET

After living in a household with at least one other person ALL of my life up until 3.5 years ago, one of the things that I find most annoying about living alone is there is NO ONE to blame things on....other than me!  Whenever the remote isn't where I know I left it, or there are dishes left in the sink and not put in the dishwasher (WHO does that?), or when I find yard work not done that I needed done by this time of the year, I look to find who it is that I can blame?  And there's no one....only ME!  Now I wonder if I may have been the culprit all along...no, I don't think so.  Surely all of these bad habits have only recently developed.  (Really....?  I think I may owe my family members some apologies!)

Another method we use to avoid taking responsibility is the "you never told me" line.  That's the one that kids love to frequently use on parents.  "You never told me you wanted me to......." whatever the chore was that you gave them and are now reprimanding them for not doing.  "You never told me it was important to....." whatever the good habit was that you tried to get them to develop.   The problem is, they were told, they just weren't listening.

Judah fell into both categories of finding targets to shift their lack of responsibility onto.  They blamed their problems on Jeremiah, and they claimed that God had never made it clear to them what He wanted of them, and they pretty much denied they'd done anything wrong.  How can they ever feel the need for repentance if they never admit that they have failed?  How can we?  

If everything is always someone else's fault, then we won't come before God and bring our failures to Him.  It just doesn't work to say, "God, they made me do it and I didn't know it was wrong."  That doesn't qualify as repentance.  "God, it didn't seem wrong to me so as long as I'm true to myself, I really didn't do anything wrong."  That doesn't qualify as repentance.  "God, I am a complete and wretched sinner trapped in the pit of sinfulness and in desperate need of a Savior."  THAT qualifies as repentance.  

God had made it abundantly clear to Israel and Judah what He required of them.  They could not say they didn't have clear instructions and they could not say He hadn't made their transgressions apparent to them.  They could say that they had chosen to ignore Him and His directives to them, but shifting the blame to God wasn't going to work for them...and it doesn't work for us.  When God pronounces to His people through His prophet Jeremiah that they have forsaken Him while worshipping idols, that they have followed their own desires while ignoring His commandments, that they failed to teach their children of Him and of His wondrous deeds done on their behalf, do they listen and repent?  No, they admit no wrongdoing and condemn Jeremiah for his words of discipline.  God's earnest plea to them to recognize their sinfulness and turn back to Him falls on deaf ears and discipline follows.  

Should we expect anything different? The people of Judah had the Torah and the prophets to relay to them God's will.  We have the complete Scripture, an abundance of teaching and teaching modalities, AND we have the Holy Spirit living within us.  Can we deny that God has made His will readily available to us if we seek it?  But do we, like the Judeans, forsake Him in preference to worldly gain and do we pursue all of our selfish and sinful desires rather than His directives over our live?  Have we failed to pass on to our children and grandchildren our faith in our Father God and share with them what He has done for us in our lives?  If we have failed in these ways, then we should be hearing His call to us to repent, to accept our personal responsibility in failing to put God first in our hearts, with no other target to put the blame on other than ourselves.  

It is so easy to try to shift blame to someone, anyone, else so that we don't have to make changes or question our decisions.  We even try to blame God.  "Well He's the One that made me this way!" which we all say at one point or another!  "He made me and He knows me so how can He blame me?  It's on Him!"  That's the ultimate blame game, isn't it?  While the first two segments of that question are true (He made us, He knows us), the third is not...He has given us everything we need to become the people that He has designed us to be, and His design is good and perfect and reflected in His Word.  If we try to excuse any sinful human propensity in our lives (laziness, lying, gossiping, sexual immorality, hatred of others) by ascribing it to God's design for us, we're just wrong.  All of those things come to us through brokenness and by living in our flesh rather than by living in His Spirit.  Romans 8:5 "Those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh; but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit." and Romans 12-13, "Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation, but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live."

God made it clear to Judah, He makes it clear to us.  God gave them a choice, Jeremiah 21:8 "Tell all the people, 'This is what the Lord says: Take your choice of life or death!'"  God gives us a choice as we read in Romans - live according to the flesh, or according to the Spirit - one brings death, the other life.  

God wants us to live - and to live abundantly!  Choose life!

WEEK FIVE - DAY ONE - GOOD DISCIPLINE

Our overall theme of this week is Quitting the Blame Game - Personal Responsibility, and today's focus is on Good Discipline.  Does that seem like an oxymoron?  Doesn't discipline, in the context of correction, have a negative connotation?  Does anyone like to be disciplined?  

If you are a parent, you've undoubtedly had to discipline your children in the course of their raising.  And inevitably, when the pronouncement of the dreaded punishment came, whether grounding, taking away of a privilege, or when they were very young a swat to the fingers or their bottoms to let them know that they had just misbehaved, was met with the reaction, "That's not fair!  I didn't deserve that!"  And yet, we knew as their parents that we had to intervene at that very moment so they could be aware that whatever had invoked the discipline was something we didn't want to see continue in their behavior.  I remember hearing James Dobson say, and I'm paraphrasing, that whatever behavior you saw in your child that you didn't want to live with for the rest of their lives, and yours, you should address there and then and put a stop to it before it gets a foothold.  

As our good Father, I believe God does much the same for us.  When He sees us taking a path that He knows is not going to lead us to good places, or that will lead us away from Him, He corrects us as His children in whatever way He needs to to get our attention and reset us on His good path.  Sometimes this correction can be painful, and we can say, "That's not fair!  I didn't deserve that!"  But we are the child, and He is the Father.  He is the One who can see all the way down that road, all the way to the end of our path, and He is bringing us home.  I think of the verse in Philippians 1:6, "He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."  That's exactly how I picture God's discipline in my life...He's carrying on with his good work in me.  And He will until He gets me home.  Thank You, Father!

Not all hardships that we go through are God's discipline.  Many of them are due to the fact that we live in a sinful, broken world where we still deal with sickness, death and sin.   Our bodies breakdown and we die, and those we dearly love die, and it's hard. Needless violence runs rampant because people are in rebellion to God, and it's hard.  And we trust God.  

Some hardships come because we make really poor choices - we don't take care of our bodies and we get sick; we don't focus on our families and relationships are broken and splintered; we feed our minds trash, and we wonder why we're depressed, we overspend and end up financially stressed or bankrupt.  (My husband had a saying on that one that he loved to share with children and grandchildren, "When your outgo exceeds your income, your upkeep will become your downfall." That's about right!)  We can't blame God when we aren't following His guidelines for our lives.  He has given us His best advice on living this life here on earth through His Word.  He won't erase the circumstances of our bad choices, but when we repent and ask Him to walk with us to correct our missteps, He is faithful to do so.  And we learn again to trust God.

The troubles that are the hardest for us to understand, though, are those that come about due to our obedience to God.  That's where Jeremiah found himself - he had been obedient, he had done what God had asked and what had it gotten him...no family, no wife, no children, no friends, no respect.  But what had it gotten him...the knowledge of who God truly is and that He is Lord!  This brings us to our memory verse this week, Jeremiah 9:23-24, "This is what the Lord says, 'Don't let the wise boast in their wisdom, or the powerful in their power, or the rich in their riches.  But those who wish to boast should boast in this alone: that they truly know Me and that I am the Lord.'"   That's what Jeremiah had gotten, bragging rights over the wise, the powerful and the rich...because he knew God and he knew Him as his Lord.  Can we cling to that when we see those who are not paying attention to God, gaining on us in worldly standards?  When we, as Christ-followers, may experience worldly ridicule?  When we hear of Christians around the world being truly persecuted, beaten, jailed or even killed for their faith?  Can we say, "But they knew God!  Nothing compares to that!"  Isn't that what Paul said in Philippians 3:8, "I count everything as loss compared to the priceless privilege and supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord [and of growing more deeply and thoroughly acquainted with Him---a joy unequaled].  For His sake I have lost everything, and I consider it all garbage, so that I may gain Christ."  Amplified Bible.   WOW!  That's looking at life through reborn eyes!  Losing everything and considering it a joy unequaled to do so in order to gain the knowledge of Christ.  Do we value knowing God that greatly?   Do we trust God that much?

As God tells Jeremiah in Jeremiah 12:5, if you're having trouble running against men, don't even think about running against horses! If we fall down in peaceful living, how will we do when troubles really come upon us?  We have to change our perspective - we have to join Jeremiah and Paul in seeing that what God has in store for us is worth so much more than we can imagine based on the garbage of this world.  We learn to trust God - more and more and more.

So, if we are being disciplined, thank God that He cares for you so much that He treats you as His sweet child...needing a little nudging, sometimes a sterner reprimand, to bring you back to His good and perfect way for your life.  If we're going through hard times, whether of our doing or due to this crazy world we live in, we put our trust in God to walk us through.  And if we're being persecuted for His name's sake, for our obedience to His Word, for our faith in our Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus, then we look forward, with our reborn eyes, to the completion of the work that He has begun in us, the true and complete knowledge of Him that we will enjoy for eternity.  

Yes, there is good discipline when it comes from a good, good Father...and we have the best.

WEEK FOUR - DAY FIVE AND WEEK RECAP!

Another week behind us and only two left in this study of Jeremiah, my new friend!  I've added another name to the list of those that I can't wait to sit down and talk to when I reach my forever heavenly home.  I think when I meet Jeremiah I will just want to give him a big hug...he seems like he would like that, doesn't he?  Just to know that someone fully appreciates the hard earthly life that he led and the fact that we are both now standing face to face in perfect eternity, all struggles behind us! No more weeping Jeremiah, I think he will be smiling from ear-to-ear!  Now that's some good daydreaming ...scenes like that playing in my head make me very anxious for home!

Day Five admonished us to give our whole hearts to God - no more half-hearted devotion.  This is where it gets hard for us - we want to be devoted to our Lord, but we always want to hold on to that little portion of our hearts that is reserved for us, whatever it is that we want in our lives.  God is surely OK with us holding on to a little bit for us, isn't He?  If holding on to a little bit was good for us, I think God would be ok with it....but He knows it's not.  He knows that "little bit" tends to grow, to multiply and before we know it, our heart has been consumed by "us" and all of our selfish desires.  Like our teaching said, this happens gradually so that we don't notice it happening, but unless we're guarding our hearts, it will surely occur.  Whole-hearted devotion is our goal and where God want us to live.  Half-hearted devotion becomes quarter-hearted devotion becomes a once-in-a-while fleeting thought of God.  

Jeremiah knew that Judah had lost their first love...and he pleads with them to return.  If we're at a level of devotion that is less than what we know God wants of us, return!  I told our group that when I was reading through this, I found myself singing, "Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling...calling, oh sinner, come home!"  Come home - come home and give your whole heart back to the One who loves it completely.  

In Ephesians 5:15-17, Paul writes, "So be careful how you live.  Don't live like fools, but like those who are wise.  Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days.  Don't act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do."  So just as Jeremiah admonishes the people of Judah, Paul is calling to us as well...to be wise and make the most of every opportunity...don't act thoughtlessly...understand what the Lord wants us to do.   These words indicate we're to be in constant  thought of where God is leading us and what He is asking of us...all the time...that's whole-hearted devotion.  Let's live like that and see the difference it will make.  In our lives, and in the lives of those around us...living for the Kingdom!

Our week was centered on staying spiritually sensitive.  That's right where we ended up, isn't it...keeping that sensitive heart to God's leading and direction.  We can only do that by routinely evaluating our hearts---just as we take our blood pressure, or have an EKG, we need to check our spiritual sensitivity meter and ensure that we are not allowing our hearts to grow cold or stony.  Prayers for God to keep them soft and supple to His gentle touch.

Then we were reminded that behavior modification does not, and never will, equal heart change.  Heart change must be the first change...everything should be driven from the heart, it won't work going the other direction. Behavior modification is driven by us, surrender of our hearts to God allows HIM to do the changing in us, as only He can see the exact ways that we need changing.  Let Him!

Day three allowed us to see that our Father is the true mender of our broken hearts.  We can take them to Him and He will hear our mourning cries to Him and dry our many tears.  He IS close to the broken-hearted.  He cares for His children so dearly and tenderly.

Guarding our hearts is essential to our spiritual well.-being.  Our hearts are vulnerable to the enemy's attacks...that's why we are instructed to put on the breastplate of righteousness.  Not our own righteousness, it will fail us, but the righteousness of Christ that never fails.  We clothe ourselves in that righteousness and then reject all the harmful things that might damage our hearts - all the influences that we can recognize as opposed to the transformation that God is working within us.  

It all adds up to whole-hearted devotion to our Father.  Aren't we so fortunate that God wants ALL of us?  As stated in our text, "God doesn't desire all of our hearts because He is possessive or controlling; He simply knows that we are designed for intimacy with Him.  He knows that our half-hearted attempts at following Him will lead only to dissatisfaction, complacency and mediocrity---leaving us wanting something more....God calls us to whole-hearted devotion and He leads us by His own example---not sparing His only Son to show us His whole-hearted affection."

That's our God, that's our Father.  Let us return His whole-hearted affection with the surrender of our whole hearts!

WEEK FOUR - DAY FOUR - GUARD YOUR HEART!

 "Were they ashamed because of the abomination they have done?  They were not even ashamed at all.  They did not even know how to blush."  Jeremiah 6:15

I think this is one of the things that bothers me most about our current society. We've lost all sense of shame.  There's nothing that's out of bounds any more, nothing that causes our very sophisticated and cosmopolitan world to blush---how terribly naive and gauche that would appear!  We're way past that!

Oh aren't we though!  My Daddy went to heaven in 1990 and if he were to suddenly appear in my living room and start scrolling through TV, he would be aghast!  Between the language and the sexual portrayals that are on any time through the day or night, he would be convinced that we had all lost our ever-loving minds and had abandoned any kind of even half-hearted obedience to God!  We have allowed ourselves to gradually, over a not-so-long period of time, become completely desensitized to things that we should not be watching or listening to.  Music, movies, books all contribute to our desensitization; and for young people, I believe video games to be the biggest culprit, immersing them in lifelike situations that are ultra-violent and immoral.  

God's desire for us is to live PURE lives, free of filth and corruption.  Proverbs 4:23 says, "Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life."  We MUST start being intentional about what is going into our eyes and our ears.  For what goes in, will come out.  We should desire our outflow to be full of life and truth, but when we immerse ourselves in environments of immorality we are not going to get those kinds of outpourings.  In Jeremiah 9:3-9 Jeremiah describes the people of Judah as liars, evil doers, who do not know God.  They can't trust each other because they are all so full of malice and deceit, "they have taught their tongue to speak lies; they weary themselves committing iniquity."  Wouldn't you hate it if those things were said about you?  These are the attributes that angered God and caused Him to bring destruction against them.  

But the people of Judah didn't start out that way - they became that way because they didn't guard their hearts!  They didn't put up shields against the idolatory of their neighboring nations or against the self-sufficiency that had developed, causing them to break away from their dependency on the God who had rescued them and who had brought them to their promised land.  Their minds had wandered far from that God and had allowed their hearts to be compromised.

Where are our minds?  Where do our thoughts linger longest?  For our minds are the gateways to our hearts.  Where our minds take us is where our hearts will follow.  If we're dwelling on fantasies that take us away from reality, if we're spending unnecessary time contemplating our criticisms of others, if we're replaying scenes in our heads of hurtful words said to us and preparing the best-ever comeback ready to zing the next time we're given an opportunity to use it, then we're setting ourselves up for hearts that are covetous, critical, mean-spirited and altogether unlovely!  And if we're thinking of things that are immoral, lustful, or dishonorable, then we're preparing our hearts to follow with no ability to be shamed, let alone cheeks that remember how to blush.

When we are instructed to "take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ"  we are being told to take the first step in guarding our very fragile hearts.  My heart is guarded by the guarding of my thought life.  

And then we come to our words - one of the most bothersome verses in the Bible for a talker like me is Matthew 12:36, "I tell you that on the day of judgment people will have to account for every careless word they speak."  If we have allowed our hearts to become corrupt, then our mouths will follow suit.  As we read in Luke 6:45 "A good man produces good out of the good storeroom of his heart. An evil man produces evil out of the evil storeroom, for his mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart."  So while the mind guards the heart, the heart guards the mouth.  Profanity, gossip, disrespect, angry words are not reflective of the hearts that we are to have as Christ-followers.  If we find out mouths spewing words that do not reflect what we say is in our heart, we may need a good heart check!  Again, we need to keep a sensitivity to language and the words that we hear coming out of our mouths.  

So let's keep a little naivety, let's retain our ability to blush.  If we've gone too far and seen and heard too much, let's pray for God to allow our hearts to return to ones that are shocked by things that should shock, to be ashamed of things that should still be shameful.  

Oh Lord, cleanse us.  Remove from us everything that we have allowed to contaminate our hearts and strengthen us to recognize everything that is harmful to our hearts so that we don't allow it into our minds.  Remind us of Your call to us to lives of holiness and purity...for our good and for Your honor!

WEEK FOUR - DAY THREE - WHERE DO BROKEN HEARTS GO?

Broken hearts!   When we feel that our hearts have been split in two, life seems like it just can't go on.  Broken hearts can be caused by loss of love, loss of life or by the loss of a future we thought was secure...everything can change in a split second and our hearts can just feel so completely shattered.  Jeremiah was telling the people of Judah that their hearts were about to be broken - they were going to experience all of those losses at the same time - their families would be split apart, some taken into captivity, some killed and their homeland desecrated.  Their futures were going to be anything but what they had thought they would be.  Jeremiah is already broken-hearted because he knows, by the word of God speaking to Him, that all these things will take place without the peoples' repentance and he can't get them to pay attention to him.  He tells them to put on sackcloth and mourn for what they are about to lose, mourn with "a lamentation most bitter.  For suddenly the destroyer will come upon us."

I often say, "it's a good thing we don't know what's coming" because we would never be able to enjoy the present for dread of what we knew was coming in the future.  Because, no matter how much we would like to deny it, our lives here on earth all hold trials and hard times that we must make our way through.  Jeremiah had the sometimes unfortunate gift of prophecy, of knowing what was just around the corner for his country and his fellow Judeans.  And he told them to mourn.  

When our hearts are broken over one of life's tragedies, it is most appropriate for us to mourn as well.  We mourn and we grieve, and as believers in the God of the broken-hearted, we cry out to God for the comfort that only He can provide to His children.  Or that's what we should do.  So often we try to, as I said above, make our way through stoically, on our own.  The people of Judah didn't turn to God and mourn - they turned to every other source of comfort or assurance they could think of:  idols, political alliances with godless nations, or, what is often my go-to, ignoring the issue and hoping it will go away.  

BUT GOD offers us so much more.  Jesus assured us that we would have troubles here on earth, but He followed that problematic assurance with another that is so powerfully positive, "But take heart, I have overcome the world."  Only our Heavenly Father can make a promise like that.   Only our Heavenly Father can heal our broken hearts and start the process of recovery, and even, though we don't like to think of this when we're in the depths of grief, grow us through the process.  I have learned that hard times WILL come, to everyone, believers and non-believers alike.  But I have resolved that I will refuse to go through a hard time and waste that period of time when God is so ready to grow me in ways that I could not experience in any other way.  Don't waste it, you're going to go through it one way or another, so don't waste it, let God use it to it's absolute maximum value - that's the way I have found to endure the pain of broken heartedness.  

This process is the refining and cleansing that we covered in today's lesson.  God uses these hard times to show us the dregs that we have been allowing to accumulate in our heart.  To use that time when our hearts are broken wide open to get rid of the sludge and buildup clogging our spiritual blood vessels and to make us people of deeper character, wiser and more discerning in our diet of what we are allowing to come into us and into our very souls.  His goal is that we will come out of our dark valleys with more faith, a deeper trust and a more complete understanding of His immeasurable love for us.

So when you are broken hearted, mourn, and mourn well.  Grieve and cry and ask God to hear you - He has promised that you know,  Psalm 34:18 "The LORD is near to the brokenhearted; He saves those crushed in spirit."  HE saves us...He is waiting to hear us cry out to Him with our broken hearts.  Psalm 50:15 "Then call on Me when you are in trouble, and I will rescue you, and you will give Me glory."  This is what He wants us to do - this is where the broken hearted go.  This is where we are healed.

WEEK FOUR - DAY TWO - BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION VS. HEART CHANGE

 Well, that's always fun!  Just as I was finishing up the post for this day's summary, I lost it!  Completely!  It was there, and then it wasn't!  I always wonder when that happens, and it doesn't happen very often at all, if there was something that I had stated that didn't need to be published...?  If so, then I am thankful for the protection afforded me; if not, I'm a little aggravated in the time wasted!  But, you can be sure I'm going to review my words very carefully as I write and ask for Holy Spirit guidance to protect me as I go...I'll try to remember some of what I previously wrote, but I know it will be different, and that's ok too!

So....what is the difference between behavior modification and true heart change?   For one thing, behavior modification can be self-driven and self-accomplished.  We all can decide in our minds that we are going to start, or quit, a certain behavior and in a certain percentage of attempts, we may actually succeed in doing so...on our own, in our own strength.  But who can change their heart by themselves?  Even using a physical heart transplant as a comparison, who is able to do that on their own?  When pills have failed and nothing else will suffice...no, if we need a heart transplant we're going to require a highly skilled surgical team - we want the best in the field!  We certainly can't attempt it on our own!  

Well our spiritual hearts are even more delicate, and if we're going to ask for them to be changed, we certainly want the best there is to handle that procedure.  The best would be the One who actually knew our heart inside and out, without even reading our history.  We could trust Him with our heart, couldn't we?  That's what God asks of us....give Him our hearts.  Let Him do the transplant for us...all He needs from us is that consent form....submission.   That's where the people of Judah were having such a hard time.  They just could not get to the point of giving it all up.  And what was God asking of them to give up?  Lives of split devotion to Him and to idols; lives of split loyalty to their nation and to the countries around them; lives of self-centeredness and self-worship.  Why couldn't they see that their hearts had grown stone cold and they needed to be changed?  In Jeremiah 25:3, Jeremiah says that he has called to them on God's behalf for 23 years!  Twenty-three years and they still were refusing his message and call to repentance.  How long do we make God call to us to get us to see that we are in need of a heart change?  How long before we put our hearts totally in His hands to lead us in His ways without resistance.

I think a good summation is something I heard once, we spend way too much time pondering what we should be DO-ing for God, rather than considering the person we should be BE-ing for Him.  God is much more interested in who we are at our core level than the outward acts that we do.  But again, we can't just decide to BE that kind of person.  We'd love to be able to just take a pill and transform ourselves into whom God wants us to be.  But it is only through God's molding and shaping that we will start becoming a person reflective of His Spirit.  When we present our hearts to God to mold and shape and keep soft, He then is going to grow us into becoming a person who reflects His Spirit and the fruit of His Spirit will be evident in our lives...love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  If we're having a hard time seeing those things evident in our lives, it may be time for a heart-checkup.  We may need a restart.

That makes me think of when a heart has gotten out of beat and the cardiologist has to restart the heart so that it will again have a proper rhythm....I think that's what God asks of us sometimes.  We may have given our hearts to Him a long time ago, and so thankful that we have done that, what a critical step in our walk with Him.  But we cannot think of that first profession of faith, that first surrender as our last progression in our walk.   When we do that, I think we put ourselves in danger of getting out of sync with the heartbeat of God.  Our hearts need to be continually monitored and evaluated; we need to continually present our hearts to God for His examination.  Just as the cardiologist has to restart a heart that has developed arrhythmia, our hearts may develop a spiritual arrhythmia when they are beating according to the tempo of the world - beating along with the drums of materialism and greed, bigotry and hate, sarcasm and cruel tongues.  When God calls out to us that we need a restart, boy do we need to get in to His heart clinic as fast as we can!  The longer we put it off, well, you know how that goes!

So if you're wanting behavior modification, hey, there's a ton of great books out there on how to change just about any part of you that needs changing!  But if you need a heart change....well I know the best in the field, in fact He's the only One in the field....and, as a matter of fact, He just happened to write the best-seller of all time!

WEEK FOUR - DAY ONE - HEART EVALUATION

 Our theme for this week is "Staying Spiritually Sensitive - Heart Issues", and our memory verses are so incredibly important for us to remember: Jeremiah 17:9-10 "The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked.  Who really knows how bad it is?  But I, the LORD, search all hearts and examine secret motives.  I give all people their due rewards according to what their actions deserve."

The world would have us believe that we're all pretty good people, that we all, deep down, have good hearts.  But God's Word tells us differently - it says that our hearts are deceitful and wicked, desperately wicked.  How can that be?  How can people made in God's image have such a corrupted inner being?  How can I have such a rotten heart beating away inside of me?  While we tend to think of ourselves as "pretty good", how many of us would want to share with others the very worst thing we've ever done?  For that matter, how many would want to share the minor bad things that we did just today?  Our hearts tell us all kinds of things about ourself that just aren't true.  According to Scripture, "follow your heart" is probably the worst advice we can give someone.  

Romans 5:12 tells us "Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, in this way death spread to all men, because all sinned."  This is how we all became rotten-hearted...sin.  The sin of one spread throughout humanity into the sin of all.  The sin of elevating self above all else, the sin of feeding our deceitful hearts with everything it tells us we deserve.  Even that sin of doing such wonderfully noted acts of kindness for all the wrong motives.  Our sinful hearts are deceitful and manipulative...but God knows them inside and out.  He knows our hearts much, much better than we ourselves do.

That is why the Psalmist pleads with the Lord, "Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my concerns. See if there is any offensive way in me; lead me in the everlasting way."  Psalm 139:23-24.  David knows that God is the One who can reveal to him where he is off, where his heart is needing correction.  THIS is the verse that we can share with David when we are truly ready for our hearts to be evaluated and for God to start showing us changes that we need to make.

The rest of today's lesson was very personal and had good tools to ask yourself about your heart - how would you describe your heart attitude toward your spouse, your children, others in your extended family, co-workers, friends, church family and finally...how would you describe your heart attitude toward Jesus, your Savior?  

Really spend time thinking about that and then pray with David, and with me, "Search me, God, know me, test me, tell me where I'm wrong, and lead me.  Break my heart if it needs breaking, just let my heart reflect Yours.  Let me be as tender and loving to others as You have been to me.  Even those that I don't understand.  Let me pour out my heart to You, for You are my safe place, You are my refuge.  Take this heart of stone that is driven toward self and make it soft to Your touch.  I surrender...my heart is in Your hands."

WEEK THREE - DAY FIVE - KEEP ASKING! - AND WEEKLY RECAP

When my son was a toddler, he was very inquisitive and had a mind that wanted answers.  He would ask how things worked (he's now a mechanical engineer) and why things happened like they did.  He would follow one why with another.  My father, who was a great and godly man that we all adored, would try to come up with all the answers for my little Robert.  He would patiently try to explain, as well as he could, to a 4-year old so that his young, questioning mind would continue to ponder things.  One day when Daddy had tried to explain another question and Robert was not tracking with his explanation and it had gone on long enough that even curious Robert was no longer interested, he said, "Grandpa, you can just say you don't know...that's what my daddy does."  That was not an answer that we used much in my prideful, German family...we always had an answer! 

Well, God is much like my daddy in that He is always patient and always ready for our questions, one right after the other.  But unlike my daddy, our Father always has the right and perfect answer.  We don't have to be afraid to come to God with our questions and/or our doubts.  Doubts can prompt us to dig deeper to find resolution, and digging deeper is always good.  "When we have doubt, it should lead us to think, study and ask questions."  

God invites Jeremiah to inquire of Him...He not only invites him to, He urges him to and promises reward.  Our memory verse this week is Jeremiah 33:3,  "Ask me and I will tell you remarkable secrets you do not know about things to come."   We need to keep the verse in context and remember this is God's invitation to Jeremiah, but we also know that James tells us in his epistle, "If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and He will give it to you.  He will not rebuke you for asking.  But when you ask Him, be sure that your faith is in God alone."  So while the specific promise is from God to Jeremiah, the principle is carried forward to all of us as God's children.  He is ready to give us answers.  He is ready to share His wisdom with us.  Ask, ask and ask again.  If something in His Word isn't clear to you, ask the Holy Spirit for revelation.  Dig deeper in Biblical word study and cross referencing.  And ask again.  Albert Einstein once said, "It is not that I'm so smart. But I stay with the questions much longer."  Stay with the questions until God brings you His answer.

We wonder why our prayer time isn't what it should be...could it be that we're not asking enough?  Or for the right things?  Prayers for our earthly needs and protection are certainly warranted, but they shouldn't be the central focus of our prayer life.  When you study what Jesus prayed for (John 17) and what the apostles prayed for (2 Corinthians 13:7-9, Jude 1:24-25) it most often isn't for anything of this world.  It's prayers for the sustenance of their faith and for the faith of others, it's for open eyes and ears of the people they are addressing, it's to live lives of glory to God...it's asking for revelation to move out of our temporal vision and into eternal vision, where we begin to see the true Kingdom of God.  

So let's ask, and ask and keep asking...we'll never get an "I don't know".  We may hear, "Let me show you" as God takes our hand and guides us in His Word and in His providence to His true and perfect answers.  Faith in Him - He IS eternal truth.

So, we wrapped up Week Three!  We now are halfway through!  Can you believe that?  Our theme this week was listening.  Have we learned what an important part of our spiritual discipline listening is?  It is vital to our relationship with God.  I loved how Melissa Spoelstra illustrated this when she pointed out that we would never go into a room where our spouse was, tell him everything we need from them for the coming week, and turn around without waiting for any kind of response.  That would NOT be relationship-positive!  We can't treat our relationship with God in that way either...using our prayer life to dump out all of our needs, worries and concerns, and then roll over and turn out the light without allowing God any time to take our words and speak back to us His words of assurance.  Assurance that He hears us and that He is already at work on our behalf.  Listen to Him through the Words of Scripture, again assuring us that He is our good, good Father.  And as our good Father, there will be times He has words of discipline for us, and we must take time to listen to these all important words as well...even though sometimes hard to swallow, we must pay attention so that we can keep our lives in line with God's design.  As C. S. Lewis said, "We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive."  This is especially true when applied to our spiritual lives.  And there are times when God, in His wonderful mercy, has to shout to us, "You're going the wrong way!" (Sometimes followed by "again".)

So our last lesson of the week is ask, ask, ask and the overriding theme of the week is listen, listen, listen!   Why would we ask and then not bother to listen?  But boy have I been guilty of that!  Let's resolve to ask AND listen AND to know our God better through both tools.   Let's be ready to have Him show us remarkable and amazing things and, going back to our first week's memory verse, start making His words our delight!  

In His Amazing Love,

Janice

WEEK THREE - DAY FOUR - THE RIGHT VOICES

Who are you listening to?  Who am I listening to?  Think of all the words that hit our ears in any given day...what is going into our heads and into our subconscious?  Don't think you can filter it all out...we absorb so much more than what our conscious minds relay to us.  Things we hear in a TV show that we know we probably shouldn't be watching enter into our subconscious and unknowingly affect the way we view cultural issues.  Be careful little ears!

As Christians, we should actively be aware of who and what we are listening to.  We need to have keen filters and we need our senses on full alert to make us aware of when we are hearing things that need to be kicked out of our conscious, and our subconscious, minds before they get firmly planted.  When the author of our guide talked about words of straw or grain, I couldn't help but think of the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz...his brain was full of straw.  He lamented that he couldn't really think or have ideas.  When we absorb easy words of "straw", we, too, become mindless without the ability to think and discern.  We just start following the latest ideas, philosophies and worldly mindsets.  But when we take in words of grain, we have to digest them.  They go into us and nourish us, they become "brain food."  Our brains are activated to work through tough issues and develop views that are God-based, Word-based.  

We are given three guidelines to help us sort through the voices that bombard us.  Let's consider them as we move forward and see if we can adapt these practices as we actively listen:

1.  Consider the moral character of the messenger!

    Does this mean we rule anyone out that is a sinner?  Well, then we're going to be left with no earthly messengers.  But it does mean that we take into consideration the messenger's lifestyle, their moral code, and the people they surround themselves with.  We are not to judge, but we can certainly be good fruit inspectors!  Look at what kind of fruit they are producing.  Do they have lives that exhibit love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control?  "Everyone sins, so no one will perfectly live out God's standards; but we should not see blatant discord between a teacher's life and message."  This is tricky, and the really tricky part is that we don't apply differing standards to messengers that we personally like and those that we don't.  

2.  Evaluate the message to see if it lines up with God's Word!

    This is the step where we're asked to measure what we're hearing as to it's value in our Christian lives...straw or grain?  Straw is easy...grain requires digestion.  We can stuff our beds, and our heads, with straw without much effort.  But grain, that takes more effort to actually get into our systems.  What we're hearing on most TV shows, movies, many books, most music are not words that align with God's Word...they are worldly words that make it easy for us to settle down onto a comfy bed of straw and live life just like everyone else is.  Is it really necessary to make life so difficult by introducing that tough old grain into it?  Only if we want lives that come close to the ones our Creator God has designed for us.  I know my nature is one of ease and comfort, but I NEED the rub of the grain to push me to examine my thoughts and my life to see how it is lining up with God's Word.  We must take the time to study the Word of God, for ourselves, to ensure that we know it.  We can't rely on words from another that may have been twisted by them for their own purposes.  That's what the prophets had done to the people of Jeremiah's day - they had so twisted the Lord's laws that they didn't reflect God's character any longer, and the people were too ignorant to realize the difference.  We can't allow ourselves to be that lazy.

3.  Ask the right questions!

    This lines up with Day Two's lesson on curiosity...we have to actively listen and be ready to ask good and probing questions.  "What is the Lord's answer?  What has the Lord spoken?" should be our driving questions as we listen to teaching.  I love what the text author says, "Our approach to God's Word, whether it is taught by a preacher, author, or scholar---in person or in mainstream media...should be active listening rather than passive agreement."  How many times have I heard Christians say, "If ___________________ says it, then that's good enough for me."  Or, "I only listen to ___________________ because I know they are telling the truth."  If we take any person's word for Gospel, then we're setting ourselves up for deception.  There is only one source of truth, and as the first tool above suggests, any person can get off track in their life and their message can change with those course alterations.  We have to actively listen and not passively agree - every word needs to be challenged in our minds so that we can weigh it against Scripture.  Take notes as you listen so that you can go back and look up points where you had questions and to ensure that what the messenger said it was God says.  You may be surprised...and not necessarily with intentional deception, but with your ability to see more than the messenger did.  God may have something to show YOU, that you would have missed had you just sat, listened and left.

The right voices - those that reflect the voice of our Father - are going to guide and direct us homeward; they are going to help us keep our feet on the path of righteousness.  Pray for the Holy spirit to give us clean, open ears so that we can hear clearly His voice of truth.

WEEK THREE - DAY THREE - CLING LIKE UNDERWEAR!

OK - I didn't pick the title for this day's lesson, and I wouldn't have picked it...but I'm going with it just the same!  At first I thought, "Underwear?  I don't think so!"  So I did a little word study and discovered that the word used in Jeremiah 13:1-11,  'ezowr, can be translated as belt or girdle, but it was the innermost piece of clothing worn around the waist or hips.  So, technically, yes, underwear.  Never saw this one coming!  But, you know, underwear has taken many different shapes and forms over the years...I've often thought it was a good thing I wasn't born when corsets were the prescribed underclothing for proper ladies...I can't imagine cinching up to attain the waist sizes with which they prided themselves.   Ugh!  I can feel a case of the vapors coming on! 

 

The "girdle" that God told Jeremiah to wrap around himself, but to keep pure and untouched by water, represented the relationship that God longed for with His people.  Much like the belt of truth that we are told to encircle ourselves with, was this girdle that reinforced to the Israelites that God had them wrapped in His promises and in His eternal truths.  Their faithfulness to Him, their purity in the relationship would keep that wrap intact.  But they had taken the relationship lightly and had relinquished it in favor of foreign gods and had kept it deeply hidden, hidden in the crevices of distant cultures and religions.  When Jeremiah is sent to retrieve it, the girdle has become "marred" - ruined - because of the exposure to the water and filth of the hiding place.  Interestingly, the word for marred used in Jeremiah 13:7 is the same word used in yesterday's study for the pot that had become marred, "shachath".  So just as the pot had resisted the potter's hand resulting in marring, so had the cloth, the belt of relationship, become rotted due to its mishandling and the disregard shown.  It had not been cared for, it had not been valued...it had been left to rot in a forgotten place, but not forgotten by God.  He remembered and He cared.

He cared so deeply that He couldn't let the hurt go unnoticed or without His discipline. "The pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem" would be brought low and made as useless as the rotted belt.  Where had this pride come from?  How had it taken such complete hold of the people of God whom God had longed to hold close to Himself?  It reminds me of the Christian song, "Slow Fade" by Casting Crowns...

"It's a slow fade when you give yourself away, It's a slow fade when black and white have turned to gray...

Thoughts invade, choices are made, a price will be paid, When you give yourself away...

People never crumble in a day, It's a slow fade, it's a slow fade.

The journey from your mind to your hands, Is shorter than you're thinking...

Be careful if you think you stand, You just might be sinking."

Boy, isn't that the truth?!  It's a slow fade...for Israel, for us.  We give ourselves away to thoughts that we know are not godly and before we know it, our hands are following our thoughts, our legs are walking in sync with our wayward hands and we're marching to a drummer that is not in God's band.  Our pride that says we're doing just fine blinds us to see that we're going the wrong way.  And we wake up one day saying, "How did I get here?"  

That's what Jeremiah wants Israel to wake up and say!  If they would only bend their stiff necks to repentance.  Whenever we ask how we got to where we are, it must be the moment of our repentance...to follow that question with the plea of our heart, and with the bend of our knees, to say, "I'm sorry, Lord!  I want You to wrap your belt of truth around me again...to know that You are everything You say You are to me, and to live for You!  Not for my glory, not for my praise, not for my honor....ALL for YOU!"  How God longed to hear those words from His people of old, but how He longs to hear them from us today as well.  We are just as dear to Him and He has just as big of plans for us as He did for them.  Everything Jeremiah is saying to the people of Judah, he is saying to us...let's open our ears and respond in repentance and such immense gratitude.   Let's honor our God by showing Him just how much we cherish our relationship with Him.  

Underwear?  Maybe not.  Maybe a garment of such high regard that we want to wear it where everyone can see --- fine linen that bears witness to our God who loves us so.

Has anyone ever had such a wonderful Father?

WEEK THREE - DAY TWO - READING WITH CURIOSITY

 Cu·ri·os·i·ty

/ˌkyo͝orēˈäsədē/     noun

• 1.a strong desire to know or learn something:"filled with curiosity, she peered through the window"Similarinquisitivenessinterestspirit of inquiryinformal: nosiness

Curiosity can be a great driver of learning...the more we want to know, the more we will seek greater knowledge and understanding of a subject.  When we approach the study of Scripture, we should be very curious and we should allow that God-given curiosity to send us deeper and deeper into the mine of His Word to excavate every nugget of treasure that we can discover!  If we view our study as a great treasure hunt, where the treasure is one of ULTIMATE value, we won't be able to stay away!  Proverbs 2:3-5 says, "if you call out to insight and lift your voice to understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it like hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and discover the knowledge of God."

Curiosity prompts questions...who, what, where, when and why are the five essential questions of journalism. They're not bad questions for us to ask when we're reading God's Word either.  WHO is this passage addressed to; WHAT is God saying through the passage; WHERE are we in the geography of the world and what people groups and cultures come into play; WHEN is the passage taking place, both in world history and in the chronology of God's great narrative of Holy Scripture; and WHY do we think the Holy Spirit felt this passage critical to be included in all of the words that could have been included in God's transpired Word...all really good questions to ponder as we study God's Word.  

Our study guide offers three simple questions to keep in mind:

1.  What will we learn about God, about who He is, how He interacts with His people and what the verses say about His character?

2.  What will we learn about ourselves, about how we approach God, what He might be calling us to do, how He expresses His love toward us, and what is standing in our way of growing closer to Him?

3.  Is there anything that God is specifically saying about our current thoughts, attitudes or actions that may require change in us?

So comes to us the illustration of the Potter and the clay.  It doesn't seem like that difficult of an allegory - there's a potter and he's working a pot and it becomes disformed so he changes his mind about how the pot is going to look, "as seemed best to him."  So, being the curious students that we are, do we settle for that...do we say, "God is the Potter, I am the clay, He can make me as He wills."  That is certainly a true statement - is that all there is to this story?

Our study guide author points out that the name used for God in Jeremiah over and over again is the name Lord Sabaoth which is translated the Lord of Heaven's Armies, the Lord Almighty, the Lord of Hosts or the Lord of Armies.  "This is the 'military' name of God, for 'hosts' comes from a Hebrew word that means 'to wage war.'  The Lord is the Commander of the hosts and heaven; the stars, the angels, the armies of Israel and all who trust in Him."  God is powerful!  And He has at His disposal all the angels of heavens vast domain.  He rules over nations and over the rulers of nations.  He can uproot nations and He can plant other nations to take their place...and if, in the middle of forming a beautiful pot and it starts going a little "wonky", He can reshape it into whatever He knows is best.  

Unlike the human potter in the illustration who looks at the marred pot and shapes it into what "seems" best to him, God knows without a doubt that when a nation, or a person, that He has called for purpose begins to fight against His hand of shaping, He has the power to reshape that "pot" into whatever is best for His ultimate plan.  Does this mean God changes His mind?  Oh, we could chase that rabbit trail for hours on end, but what I see in this passage, is that God remains fluid in the accomplishment of His perfect plan while simultaneously allowing for our freed will.   While God knows what is to come, He does things in response to our obedience and to our disobedience.  While He knows the actions that He will have to take, they are not what He would have preferred...He would have preferred this pot to have been shaped into the beautiful piece of art that He had imagined when He had first seen it in His mind.  God would have preferred that Israel had remained a nation called to His purpose and obedient to His commands.  But there had been a resistance, and the "pot" had become marred and He changed the His design in response to that resistance.  The earthly potter may have not seen this coming, but our Lord Almighty, knower of all things past and present, certainly sees it coming.  

So for this curious student, this passage is about more than just God shaping us as He wills, it is also a passage of His complete sovereignty balanced against His gift to us of free will.  Of this I am certain, I worship an almighty God who has an eternal plan of absolute perfection.  No one can stop Him from the accomplishment of His great and good plan.  But our choices to resist Him can cause Him to adjust the shape of His plan, never catching Him by surprise, and never causing Him to skip a beat.  And those adjustments never cost Him, but they can certainly cost us.  They can cost us the opportunity He had for us to participate in His beautiful works of art, that one brushstroke of perfection that could have been ours was given to someone else who was ready to obey.  And our life, our pot, took a little different shape than God had in mind for us.  Repentance comes, and we become finished works of art in His breathtaking gallery, but I kind of like to think of God smiling at the little bit of wonky He left to remind me of my stubbornness!