WEEK ONE - DAY FOUR - DEFINING SUCCESS

"I follow God = everything should go well for me."

Even if we aren't adherents of a prosperity gospel theology, doesn't that idea subtly infiltrate our thoughts and affect how we think things should be going for us?  Well, our friend Jeremiah counters that erroneous idea throughout his trouble-filled life.  Jeremiah lived a life which, by the world's standards, could be considered the epitome of failure.  He had no family, no friends and preached to a non-responding audience.  The altar call produced no throngs repenting of their sins.  Rather, they ridiculed him and plotted to kill him.  How would we view a modern-day evangelist that prompted such a response?  We would certainly think that God's favor was not upon him, and we would probably join those who ignored his message.  Does this scenario invoke a sense of warning to us...could it be that we're paying attention to the wrong people.  Have we become like those in 2 Timothy 4;3, "For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine and accurate instruction [that challenges them with God’s truth]; but wanting to have their ears tickled [with something pleasing], they will accumulate for themselves [many] teachers [one after another, chosen] to satisfy their own desires and to support the errors they hold," Amplified Bible.  We cannot judge the validity of the message with the size of the crowd (large or small) ...we can only judge it by it's adherence to God's Word. 

And just as we evaluate our spiritual teachers, we must also look at how we're evaluating people in general.  Do we have an eternal perspective when it comes to those that we are holding up in high regard?  Are we elevating people based on their levels of education, wealth, standing in the community, or any other standard based on earthly status?  If so, we're not listening to Jesus' words in Matthew 5 as to who will be highly regarded in eternity.  This chapter is the perfect example of the upside-down theology of Jesus...everything gets reversed.  All of our futile, earthly regard flies out the window when we enter into eternity and those that were overlooked here are rewarded greatly there.  And I can see a smiling Jeremiah leading that parade!  The weeping prophet no more!

Good time to review our weekly Bible verse!  "When I discovered Your words, I devoured them!  They are my joy and my heart's delight, for I bear your name, O LORD God of Heaven's Armies!  Jeremiah 15:16"

Good time to review, because reading through Jeremiah 4, today's passage is tough!  Tough reading, tough understanding....just tough!  I guess this is one of those passages that when we devour it, we have to spend a lot of time chewing on it!  Like a piece of tough meat---30 chews per bite before we can swallow it.  This is a chapter that I had to dig into and look at commentaries to start developing my thoughts.  Remember, commentaries and "my thoughts" are not Scripture...but they can make us start thinking in deeper ways and allowing God to open our minds as we then go back to Scripture and ask God to truly see His meaning.

My problem with Jeremiah 4 was that it seemed that God started out by saying, "If you will return...", as though He was allowing Judah another chance to repent and turn, but then by verse 3, judgment is pronounced and in verse 28 He announces, "I have decided and will not turn back."  Jeremiah even says in verse 10,  "Alas, Sovereign LORD!  How completely you have deceived this people and Jerusalem by saying, 'You will have peace,' when the sword is at our throats!"  So, did God renege on His offer of repentance?  Did He switch midstream and throw Judah under the Babylonian bus?  That is not the God that I have come to know through the rest of the Bible...there has to be more to this.

By reading Matthew Henry's commentary (fyi Matthew Henry died in 1714...his words have been around a while, but I still find his insight helpful to me when a passage is hard for me to get through), he instantly helps me by pointing out that verse 1 is addressed to Israel, while verse 3 is addressed to Judah - two different people groups.  Henry believes that verses 1 and 2 would be more appropriately included at the end of Chapter 3 than the beginning of Chapter 4.  We have to remember that chapter breaks were not in original Scripture writings and have been inserted over the years of Bible translation.  So, sometimes, we need to look at the end of the preceding chapter to get the true flow of the entire passage.  This seems to be the case here.  

So if we attribute verses 1 and 2 to Israel and their state of affairs, then starting in verse 3 we can move forward with Jeremiah's words to his homeland of Judah, who unlike Israel to the north, is still experiencing prosperity and good times.  Jeremiah tells them that God has told them to plow up their unplowed grounds and don't sow among the thorns...these words probably mean something to a farmer, but for those of us who don't come from that background, what do they mean?  My paraphrasing comes to: Tear it all up!  Break through your hardened hearts that haven't been touched by previous warnings and get out of all the thorny entrapments in which you have allowed your lives to be swallowed up.    Or as Matthew Henry puts it, "We must pluck up by the roots those corruptions which, as thorns, choke both our endeavours and our expectations."  I think Jeremiah is telling them, don't expect any change if you don't change the ground in which you're planted.  And God says if they don't do this, there are "hot" times coming!  His wrath will be poured out like an unquenchable fire, because of the evil they have done.  God does not take pleasure in the discipline of His people; but He also cannot allow His people to abide in deliberate evil and let it go without His notice and His response.

But what about that troubling verse 10?  Hear what Matthew Henry has to say about it: "Now, was it God that deceived them? No, he had often given them warning of judgments in general and of this in particular; but their own prophets deceive them, and cry peace to those to whom the God of heaven does not speak peace. It is a pitiable thing, and that which every good man greatly laments, to see people flattered into their own ruin, and promising themselves peace when war is at the door."  Prophets, who unlike Jeremiah were more concerned with their own popularity than with God's truths, had told the people all was well, and the people had believed.  (See Jeremiah 23:16-19)  

But what had God told them from the very beginning, " 

Deuteronomy 28:1-6  "And if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the Lord your God. Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field. Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock. Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out."

15-18  "But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you. Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the field. Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Cursed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock. Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out."

The Judeans cannot claim God had not been clear with them; they cannot claim that He had not repeatedly warned them.  In Jeremiah 4:18, it is declared to them that their own conduct and actions have brought everything they will experience on them.  But in verse 27 is our ray of hope when God also declares that while the land will be ruined, He will not destroy it completely.  

God is a god of return, of hope and of eternal promise.  While Jeremiah has harsh words and words of judgment, he doesn't leave out the words of hope.  How do we think God is looking upon our world today if He was so angered with Judah for turning their back on Him?  How can we expect any lesser judgment than He pronounced upon them?  We don't know God's plans for us, but we know God will not be mocked (Galatians 6:7) and our world is getting pretty brazen in its mockery of all things holy.  Will we see earthly judgment prior to Christ's return?  We certainly could.  Could our lives be turned upside down as the Judeans lives were?  They certainly could.  And how would we react?  Would we blame God for abandoning us, or would we realize just the opposite was the cause?  And would we see that ray of hope that God would still be showing us, a return to Him through obedience and faithfulness.  

Or would it be possible for us to hear His words of warning to Judah and apply them NOW, as He begged them to do so He does not have to bear down on us with his rod of discipline?  Would we be willing NOW to plow up our hearts and not put any more effort into the thorny soil---maybe even the thorns of our worldly standards of success---and replant into good, fertile, faithful, godly soil.

Jeremiah speaks to us...will we listen?

WEEK ONE - DAY THREE - CONFIRMATION

What does the word "confirmation" mean to you?  To me, as someone who started out their faith walk as a young girl in the Lutheran church, confirmation was a rite of passage, a marker of attainment of a certain age and a stage of your faith.  Confirmation, for Lutherans, is the opportunity for each individual to "confirm" their infant baptism, to publicly profess their affirmation of the faith that their parents committed them to as a baby brought to the Lord.  I went through Lutheran Confirmation when I was 12 and learned a lot of foundational Christian truth through the classes that I attended for the preceding year.  

But while this was a confirmation from me to the Lord and to my church, the confirmation we are talking about now is the reverse - it is confirmation from God to us.  And this is something that I've struggled with.  How do I know what God really wants me to do in any given situation?  How do I determine His voice from my own inner leanings.  How do I hear from Him as to whether to go the left or to the right?  "and whenever you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear this command behind you: “This is the way. Walk in it.” Isaiah 30:21  There have been very few times when I feel that I have heard God tell me which direction to go, or which choice to make, or which opportunity to pursue.  Maybe I haven't been listening.  Maybe I haven't been asking.  But Jeremiah distinctly heard from God, didn't He?  How many times throughout the book do we read, "Then the LORD said to me"?  

How do we put ourselves in a position to hear from God as we make choices, daily choices?  How do we hear the whisper in our ear, "This is the way.  Walk in it." 

I think most of us would agree that we do hear promptings of the Holy Spirit encouraging us to do, and not do, certain things...make amends with that person that you were ugly to yesterday, don't continue a relationship that is leading to no good, visit a friend that has been sick, don't accept too much money in change....those are promptings of the Holy Spirit through our conscience that we absolutely need to pay attention to and obey!   When we have such encouragements to get up and do something, we should get up and do it.  And when He prompts us to leave a situation, we need to get up and leave!  These are confirmations from God not to be taken lightly. 

Jeremiah, though, had clear instruction to get up and start proclaiming to the people of Judah, "This is what the LORD says:"  If we're going to put God's name on the words we're speaking, we better have a very STRONG confirmation that they are actually coming from Him.  And Jeremiah had even more reason to be convinced he had received his words from God.  Under Old Testament law, prophets whose words did not come true were subject to death.  (Deuteronomy 18:20) (That's one way to weed out the false ones...what would our landscape of today's prophets look like if we carried that punishment out?

So!  How do we receive confirmation of what we "think" God is asking of us or directing us toward?  I think we can all say that there have been very few, if any, times of hearing God's voice distinctly speak to us.  And when we think we might be hearing His voice, if you're like me, we still wonder, "Was that really God, or was that just me?  Did He really tell me to go to Hawaii for a mission trip, or could that have been prompted by "some" desire of mine, sitting here in the panhandle of Texas in the month of January?"  Hmmmm.

Here's what I gathered from our study today:  

1. God's directives are very often not what we would choose to do.  Jeremiah did not long to be the guy telling everyone their world as they knew it was about to tumble.  If you find yourself arguing against something that you feel God is leading you to, then you may need to really consider that He IS speaking to you to move you out of your comfort zone and into a new area of use by Him.

2.  His directive becomes a burning within us that we cannot ignore.  Just as Jeremiah stated in Jeremiah 20:9, "His words burn in my heart like a fire.  It's like a fire in my bones!  I am worn out trying to hold it in!  I can't do it!"  When I read this, it seems to me that if God is directing us, and we are seeking Him, He won't drop it.  It will become imperative to us. 

3.  When God tells us something, it happens.  If we truly heard God's voice, then what we heard will happen.  And that confirmation will build a confidence in us so that the next time we "think" we hear His voice, we will have the ability to trust in it.  Does that mean that every time afterward when we "think" we hear God's voice what we heard will come to pass?  Nope!  We will still get it wrong sometimes.  And that can be disheartening.  But when it does come to pass, relish the moment and remember that you heard God's voice...what a gift when God allows us to participate in His story, and share with us a picture, or a promise, of what's ahead.  Sometimes I believe that's a personal gift just between God and us...a secret shared among close friends.  It may not be something we need to share with anyone else; it may just be God allowing us to trust Him a little bit more.  

4.  God's Word is our most reliable source of confirmation.  When we are facing decisions, or wondering if what we thought we have heard is God's direction, we should always weigh everything against the Truth we find in His Word.  We KNOW this is our true and valid source.  If what we think we hear goes against anything in Scripture, then it is not from God, for God doesn't contradict Himself.  So we pray, we read, we meditate and we confer with other Christians who will not just tell us what they think we should do, but will sit and pray with us for us to know, to burn with that knowledge, that God has made His good and perfect will known to us.  

Jeremiah knew.  He knew he had no choice but to do what God was asking of him - to be a proclaimer.  And if we're honest, we know, too, that we should also be proclaimers.  In the New Testament alone, the word proclaim is used 236 times, and in most of those verses it is used as a directive to believers, as in 1 Peter 2:9, "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His possession, so that you may PROCLAIM the praises of the One who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light."

Here's another directive we're given in Jeremiah 3:22, "Return, faithless people; I will cure you of backsliding."    That's a directive that I HAVE heard in my life...return!  "Return to Me...I will heal you"...those are words from God that we can rely on, that we can be sure of.  And I have seen those words come true in my life.  They have been confirmed!  

So while sometimes we're not sure what God is directing us to do, often times we have strong confirmation of what He is asking of us.  Let's not spend so much time wondering about the former, that we ignore the latter!  What He has made clear, let's get busy doing - let's be Jeremiahs for 2024, proclaiming the goodness of our Lord, the praises of Him who has called us out of darkness!

WEEK ONE - DAY TWO - SURRENDER AND POPULARITY

It was wonderful to run into a Bible study mate today and first thing she said to me was, "When I discovered Your Words I devoured them.  They are my joy and my heart's delight, for I bear Your name, LORD God of Heaven's Armies.  Jeremiah 15:16."  And she said that verse without missing a beat!  What a testimony to the JOY of studying God's Word together when we can greet each other in that manner!

But today is one of those days in reading God's Word that just doesn't seem quite so joyful.  We're talking about surrender, we're talking about popularity (or unpopularity, as the case seems to be for Jeremiah), and we're talking about painful warnings of dire discipline as written in Jeremiah 2.  Where do we find the joy in those kinds of subjects?   All we can do is to dig in and see...and to start by praying that the Holy Spirit will enlighten us to see the full scope of God's message to us for today.

First off - surrender!  How many of us really think that Jeremiah had big dreams of being a prophet of doom and gloom?  He was just as human as any of us and probably dreamed of a happy life with a family and friends.  But after his calling in Chapter 1 and his failed arguments with God, Jeremiah picks up in Chapter 2 by going and proclaiming all that God tells him to.  Surrender.  Surrender of dreams, surrender of goals, surrender of self.  God knew the man that he had selected - He always does - and Jeremiah committed himself to the life that God laid out for him.  One of my favorite verses is 2 Chronicles 16:9, "For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him."  God's eyes had spotted his man Jeremiah, and Jeremiah was fully committed.  Let's pray that God's eyes will rest on us when He is looking for those with committed hearts ready to carry out His purposes!  Full commitment equates to total surrender.  What are we holding on to?

Second - popularity.  It's something that we may not consciously think about as we grow older, as our study author pointed out, but it's a factor, still.  As much as we may deny it, we all want to be liked and we all want to be held in some degree of regard.  And there's nothing wrong with that, unless it becomes our overriding goal, forcing us to compromise our obedience to God in order to maintain a certain level of status or favor.  Jeremiah's instructions from God put him in a place of great unpopularity - it's hard to tell people that they are about to be overtaken and that their best chance of survival is to surrender to your mortal enemy and have them call you their BFF!  There could have been a sitcom (a not very funny sitcom) of the time, "Everybody Hates Jeremiah!"  But Jeremiah's commitment to God and his surrender of all else allowed him the freedom to do whatever God asked of him.  Think about that kind of freedom - that's the true meaning of living for an audience of One!  Hearing God's lone clap as we finish our dark and desperate soliloquy of warning to a sinful crowd. Living for that clap and hearing the accompanying words, "Well done, good and faithful servant", as earthly popularity falls to a very, very distant second place.  

And third - those words of Jeremiah 2!  Wow!  As I read them, I could not help but think how they are SO applicable to the world we love in today.  It's a fairly lengthy chapter, but I couldn't pause in my reading of it.  God talks through Jeremiah and reminds His people of the devotion of their youth - they had started out well, they had been in close relationship with God.  What had gone wrong?  "They followed worthless idols and become worthless themselves."  First thing gone wrong - they forgot all that God had done for them (bring them out of slavery and into their own land of promise) and abandoned Him for the worthless idols of the sinful nations around them.  Do we tend to forget all that God has done for us while we find ourselves preferring to live our lives of comfort and pleasure?  Putting things and the enjoyment of things over and above the One who has provided us with everything that we have?  All of a sudden we find ourselves saying those smug words, "I've done pretty well for myself, haven't I?" Oh, haven't we?  That's just when we are on the precipice of worthlessness!

In verse 8, God proclaims that everyone that should have been responsible for ensuring Israel's faithfulness had failed - the priests, those of the law, the nation's leaders, and even the prophets, had all failed in their personal faithfulness leading to the apostasy of the entire nation.  We cannot depend on any type of leadership to keep us faithful.  Don't look to religious organizations, don't look to the government and don't even look to those proclaiming God's Word to keep you faithful - they may, and often do, fail.  YOU stay faithful.  If the people of Israel had rejected the poor leadership they were receiving and if they had continued to worship God faithfully, there would have been a different story.  But when God says in verses 11 and 13, "My people", He is not just addressing the leadership.  They've all rejected Him.  They've all turned and gone their own way.  They've rejected the living water that God has offered them in favor of man-made cisterns that will soon dry up.

God's words are chilling when He says in verse 19, "Consider then and realize how evil and bitter it is for you when you forsake the LORD your God and have no awe of Me."  As I said yesterday, we've lost the idea of giving authority of our lives over to God - it's exactly the same as when God says in verse 20 that Israel has stated, "I will not serve You!"  Bold-faced rebellion!  That's where we are, no awe of God and hearts that are turned against Him.  

He goes on to describe the depth of our rebellion - verse 25 could be paraphrased as saying, "It's no use!  I love what I love and I have to have what I love!"  Isn't that pretty much what our society has come to?  No boundaries, no limits, if we feel we need it, want it, desire it - then there's no fault in going after it.  Even if God has said it's a "foreign god" that will lead us to captivity.  No, we're smarter than to be bound by the provincial rules of an outdated "god"; but then our Egypts and our Assyrias prove to be disappointing allies and we find ourselves right where God told us we'd end up - captive.

All of Jeremiah 2 is a warning, a proclamation of God's judgment over His people, and one of the reasons for His judgment is due to their denial of their sinfulness, their refusal to see their guilt and God's anger with them (verse 35).  We are doing the same thing!  We are saying that we're "basically good people" while living lives of godlessness.  We are saying, "God wants me to be happy" while doing things that God has told us He is not at all happy about.  Bottom line:  God is not pleased when we are sinning.  Admit it!  Admit that sin is not where God wants us and that we need Him to rescue us.  That's when we are freed!  That's when the captor is defeated.  Isn't it interesting to think about what would have happened had Judah listened to Jeremiah's warnings and heeded them.  We could be reading an entirely different rest of the book!  And isn't it interesting to think about what would happen if every Christian in America would hear the same warnings and decide to surrender and allow God to have full authority over their lives.  If the rest of the nation could see that kind of change, who knows the impact over the future of our country.  It starts with us.  

Is that the joy of this chapter of God's Word?  The possibility of change?  The knowledge that you and I have a part to play in God's ongoing story?  Pretty incredible, isn't it?  Did Jeremiah know we'd be reading about him almost 2500 years later?  

God's eyes...ranging throughout the earth.

WEEK ONE - DAY ONE - NO EXCUSES!

No excuses!  How does that set with you as a beginning statement for today's study?  As for me, it goes against everything in my human nature.  I'm the champion of excuses when it comes to not doing things that I really don't want to do.  Whether it's laundry to be folded (as in the case right now), a dishwasher to be unloaded or home office work to sit down to, I can find all kinds of excuses not to get to the things I need to be doing.  But when it comes to obeying God, I (we) must learn to put all excuses aside, listen up and do NOW what we are being directed to NOW.  I believe we (Christians of 2024) are being directed to stand up and start proclaiming the goodness of God, His faithfulness to us, and His abiding love exhibited to us through His Son, Jesus Christ.  No excuses!  Now how each of us accomplishes this is going to be different according to our giftedness, our opportunities and our personalities.  But proclaim we must!  In every day conversations, start talking about how good God has been to you in your life.  In times of trouble, exhibit the gift of His peace that passes all understanding and allow others to know that it truly is a gift from God, nothing of ourselves.  In times of celebration, praise God for His gifts to you to enjoy as He brings them, but never fail to proclaim that the greatest gift He has ever given to you is the gift of salvation brought through faith in Jesus!  

What struck you most when you read the quote from Francis Schaeffer?  For me it was "how God looks at a culture which knew Him and deliberately turned away."  When I read that it hit me how our culture within the United States, at some point within the past 50-75 years made a deliberate and calculated decision to turn away from God.  We had been a culture of Judeo-Christian values, and then we weren't.  And we certainly aren't now.  Satan attacked, and he won lots of critical battles.  And Christians didn't pay attention to God's directive to listen up and to stand up.

What do you think the indicators are that reveal our society's divergence from God's ways? You know what I realized was a major indicator - the total lack of regard for God's authority.  It isn't even a consideration for most people anymore.  They are the only authority over their lives and wouldn't consider putting anyone (even God) in that place.  That's a huge shift from previous generations and how they lived.  The term "God-fearing" doesn't hold any relevance in today's culture - and what do we, as today's Jeremiahs, do about that?

We learn from our example!  We know why Jeremiah lived, but why was his story retained as Scripture?  Because we need it!  God knew that others in His great story of humanity would need to be proclaimers of His truths and His ways, just as Jeremiah had been.  That's what I got out of 2 Peter 1:19-21, and I had never gotten that message from those verses before!

And just like God assured Jeremiah of who he was, who God had designed him to be, and how God would always be with him, so we can be equally assured!  And just like Jeremiah came up with excuses as to why he wasn't the right person (isn't that just so human...God calls us and we tell Him He's made a mistake!), we will most likely come up with our own list of excuses.   I know my current list by heart:  I'm too old, I've got failures in my past that should disqualify me, and I'm already doing other things that I think are important.

And just like God countered Jeremiah's excuses with His promises, He whispers the same words into our ears, "Get yourself ready!  Stand up and say to them whatever I command you.  Do not be terrified by them....for I am with you and will rescue you."

What have we to fear?  If God is for us, who can be against us?  He does have big plans for us - don't underestimate what He may have planned for you!  And let's not miss out on anything that He is inviting us to participate in due to our whiney excuses!  

Jeremiah, we're coming behind you!  Thanks for showing us how it's done!