Welcome to Nick Stevens, long-time member at Hope Church as well as Chair of the Hope Church Leadership Team. He will share his reflections on the readings from Jeremiah 1-6.
SCRIPTURE: Jeremiah 3:14-25
OBSERVATIONS:
(ver 14) God uses the term ‘children’ for Israel ….part of the family, married to them, the bond, relationship?
(ver 15-18) God wants to take his family members to Zion, teach them, give them knowledge, multiply and increase them, give them a city with God’s Throne in it, give them respect, unity in the family, and an inheritance …..but …..
(ver 19-20) “How can I” God says “I cannot”….. if you will not call me as your Father.
(ver 21-25) Finally, a weeping, far away sorrowful voice is heard from Israel. Finally an acknowledgment to their wanderings, wrong doing, sin and shame.
APPLICATION:
God has wonderful plans he wants to unleash for my life ….. but he cannot put any of them into motion if I won’t do my part and bend the knee to Him daily.
PRAYER:
Lord, I know you have a fantastic plan for my life …..help me each day to bend the knee to you first so that through the work of your Holy Spirit, it can unfold for me every day. May this be so for each one in my family as well.
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION
God is lamenting the unfaithfulness of His followers, and He experiences it like the betrayal of a wayward spouse.
God still dreams of a day when He won’t have to hide His presence in symbolic form (The Ark of the Covenant symbolically portrayed His presence with His people), but can walk with them in Paradise, as He did in the beginning.
God wants to bless us, but we keep running away. Our misery is not because of God, it is the result of our perversity.
Jeremiah seems to be speaking on behalf of God’s people in vv. 22-25, maybe he was showing them what repentance would sound like.
Where do I cause pain to the heart of the Lord? Where am I slack in my love or loyalty to Him? Where am I worshiping other idols (money, pleasure, self, peoples’ praise), while not seeking Him first? I can think of a few areas…
PRAYER:
Lord, You have brought some specific things to mind where I am neglecting You. Help me to sincerely repent, and serious commit to putting You first in these areas. Amen.
Our God is a merciful God who calls His people to Himself. When focussed on serving God and being faithful to Him and only Him, God will treat us as His sons and daughters. kids of the kingdom – the famly of God. Yet we are are unfaithful, driven by our own stubbornness. We have a broken relationship with our God. We are insistent upon our own ways serving our every desire, being self centered rather than God centered.
Thank You Lord that there is forgiveness in Christ Jesus. Thank You for new beginnings if we but turn our hearts to You. Thank You Lord that You are a forgiving God. Thank You for being my Father. Help me this day to put You first in all I do and say.
Jerusalem the golden, with milk and honey blest,
Beneath thy contemplation sink heart and voice oppressed.
I know not, O I know not, what joys await us there,
What radiancy of glory, what bliss beyond compare.