Tag: Jeremiah

Devotional 215: More With Us

The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

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2 Kings 6:16

16 So he answered, “Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”

2 Chronicles 32:7

7 “Be strong and courageous; do not be afraid nor dismayed before the king of Assyria, nor before all the multitude that is with him; for there are more with us than with him.

1 John 4:4

4 You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

The concept of ‘more’ and ‘greater’ was always with us. It was greater to know G-d, and have more than we needed preserved by His hand, as long as the Tree of Knowledge remained untouched.

Lucifer was the brightest, most beautiful, angel in God’s sight until he no longer chose to submit to God’s sovereignty, taking a full third of all the angels with him.

And therein lies the problem, and the reason for our need to be reconciled: It is not that we don’t have God, it’s the fact that we don’t choose God.

If children inherit the genetics of their parents, and Adam and Eve were the source of all humanity, it stands to reason we are inherently prone to sin and all that comes with it. The problem for us is that God will not purge and block it from us, as He did with the Tree of Life, because He wants us to choose what is greater, which is to renounce sinning and choose to love Him and do His will by keeping His commandments and holding His name in reverence and fear, as befits a Father worthy of the title.

Today, even as His wrath kindles against the nations and we hurtle toward the prophesied end as this evil world grows full of days, in His great mercy and everlasting love, He provided us a way out through Jesus whom He strengthened to be worthy of redeeming us from death, and reconciling us sinless before Him, that He might receive us into His eternal kingdom.

And even in that, our Savior tells us this: (John 10:10)

10 The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

That being known, we are not to drop our guard against sin. We are also told that not everyone who calls Him ‘Lord’ will enter because in their daily lives their hearts are far from Him, and He will cast them out because of their lawlessness. (Matthew 7:21-23)

Just as there is more and greater in life, there is also more and greater in sin, and three that bear special mention by Jesus: corrupting children (Matthew 18:6), rejecting the Gospel (Matthew 10:15), and blaspheming the Holy Spirit (Matthew 12:32), the last being unforgivable even in the day of resurrection.

In whatever ways we have fallen, no matter how frequently or far, we are encouraged that the Father and Son tell us that repentance, confession, and rejecting sin will attract the Father’s attention and re-establish fellowship with Him, as long as we abide in Jesus and listen to the Holy Spirit when convicted that we’re on the wrong path. (Jeremiah 15:19)

Be mindful that not only those who are lawless, but those who are faithless, doubting, rejecting, mocking, and condemning the Word of God, though they don’t believe they are serving His enemies, are in fact, doing exactly that. Their spiritual eyes have been closed as they continue to walk the wide road to hell’s own gates.

Choose this day whom you will serve. (Joshua 24:15)

Therefore I pray:

Lord Jesus,

As we read and meditate on the Word of the Father, made flesh in You, and told to us by You, even as the Spirit imparts to us what is Yours, we rejoice in the time we spend with You, and our hearts and spirits are refreshed and renewed.

We thank You for provision, mercy, grace, access to the throne without sacrifice, and seek Your absolution for our sins. We seek to be worthy of having our names in the Book of Life, and be profitable, fruitful servants worthy of the Kingdom of God, our Father.

We choose, this day, to serve the Father in reverent fear, love, and obedience as we return from the wilderness and traps of a powerful enemy who hates us.

Today we choose more and better for ourselves over the lives we’ve led before You revealed the Father to us and called us out of the world to share the Good News with others, that the Father’s wrath no longer pursues and marks us as Satan’s own. Forgive us, Lord, when we fall away because of the persecution that comes with following You. Send the Spirit to us, that we might have discernment and ignore the fiery darts hurled at us to make our faith waver in anger and fear.

Today, and always, may we abide in You so that we don’t commit more and greater sin, and live the time remaining in abundance and obedience, hand in hand, that we might gain a heart of wisdom and dwell in the house of the Lord our God, forever, in the Kingdom that will not pass away.

May it be done to us as You have said.

Amen.

Devotional 179: All Your Meaningless Days

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Ecclesiastes 9:7-10

7 Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for God has already approved what you do. 8 Always be clothed in white, and always anoint your head with oil. 9 Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun—all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun. 10 Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the realm of the dead, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.

Surely the Father did not give us a life with no meaning. What would be the purpose of it, and where is the glory in it for Him. Why bother redeeming the junk of a meaningless creation?

If our days appear meaningless and without purpose or direction, having no blessings to speak of, no fellowship, and isolation from family, it is because the covenant of the Tree of Knowledge was broken. The Father’s warning words were superseded, and dominion was passed to G-d’s prideful enemy. Adam, in not rebuking his mate and repenting before the Lord, visited the Father’s wrath on all of his descendants. Indeed, he joined her in the breaking, and blamed the Father for his own fault.

If we find no meaning in life, it is because we have also broken fellowship with Him, surrendering faith in eternal life to the transitory, temporary firmness of a creation doomed to eventual destruction, and perpetual renewal, putting their focus on men and women in their own fallen states.

As Jesus said, if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit. (Matthew 15:4)

This is why studying is important, and finding a Word-centered church with Christ as its center from which everything else flows is essential. There are Christians around the world being persecuted and executed who’ve spent more time in G-d’s presence than some who’ve been attending church from childhood.

As servants of G-d, we should not be politically motivated, culturally isolated, compromising with a hostile world not seeking salvation, but rejecting Jesus’ testimony that its works are evil. (John 7:7)

The Father has plans for you (Jeremiah 29:11), promises He’s made to you that only He can keep (Numbers 23:19), works in You that He must bring to completion (Phillipians 1:6), gifts He imparted to You that You offer back to Him, that your works may stand the fires of judgment and purity (Romans 11:29), and most importantly, redeeming grace He imparted to you through the blood of His Son. (Hosea 2:23)

All that is comprised of your soul belongs to Him, and He will even redeem the vessel of dust that contains it. But understand He leaves it up to us to count the cost of sharing in His suffering (Luke 14:25-34), to be steadfast in our faith (Luke 7:9), to love one another (John 13:35), to be bold in our proclaiming His gospel (Luke 12:3), humble in our blessings (Matthew 6:3) and in our bearing (Matthew 23:12), and upright in our words and deeds (Psalm 101:2)

We have proven to Him, and ourselves, time and again that we are unable to achieve His plans for us in our own strength and will, for it always descends into pride and wickedness, and we have no righteousness in ourselves save through our faith in Christ, our only hope of redemption.

Though He remembers we are dust, we will be raised on the last day to spend eternity with our Savior in the light of the Father’s radiance, or to have our flesh punished in flames and the light of our souls snuffed out as if we’d never existed. Such is the way our G-d deals with evil, and our King vanquishes His enemies.

Therefore I pray:

Father in Heaven,

This land has set itself adrift from Your Word, and has abandoned the very thought of a moral compass.

This land is rudderless, having tongues of bitterness, scorn, and hatred for one another.

This nation honors You with its lips, but genuflects at the altar of money.

With hard hearts and deaf ears. we redefine You to fit that which we want to be true: You will forgive every kind of sin without repentance, and faith in the redemptive, atoning work of the Christ.

We fly flags of pride and hate, and worship the killing weapons we brandish, marking ourselves as ripe for whoever You may deem our modern Assyrians to invade us, for Your angels to exact the price for our multitudes of sin.

We hold others in low regard for words and deeds they spoke in the past that do not reflect our own worldviews, seeking their downfall instead of their salvation.

I would not be among those who find kin with mockers and scorners, Father. I will hold fast to my Savior though the injustices mount, the persecutions increase, or the Angel of Death comes in to deliver my soul and spirit into Your hands.

I pray that You strengthen me not to walk among them, or sit in their seats, or eat at their tables.

You came into my life, and now take the humble place, waiting for me to place You higher. Come now, Lord, that I might see You, and ask for redemption through the power of Your majesty, and the Son of Your love.

Heal our land.

Touch the hearts of our leaders, and set guards over their mouths and hearts as Your Holy Spirit convicts them of their sins. Let them be led to true and godly repentance that cleaves the heart, then forgive them, Father, and establish the works of their hands, that we might be restored rejoicing in Your mercy and grace in the land of the living.

In righteousness, peace, and joy may we honor You.

Amen.

Devotional 135: Abide in Me

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John 15:5

5 “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.

It seems appropriate as we prepare to celebrate 243 years of independence from Britain, that we be reminded as believers that the Earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, on it, and under it. (Psalm 24:1)

But we have mistaken independence from man’s rule to mean that we are sovereign, and that it’s the Father’s obligation to honor us, not punish us, as we engage and indulge in pride and faithlessness. Indeed, we expect  no form of rebuke, consequences, or even judgment to be passed on us.

We have become one nation under a symbolic and ineffective ‘god’  who is presumed to have only blessed the wealthy, as he punishes the poor.

We have relegated the Messiah to be all-forgiving because He ‘hung out’ with sinners, forgetting that He never held them guiltless, told them to repent, and blessed them in their faith. Consider this story:

Mark 2

Jesus Forgives and Heals a Paralytic

2 And again He entered Capernaum after some days, and it was heard that He was in the house. 2 Immediately many gathered together, so that there was no longer room to receive them, not even near the door. And He preached the word to them. 3 Then they came to Him, bringing a paralytic who was carried by four men. 4 And when they could not come near Him because of the crowd, they uncovered the roof where He was. So when they had broken through, they let down the bed on which the paralytic was lying.

5 When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven you.”

6 And some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts, 7 “Why does this Man speak blasphemies like this? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

8 But immediately, when Jesus perceived in His spirit that they reasoned thus within themselves, He said to them, “Why do you reason about these things in your hearts? 9 Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Arise, take up your bed and walk’? 10 But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins”—He said to the paralytic, 11 “I say to you, arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.” 12 Immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went out in the presence of them all, so that all were amazed and glorified God, saying, “We never saw anything like this!”

The man was paralyzed, so how could he sin? We are told that it is what comes out of people that makes them evil. Our thought life is connected to our spiritual life, and our thought life reflects the condition of our heart toward G-d. (Jeremiah 17:9-10)

We can trust that although we aren’t told what the sins of the man were, that Jesus knew he had them, and because of the faith put into action by his friends, a form of intercession, he was forgiven of them and healed.

We keep G-d at a distance, relegating Him to the Old Testament, seen by some as judgmental, hypocritical, contradictory, and false, up to and including even His existence. We assume a familiarity with Jesus we don’t have, who is the only way to be forgiven by G-d, forgetting, to our eternal peril, that He tells us in no uncertain terms: “I and the Father are One.” (John 10:30) 

How can they be One if the Father is greater? They are One in will, purpose, and thought. Jesus never refuted the edicts of G-d, and in fact was commanded by G-d to come and save us. (John 6:38)

As we celebrate independence from a bad king, let us hold fast to the King of Kings, our High Priest and Good Shepherd, who sustains us and sees to it that we bear good fruit through His atoning sacrifice, once for all, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, who guides us through all things concerning revelation of the Gospel’s truth, convicting us of sin, and leading us to repentance, for He is the promised seal of our salvation.

We may respect the authorities placed over us, and honor our kings, but we are to keep a reverent and holy fear of G-d. (1 Peter 2:17)

In these hedonistic times, as the prophecies of Christ manifest themselves, let us remember that ever good thing comes from above and to be independent of Christ is to be under G-d’s wrath. There will come a time when grace shall cease, and the harvest begin.

May the Lord keep before our hearts the words of Joshua: (24:15)

“As for me and my house, we shall serve the Lord.” 

Therefore I pray:

Lord Jesus,

In this nation, in our prosperity, we have become prideful, irreverent, arrogant, loud, hateful, and evil.

Your people have been divided among themselves, and shepherds lead their flocks astray, twisting the words of the Father, as the Pharisees did, to their profit and own well being, not realizing they are losing their souls as they gain the world, forgetting that their condemnation will be greater for rending the flock the sons and daughters of hell. (Matthew 23:13-15)

We have forgotten our first love. Our churches capitulate to growing numbers and political agendas, and no longer to Truth.

Let those of us who yet have ears to hear discern the absence of the Father’s will when those who would lead us speak falsely, their hearts revealed. Give us ears to follow Your voice.

Renew our hearts, revive and refresh our flagging, misguided spirits, and have us respond once more to the calling of the Holy Spirit.

Replicate in our nation the church of the Book of Acts, where none wanted, and all who had provided gladly for all who didn’t, and all were blessed accordingly.

Pour out Your Spirit on us, and let us repent, that our land may be healed.

Let it be done to us as You have said.

Amen.

 

Devotional 114: A Legacy of Obedience

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Jeremiah 35:1-14

The Obedient Rechabites

35 The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, saying, 2 “Go to the house of the Rechabites, speak to them, and bring them into the house of the Lord, into one of the chambers, and give them wine to drink.”

3 Then I took Jaazaniah the son of Jeremiah, the son of Habazziniah, his brothers and all his sons, and the whole house of the Rechabites, 4 and I brought them into the house of the Lord, into the chamber of the sons of Hanan the son of Igdaliah, a man of God, which was by the chamber of the princes, above the chamber of Maaseiah the son of Shallum, the keeper of the door. 5 Then I set before the sons of the house of the Rechabites bowls full of wine, and cups; and I said to them, “Drink wine.”

6 But they said, “We will drink no wine, for Jonadab the son of Rechab, our father, commanded us, saying, ‘You shall drink no wine, you nor your sons, forever. 7 You shall not build a house, sow seed, plant a vineyard, nor have any of these; but all your days you shall dwell in tents, that you may live many days in the land where you are sojourners.’ 8 Thus we have obeyed the voice of Jonadab the son of Rechab, our father, in all that he charged us, to drink no wine all our days, we, our wives, our sons, or our daughters, 9 nor to build ourselves houses to dwell in; nor do we have vineyard, field, or seed. 10 But we have dwelt in tents, and have obeyed and done according to all that Jonadab our father commanded us. 11 But it came to pass, when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up into the land, that we said, ‘Come, let us go to Jerusalem for fear of the army of the Chaldeans and for fear of the army of the Syrians.’ So we dwell at Jerusalem.”

12 Then came the word of the Lord to Jeremiah, saying, 13 “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: ‘Go and tell the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, “Will you not receive instruction to obey My words?” says the Lord. 14 “The words of Jonadab the son of Rechab, which he commanded his sons, not to drink wine, are performed; for to this day they drink none, and obey their father’s commandment. But although I have spoken to you, rising early and speaking, you did not obey Me.

We, as believers, have to begin to believe that the matter with G-d is settled. That despite all the mysteries, discoveries, epiphanies, setbacks, and new beginning, the war between good and evil was always our own.

The forbidden Tree of Knowledge was willingly plundered of its beautiful fruit by pointing out what was good about it. The consequence of disobedience was made light of, and doubt was planted about the meaning of the Father’s command.

Skillfully, the serpent reduced the Almighty to being fearful Adam and Eve would be usurpers, for once they had His knowledge, they would seek His place, too.

And so now, we have the knowledge, and the choice, but we also have the ultimate weapons to fight: The Word of G-d, the covenant of redemptive grace, and the revelation and conviction of the Holy Spirit.

In these days, the enemy has grown more powerful, and seems to be putting more wins in the column as emotions get ‘triggered’, and excuses and scorn are bandied about like troops of chimps playing tennis.

It is the job of godly parents to bring up their children in G-d’s ways, but it is also the duty of the children to hold onto those ways, and to grow in their own knowledge of the Lord.

Nineveh stood for a time after hearing Jonah, but fell again because the future generations could not stand.

Solomon fell, though his father David sought the Lord constantly in almost all things, and even then, Uriah’s murder was the one stain on his earthly ledger. Yet it was David’s line through which Christ came.

Throughout the books of Kings, we see the contrasting examples of those who did what was right in the sight of G-d, and those who turned away, and what happened to them, and the people who went along, and the grief and peace of the kingdoms they ruled.

In this New Year, let the matter be settled in our hearts and minds that victory belongs to the Lord, that redemption is ours to claim, that the Father loves us and wishes to be reconciled, and the the circumscription of His rules is to keep and protect us from evil and harm.

Let it be settled, as it was when Abraham took Isaac to the mountain, as it was when the Hebrew boys defied Nebuchadnezzar’s decree, and as it was with the generations of Rechabites, who heeded their earthly father to the degree that G-d said of them,

18 And Jeremiah said to the house of the Rechabites, “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: ‘Because you have obeyed the commandment of Jonadab your father, and kept all his precepts and done according to all that he commanded you, 19 therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: “Jonadab the son of Rechab shall not lack a man to stand before Me forever.” ’ ”

Therefore I pray:

Father in Heaven, 

Your Son tells us that our foundation on Him will withstand the storms of this world, and that we are always to watch and pray, we are always to believe and abide, and we most importantly, we are always to obey Your Word, as He did, even unto death.

Yet our earthly faith is a defective mustard seed, our understanding placed in the box of flesh, and we shoot tethered arrows to the heights of the Babel tower to bring You here. But Your thoughts and ways are higher than ours, and we, like the Rechabites, are but sojourners here.

Unlike them, we have been disobedient, relying on the atoning work of Your Son to excuse us, but not coming to godly repentance that produces tears, not understanding that grace is not license, and that not one word of the law will be discounted.

As we have received the gift of the Holy Spirit as well as the New Covenant, let us take comfort in the words of our Savior in these days of mocking, lying spirits that now infect the children of men with confusion, filling them up with emotions and irrational thoughts, believing You to be a vague-shaped power as they indulge their pride in their sins:

John 14:1-3 

The Way, the Truth, and the Life

14 “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.

We hear, O Lord, and believe. And obey.

May it be done to us as You have said.

Amen.