John 18:4 Jesus therefore, knowing all things that would come upon Him, went forward and said to them, “Whom are you seeking?” They answered Him, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus said to them, “I am He.”
Dear Girls...
As I think about what I want to write, I realize that I am never going to be able to do it justice. There really are no words for the depths of the love and graciousness of Christ. With that said ...here I go...
"Jesus therefore, knowing all things that would come upon Him"....Wow...knowing all that would come upon Him...He went forward and handed Himself over to sinners...the very same ones He knew had rejected Him and would crucify Him. What grace! What love! Meditating on this kind of love for any length of time is so convicting...truly we need the Spirit of God to pour out His love in our hearts for one another and for those the Lord places in our path.
Jesus focused on the goal...our salvation...not on Himself or on His circumstances. He surrendered completely to His Father's will and laid down His life so that we who believe could live forever with Him. He showed all around Him in His every word and action the essence of His Father. In doing this He showed us the way to glorify our Father in heaven because He did all He did by depending totally on His Father. Make no mistake...Christ was both God and man and yet whatever He did here on earth He did by faith just as we must do. He did not use His divine powers. He did all He did as a MAN. We cannot take refuge in Him being God as the reason why He was able to do it. This fact is amazing to me...each time Jesus healed or spoke it was not Him it was the Spirit of God working through Him. He faced the cross and surrendered His life for us as a Man...depending entirely on His Father in heaven. WOW!
Chapter 18 of the Gospel of John gives us such a picture of the graciousness and love of Christ in the face of overwhelming evil.
Picturing Jesus crossing over the Brook Kidron which was running with blood from the slaying of the Passover lambs...knowing that He would be the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world by dying on a wooden cross outside of Jerusalem the next day...overwhelms me with the love that He has for us. He deliberately entered the Garden of Gethsemane where He knew Judas would betray Him. Willingly, obediently, He goes to face His fate: A painful and torturous physical death, the unimaginable pain of taking on the sin, sorrow, and suffering of the entire world and the subsequent agony of separation from His Father. Truly, as it says in Romans, "where sin abounded grace abounded much more."
Think about all that went on that night...there is such a contrast between Christ and the people around Him.
--The kiss and the utter treachery of Judas contrasted with Christ's grace in washing his feet prior to the betrayal.
--The picture of Jesus praying for His disciples in the garden...the very disciples who fell asleep while He was in agony of spirit. The disciples who would abandon Him upon His arrest. And yet we see Jesus praying fervently for not only them but us...you and me while we were still His enemies!
--Christ's protection of His disciples by stepping forward willingly when the Roman Cohort came to arrest Him.
--Peter resisting God's will in the garden and using his sword to lop off the high priest's servant's ear and Jesus' kindness and grace in healing the wound that would have caused Peter to be arrested and charged and perhaps crucified alongside of Him.
--Jesus giving Himself willingly into the hands of sinners...the very same ones He knew would crucify Him. His purpose: to give them and us the opportunity to be delivered from the kingdom of darkness into His Kingdom of Light.
--The unfair, brutal trial before Annas where Jesus clearly knew His right not to be questioned before witnesses were called, but did not insist on them and accepted His brutal treatment as a Lamb led to the slaughter...opening not His mouth.
Girls...whenever we look at Christ's life...really look at it...conviction will follow. What an example He gave us for handling offenses, rejection and grief. He kept His eyes on the goal and focused on the joy (us) that was set before Him and despite the provocation he reacted graciously to all that were around Him. Our goal here on earth is to glorify Him, to bring Christ close to those who do not know Him and to encourage those who do...to magnify Him. How do we do this...by living our lives for Him. By remembering in offenses and sorrow that they are never about us...they are to be used to make us more like He is in order that others would see Jesus. Girls, don't get in the way by reacting to others in offense and unforgiveness or by retaliating in like manner. Remember grace...remember what we truly deserve and pray for those who may not have treated you like you think you deserved. Christ reached out in love at the hour He faced the greatest of offenses and rejection - for you - and in so doing, He reflected the glory of God. Can we do any less for others?
I waited patiently for the LORD; And He inclined to me, And heard my cry. He also brought me up out of a horrible pit Out of the miry clay, And set my feet upon a rock, And established my steps. He has put a new song in my mouth—Praise to our God; Many will see it and fear, And will trust in the LORD.--Psalm 40:1-3
Philippians 2:5-11 says: 5 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, 7 but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
Love
Mom
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Falling in love with Jesus...Romans 8
Dear Suzanne, Rebecca, Anna, and Mikayla,
Thanking God today for the wonderful people who had me memorize Romans 8 many years ago. Reading the first few verses brought tears to my eyes and made me fall in love with Jesus all over again. The burdens of life were lifted off of my shoulders...I am in Christ. He is my ark. I get to spend time with Him and go boldly to His throne of grace for help in time of need whenever I want! He makes intercession for me before the throne of God! I have this treasure (Christ) in my earthen vessel that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of me!
Thanking God today for the wonderful people who had me memorize Romans 8 many years ago. Reading the first few verses brought tears to my eyes and made me fall in love with Jesus all over again. The burdens of life were lifted off of my shoulders...I am in Christ. He is my ark. I get to spend time with Him and go boldly to His throne of grace for help in time of need whenever I want! He makes intercession for me before the throne of God! I have this treasure (Christ) in my earthen vessel that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of me!
The first verses tell me that because I am in Him there is no condemnation...so if I am concerned about my past today...He has got it covered...if I am worried about the future....verses 38,39 tell me there is no separation from God's love....if I am concerned about something in the present...or even the effect of something in the past...I know that Romans 8:28 says that if I am a believer He works ALL THINGS together for good for me (you)!
Girls...if you haven't, memorize Romans 8...memorize and be blessed over and over as The Lord brings it to the forefront of your mind when your faith falters. Our ark is Christ...He does it all...He has got it all covered...we can rest...He will lead us today....we are sealed, safe and secure robed in His righteousness.
Love,
Mom...who is in awe of Christ's love for us...and if you are not then you are either not paying attention or not reading your bible...
Girls...if you haven't, memorize Romans 8...memorize and be blessed over and over as The Lord brings it to the forefront of your mind when your faith falters. Our ark is Christ...He does it all...He has got it all covered...we can rest...He will lead us today....we are sealed, safe and secure robed in His righteousness.
Love,
Mom...who is in awe of Christ's love for us...and if you are not then you are either not paying attention or not reading your bible...
Here is Romans 8 in its entirety:
Romans 8
Free from Indwelling Sin
1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus,[a] who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, 4 that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. 6 For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. 7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. 8 So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.9 But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. 10 And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
Sonship Through the Spirit
12 Therefore, brethren, we are debtors—not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. 13 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. 14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. 15 For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” 16 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.
From Suffering to Glory
18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. 19 For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; 21 because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. 23 Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. 24 For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.
26 Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us[b] with groanings which cannot be uttered. 27 Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. 29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.
God’s Everlasting Love
31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? 33 Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written:
“ For Your sake we are killed all day long;
We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”[c]
37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. 38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
The Sword vs The Cup
Dear Suzanne, Rebecca, Anna and Mikayla,
John 18:11 So Jesus said to Peter, "Put your sword into the sheath. Shall I not drink the cup which My Father has given Me?"
John 18:11 So Jesus said to Peter, "Put your sword into the sheath. Shall I not drink the cup which My Father has given Me?"
I was reading John 18 and the Lord brought me up short at this verse. How willingly do I drink the cup the Lord gives me? Do I fight against with a sword of rebellion? The cup* in the bible is often used to illustrate suffering and sorrow. The sword...rebellion. Girls, what do we do with the cups the Lord gives us? Do we become offended and use the sword to make someone else feel the same pain and discomfort that we are feeling...spread the joy so to speak. Or do we, by the power of His Spirit, accept the cup and drink it down and by doing so allow Him to do His transforming work in our hearts?
You either have a sword in your hand and are resisting His will or have a cup in your hand and are accepting His will. It is as natural as breathing to respond to an offense in grief, anger and/or unforgiveness. It takes the Spirit living inside you to respond by returning good for evil. It takes the Spirit living inside you to make your valley of tears a spring. We really need to have that attitude that Christ Jesus had that Paul wrote about in Philippians 2.
"Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross."
Jesus came to do the Father's will. He accepted the cup. In accepting the cup and going through the tribulation, sorrow, and death that ensued, He brought the peace of God to me and you. God, the Father, transformed His Son's suffering into the greatest joy and highest good the world has ever known. Jesus could have called in legions to fight for Him with swords but He did not. When Peter attempted to take matters into his own hands and single-handedly thwart God's plan of redemption, Christ performed His last physical healing on earth...he healed the high priest's servant, Malchus', ear. What grace He showed not only Malchus, but also Peter. Christ put aside His offenses and for the joy (us) that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame and has sat down at the right hand of the Father. Christ came to heal the broken-hearted and set the captives free. Do we use our words and our actions to heal or to hurt, to bind or to set free?
Psalm 40:8 says, "I delight to do Your will, O my God/And Your law is within my heart.”
We really can delight to do His will knowing that whatever He has prepared for us to drink is good and is exactly what we need. God Himself has mixed the cup and is administering it. He loves us with a perfect love and His will for us is from His heart of love. There is no need to fear. There is so much striving and unrest in pride and in taking offense. Trying to stay on top, look the best, and be the most important takes monumental effort and causes others to strive with you. Resting and allowing the Lord to lift you up and bring you forward is the way of peace and rest. Look at the next few verses in Philippians 2.
Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.--Philippians 2:9-11
After the cross came the exaltation...before honor is humility. Cling to Him. Respond to offenses by remembering to let our gentleness be known. It is not about us...It is about glorifying Christ and magnifying Him so others will see His light in us and turn and glorify God. Think about what Peter was able to accomplish without the sword but by using the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God....thousands came to Jesus...the church grew daily, the Book of Acts tells us. Sometimes we forget the big picture in offenses. And the big picture is always the big picture, no matter the size of the offense. Put them all off...remember who you are and what you truly deserve...and be thankful. Abide in Him and remember that your life is not your own...that it was bought with a price...that your life is now hidden with Christ in God. Your job is to shine for Christ and show the people here on earth the truth...Christ in you...the hope of glory. It is that simple and that profound. The next verses in Philippians 2 express this very thought.
"Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. Do all things without complaining and disputing, 15 that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain or labored in vain. Yes, and if I am being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. For the same reason you also be glad and rejoice with me."--Philippians 2:12-18
Put away your sword...allow God's will to unfold. Commit yourself to Him who judges righteously. Remember that the battle is the Lord's. Be still (literally, hands off) and know that He is God. Most often when we take matters into our own hands we wind up sinning and moving towards fear rather than faith.
Love
Mom
Love
Mom
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Sometimes in Winning We Lose...The Potter and the Clay -Jeremiah 18
The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying: “Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause you to hear My words.” Then I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, making something at the wheel. And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter; so he made it again into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make.
Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying: “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter?” says the LORD. “Look, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel! The instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down, and to destroy it, if that nation against whom I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it. And the instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it, if it does evil in My sight so that it does not obey My voice, then I will relent concerning the good with which I said I would benefit it.
“Now therefore, speak to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, ‘Thus says the LORD: “Behold, I am fashioning a disaster and devising a plan against you. Return now every one from his evil way, and make your ways and your doings good.”’”
Dear Suzanne, Rebecca, Anna and Mikayla,
In the beginning of Chapter 18 we find Jeremiah heading toward the potter's house to hear from God. Jeremiah found the potter at the wheel making something. I am pretty sure we all get the symbolism, but let's review it anyway. The potter here is God and the thing He is forming is one of us. Now the potter, girls, lest we forget, is a skilled artist, and artists make beautiful things. Sometimes you can't tell what he is making just from looking but the artist/potter always has a plan and a picture in his mind of the end result. He can see the end when all that there is is a lump of clay...and we know who that lump of clay is. Yes, that clay is us. We are the dirt. The wheel represents the circumstances of life.
Let's go back to the clay for a minute...For me there is nothing that says God is sovereign more than remembering that I am a lump of clay. How much can a lump of clay do? It has to be placed on the wheel. If it falls off the wheel, it has to be picked up. If it gets out of shape, it has to be pressed back into shape. It has no say. It is totally at the mercy of the potter who can make it into whatever he wants to make it into. God is the One doing the work, girls...He is the One who is creating a work of art...we are His masterpieces. I know if I get involved I will only cause Him more work and perhaps mar the end result...but I sometimes do it anyway...
Eph 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
Okay...so as Jeremiah watched, the clay resisted the potter and the work was marred in the potter's hand. The potter starts over and makes it into another vessel of His choosing. Now of course this was meant to tell Judah that it is God who controls the nations. (vs 5-10) Really...God can do what He wants. He doesn't need our advice Romans 11:34 says “ For who has known the mind of the LORD? Or who has become His counselor?” We can be very happy that what He does He does perfectly and in accordance with who He is. The Lord presents two scenarios in these verses. The first one...if a nation is doing evil and then turns and repents...He would relent and not send judgment. I am thinking of Jonah and Nineveh here. The next is if He promised to bless a nation and they go and do evil...He will send judgment instead and hold back blessing. Israel now comes to mind. I got a little bogged down thinking about how much of this was God's sovereignty and how much was our choice. I mean as a believer or an unbeliever we are formed by God and used for His purpose. Our ends, depending on our choice; however, are very different. I went to Romans 9 and read the following:
What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not! For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.”So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.” Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens. You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?” But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor? What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
God's purposes for us is mercy. He is sovereign. He works all things together for our good for those who believe. We can trust Him. When we understand these qualities of God, we know that his choices are good even if we don't understand all his reasons. Our job is just to be obedient...the results are up to Him. The beautiful thing about the Lord is that when we are saved, He allows us, by His grace, to cooperate with Him in His work. So as we surrender our hearts to Him, He makes us into beautiful vessels of mercy. AND... WAIT FOR IT...2 Cor 4: 7 says: "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us." We bring Him our tired, weary, flawed and cracked pots and He does all the work and makes them into things of beauty. Pretty good deal from where I sit.
Isaiah 64:8 says But now, O LORD, You are our Father; We are the clay, and You our potter; And all we are the work of Your hand. There is rest in that verse. If we truly believe that we are the clay and He is the potter and that we are the work of His hand than we should be able to relax...right? It is not up to us. Intellectually, we know that the Creator has control over what He creates. As the created thing we can't demand anything of our creator...we exist at and for his pleasure. Can the thing that is formed boast or take credit for anything He accomplishes...no...because he was MADE..the glory always goes to the creator not the thing created. For it is God who works in us both to do and to will for His good pleasure. How very, very silly it is for us to boast and yet we do. We willfully forget who He is and who we are...we think we are something in ourselves. More on this below...
How does all this work practically into shaping us into a useful vessel of mercy? I mentioned earlier that the wheel represents the circumstances of life...it is controlled by the potter's foot and the clay is shaped and formed by the potter's hands. The wheel spins representing the circumstances and trials of life. The Potter's hand is on us at all times..sometimes the pressure is hard, sometimes it is softer, but always it is there. Now, unlike the clay, we do have the ability to resist God's will. Again, think of how silly this is. We are resisting God!! Who do you think is going to win...and if you win you are really losing. This is what God's people chose. Look at what the very next verse says right after He asked them to repent and return in verse 11.
Jeremiah 18:12 And they said, “That is hopeless! So we will walk according to our own plans, and we will every one obey the dictates of his evil heart.”
Do you see how deceitful the heart is...they are fighting against God because they are so enslaved and blinded by their sin that they have become irrational. God is laying out for them the way of obedience which would bring blessing and the way of disobedience which would bring judgment...and they choose...drum roll...judgment!
In the next several verses God tells them just how irrational they are being:
Therefore thus says the LORD:“ Ask now among the Gentiles, Who has heard such things? The virgin of Israel has done a very horrible thing. Will a man leave the snow water of Lebanon, Which comes from the rock of the field? Will the cold flowing waters be forsaken for strange waters? “ Because My people have forgotten Me, They have burned incense to worthless idols. And they have caused themselves to stumble in their ways, From the ancient paths, To walk in pathways and not on a highway, To make their land desolate and a perpetual hissing; Everyone who passes by it will be astonished And shake his head. I will scatter them as with an east wind before the enemy; I will show them the back and not the face In the day of their calamity.”--Jeremiah 18:13-17
THE PEOPLE ACTED CONTRARY TO EVERYTHING THAT WAS REASONABLE. Really how smart is it for dirt to resist an intelligent designer...a master craftsman? It is not rational. Don't laugh...you and I do this all the time. We cannot succeed without Him, yet we act as if we can. We are filled with our own ways. We jump off the wheel and abandon those ancient paths for ones of our own making and God rightly leaves us to our own devices. I think here of what Dr. Phil says..."How's that working for you?" It isn't working and it never will. So eventually we get tired of trying to do it ourselves and we get back on the potter's wheel. God graciously and willingly molds us again...even though we have caused damage by our own pride and resistance. His mercies are new every morning and in Him there is no condemnation. God is so patient with us.
Warren Wiersbe quotes from Alexander Whyte in regard to these verses in Scripture. Here is what Mr. Whyte has to say, who saw the "victorious" Christian life as a "series of new beginnings": "No failure in our lives need be fatal or final, although we certainly suffer for our sins. God gave new beginnings to Abraham, Moses, David, Jonah, and Peter when they failed, and He can do the same for us today."
The next verse remind us that sinners often do not want to hear from God's messenger. They run from the Light not only because their deeds are evil but because they do not want to come to the Light...they want to continue in their sin. Then they said, “Come and let us devise plans against Jeremiah; for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come and let us attack him with the tongue, and let us not give heed to any of his words.” Let's discredit or kill the messenger because we do not like his message. God told Jeremiah that he would be persecuted as His prophet. The Bible tells us that all who live godly in Christ Jesus will face persecution and be reproached for the name of Christ. It says in John that in this world you will have tribulation, but to be of good cheer, He has overcome the world.
Jeremiah ends Chapter 18 with a prayer to His God. I was a little taken aback with its harshness and thought that God was going to ask him to repent again as in Chapter 15, but that was not the case. Jeremiah was God's prophet. As God's prophet when they rejected him, they were rejecting the Lord and His word. His anger was righteous. He felt anguish in his heart for their utter rejection of God against everything that was reasonable and rational. He knew what was to come. He foresaw the destruction of the people and the city. He saw the innocence of the children that would not be spared because of the sins of the leaders and the people of God that followed those leaders. He expressed His heart to God and left the matter in God's hands.
Girls, trust the Master Potter with your lives. He loves us and died for us when we were still sinners. Read what Romans 5:6-10 says:
For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
I love it when it says how much more we shall be saved by His life. If He cared about us that much that He died for us when we were His enemy...how much more will He care for us and shape us for our good when we are reconciled to Him.
And there is more...read the verses from Matthew 27:3-9. Jesus' blood bought the potter's field...where the potter throws all his pieces of useless, broken and cracked pottery. Jesus purchased our redemption with His blood so that He could remake us into His image...so that we could be made into useful, beautiful vessels of mercy.
Then Judas, His betrayer, seeing that He had been condemned, was remorseful and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.”
And they said, “What is that to us? You see to it!”
Then he threw down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed, and went and hanged himself.
But the chief priests took the silver pieces and said, “It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, because they are the price of blood.” 7 And they consulted together and bought with them the potter’s field, to bury strangers in. Therefore that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day.
Then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, “And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the value of Him who was priced, whom they of the children of Israel priced, 10 and gave them for the potter’s field, as the LORD directed me.”
Love
Mom
Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying: “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter?” says the LORD. “Look, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel! The instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down, and to destroy it, if that nation against whom I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it. And the instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it, if it does evil in My sight so that it does not obey My voice, then I will relent concerning the good with which I said I would benefit it.
“Now therefore, speak to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, ‘Thus says the LORD: “Behold, I am fashioning a disaster and devising a plan against you. Return now every one from his evil way, and make your ways and your doings good.”’”
Dear Suzanne, Rebecca, Anna and Mikayla,
In the beginning of Chapter 18 we find Jeremiah heading toward the potter's house to hear from God. Jeremiah found the potter at the wheel making something. I am pretty sure we all get the symbolism, but let's review it anyway. The potter here is God and the thing He is forming is one of us. Now the potter, girls, lest we forget, is a skilled artist, and artists make beautiful things. Sometimes you can't tell what he is making just from looking but the artist/potter always has a plan and a picture in his mind of the end result. He can see the end when all that there is is a lump of clay...and we know who that lump of clay is. Yes, that clay is us. We are the dirt. The wheel represents the circumstances of life.
Let's go back to the clay for a minute...For me there is nothing that says God is sovereign more than remembering that I am a lump of clay. How much can a lump of clay do? It has to be placed on the wheel. If it falls off the wheel, it has to be picked up. If it gets out of shape, it has to be pressed back into shape. It has no say. It is totally at the mercy of the potter who can make it into whatever he wants to make it into. God is the One doing the work, girls...He is the One who is creating a work of art...we are His masterpieces. I know if I get involved I will only cause Him more work and perhaps mar the end result...but I sometimes do it anyway...
Eph 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
Okay...so as Jeremiah watched, the clay resisted the potter and the work was marred in the potter's hand. The potter starts over and makes it into another vessel of His choosing. Now of course this was meant to tell Judah that it is God who controls the nations. (vs 5-10) Really...God can do what He wants. He doesn't need our advice Romans 11:34 says “ For who has known the mind of the LORD? Or who has become His counselor?” We can be very happy that what He does He does perfectly and in accordance with who He is. The Lord presents two scenarios in these verses. The first one...if a nation is doing evil and then turns and repents...He would relent and not send judgment. I am thinking of Jonah and Nineveh here. The next is if He promised to bless a nation and they go and do evil...He will send judgment instead and hold back blessing. Israel now comes to mind. I got a little bogged down thinking about how much of this was God's sovereignty and how much was our choice. I mean as a believer or an unbeliever we are formed by God and used for His purpose. Our ends, depending on our choice; however, are very different. I went to Romans 9 and read the following:
What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not! For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.”So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.” Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens. You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?” But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor? What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
God's purposes for us is mercy. He is sovereign. He works all things together for our good for those who believe. We can trust Him. When we understand these qualities of God, we know that his choices are good even if we don't understand all his reasons. Our job is just to be obedient...the results are up to Him. The beautiful thing about the Lord is that when we are saved, He allows us, by His grace, to cooperate with Him in His work. So as we surrender our hearts to Him, He makes us into beautiful vessels of mercy. AND... WAIT FOR IT...2 Cor 4: 7 says: "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us." We bring Him our tired, weary, flawed and cracked pots and He does all the work and makes them into things of beauty. Pretty good deal from where I sit.
Isaiah 64:8 says But now, O LORD, You are our Father; We are the clay, and You our potter; And all we are the work of Your hand. There is rest in that verse. If we truly believe that we are the clay and He is the potter and that we are the work of His hand than we should be able to relax...right? It is not up to us. Intellectually, we know that the Creator has control over what He creates. As the created thing we can't demand anything of our creator...we exist at and for his pleasure. Can the thing that is formed boast or take credit for anything He accomplishes...no...because he was MADE..the glory always goes to the creator not the thing created. For it is God who works in us both to do and to will for His good pleasure. How very, very silly it is for us to boast and yet we do. We willfully forget who He is and who we are...we think we are something in ourselves. More on this below...
How does all this work practically into shaping us into a useful vessel of mercy? I mentioned earlier that the wheel represents the circumstances of life...it is controlled by the potter's foot and the clay is shaped and formed by the potter's hands. The wheel spins representing the circumstances and trials of life. The Potter's hand is on us at all times..sometimes the pressure is hard, sometimes it is softer, but always it is there. Now, unlike the clay, we do have the ability to resist God's will. Again, think of how silly this is. We are resisting God!! Who do you think is going to win...and if you win you are really losing. This is what God's people chose. Look at what the very next verse says right after He asked them to repent and return in verse 11.
Jeremiah 18:12 And they said, “That is hopeless! So we will walk according to our own plans, and we will every one obey the dictates of his evil heart.”
Do you see how deceitful the heart is...they are fighting against God because they are so enslaved and blinded by their sin that they have become irrational. God is laying out for them the way of obedience which would bring blessing and the way of disobedience which would bring judgment...and they choose...drum roll...judgment!
In the next several verses God tells them just how irrational they are being:
Therefore thus says the LORD:“ Ask now among the Gentiles, Who has heard such things? The virgin of Israel has done a very horrible thing. Will a man leave the snow water of Lebanon, Which comes from the rock of the field? Will the cold flowing waters be forsaken for strange waters? “ Because My people have forgotten Me, They have burned incense to worthless idols. And they have caused themselves to stumble in their ways, From the ancient paths, To walk in pathways and not on a highway, To make their land desolate and a perpetual hissing; Everyone who passes by it will be astonished And shake his head. I will scatter them as with an east wind before the enemy; I will show them the back and not the face In the day of their calamity.”--Jeremiah 18:13-17
THE PEOPLE ACTED CONTRARY TO EVERYTHING THAT WAS REASONABLE. Really how smart is it for dirt to resist an intelligent designer...a master craftsman? It is not rational. Don't laugh...you and I do this all the time. We cannot succeed without Him, yet we act as if we can. We are filled with our own ways. We jump off the wheel and abandon those ancient paths for ones of our own making and God rightly leaves us to our own devices. I think here of what Dr. Phil says..."How's that working for you?" It isn't working and it never will. So eventually we get tired of trying to do it ourselves and we get back on the potter's wheel. God graciously and willingly molds us again...even though we have caused damage by our own pride and resistance. His mercies are new every morning and in Him there is no condemnation. God is so patient with us.
Warren Wiersbe quotes from Alexander Whyte in regard to these verses in Scripture. Here is what Mr. Whyte has to say, who saw the "victorious" Christian life as a "series of new beginnings": "No failure in our lives need be fatal or final, although we certainly suffer for our sins. God gave new beginnings to Abraham, Moses, David, Jonah, and Peter when they failed, and He can do the same for us today."
The next verse remind us that sinners often do not want to hear from God's messenger. They run from the Light not only because their deeds are evil but because they do not want to come to the Light...they want to continue in their sin. Then they said, “Come and let us devise plans against Jeremiah; for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come and let us attack him with the tongue, and let us not give heed to any of his words.” Let's discredit or kill the messenger because we do not like his message. God told Jeremiah that he would be persecuted as His prophet. The Bible tells us that all who live godly in Christ Jesus will face persecution and be reproached for the name of Christ. It says in John that in this world you will have tribulation, but to be of good cheer, He has overcome the world.
Jeremiah ends Chapter 18 with a prayer to His God. I was a little taken aback with its harshness and thought that God was going to ask him to repent again as in Chapter 15, but that was not the case. Jeremiah was God's prophet. As God's prophet when they rejected him, they were rejecting the Lord and His word. His anger was righteous. He felt anguish in his heart for their utter rejection of God against everything that was reasonable and rational. He knew what was to come. He foresaw the destruction of the people and the city. He saw the innocence of the children that would not be spared because of the sins of the leaders and the people of God that followed those leaders. He expressed His heart to God and left the matter in God's hands.
Girls, trust the Master Potter with your lives. He loves us and died for us when we were still sinners. Read what Romans 5:6-10 says:
For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
I love it when it says how much more we shall be saved by His life. If He cared about us that much that He died for us when we were His enemy...how much more will He care for us and shape us for our good when we are reconciled to Him.
And there is more...read the verses from Matthew 27:3-9. Jesus' blood bought the potter's field...where the potter throws all his pieces of useless, broken and cracked pottery. Jesus purchased our redemption with His blood so that He could remake us into His image...so that we could be made into useful, beautiful vessels of mercy.
Then Judas, His betrayer, seeing that He had been condemned, was remorseful and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.”
And they said, “What is that to us? You see to it!”
Then he threw down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed, and went and hanged himself.
But the chief priests took the silver pieces and said, “It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, because they are the price of blood.” 7 And they consulted together and bought with them the potter’s field, to bury strangers in. Therefore that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day.
Then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, “And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the value of Him who was priced, whom they of the children of Israel priced, 10 and gave them for the potter’s field, as the LORD directed me.”
Love
Mom
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Heart Problems...
Thus says the LORD: “ Cursed is the man who trusts in man And makes flesh his strength, Whose heart departs from the LORD. For he shall be like a shrub in the desert, And shall not see when good comes, But shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, In a salt land which is not inhabited. “ Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, And whose hope is the LORD. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, Which spreads out its roots by the river, And will not fear when heat comes; But its leaf will be green, And will not be anxious in the year of drought, Nor will cease from yielding fruit. “ The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it? I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give every man according to his ways, According to the fruit of his doings.--Jeremiah 17:5-10
Dear Suzanne, Rebecca, Anna and Mikayla,
Jeremiah starts off in verse 1 of Chapter 17 saying that the sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron and the point of a diamond on their hearts. They were committed to their sin...to their disobedience and because of this they would not enjoy His blessings...not the ones He had for them now nor the ones that He had planned for them. We miss out on so many of the blessings of the Lord, girls, both the eternal and the temporal ones when we sin. They thought they could get by without Him...by relying on their own ability. They followed blind leaders and allowed their own eyes to be blinded so much so that they went into the ditch together.
Next, he compares the man who trusts in the Lord to the one who trusts in man. The comparison is well let's say....stark. The one who trusts in man is like a shrunken shrub in the desert...dry and parched. The one who puts his trust in the Lord, like a tree planted by the rivers of water whose leaf is ever green and bears fruit continually...even in times of drought. THAT is a beautiful picture. Girls put your hope in the Lord, immerse yourself in the water of His word. Abide in Him...hang on to the vine. The fruit will come without any effort on your part. There will be no struggle. When you find yourself in a trial, look up to Him...not to the world for help...not to the people around us...not inside yourselves...but to Him. The One who knows the end from the beginning...the One who holds the world in the palm of His hand. The One who knows your situation and has you exactly where He wants you to be and knows exactly what you need moment by moment. I love what Warren Wiersbe says here: " Look at others and be distressed, look at yourself and be depressed, look to God and you'll be blessed!"
We come here to one of my favorite verses in Scripture. “ The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?" It remind me that it is not others that are the problem. It is always my heart that is the problem...it is why the Lord tells us to keep our hearts with all diligence for out of it springs the issues of life. Matthew tells us that out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. The Lord shows us our hearts only as we gaze deeply into His word. There He reveals to us our motives, desires and wrong thinking. In fact, as I remember back to when I first got saved, I thought if I just stopped doing this or that then I would be perfect. HA! We all have a tendency to think that we can do some pretty good things without the Lord...but that is because we are deceived by our own hearts. The funny thing is though that the longer you walk with the Lord the more you see your own depravity and your need for Him and understand the depth of His forgiveness and your utter need for His grace to you in Christ Jesus. Your conscience is no longer hardened by so much sin and as you surrender to Him, the layers are peeled away making your heart more tender and your vision sharper to see that the problem is truly incurable.(See Romans 7 and then thank God for Romans 8...esp 8:1) You realize that it is only Christ living in you doing the work alone that is good. Your love for Him grows deeper with each and every moment that you abide in Him... And this verse from Romans 5 takes on an increasing depth of meaning... But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
The last verses we look at here (verse 10) tell us the Lord is who tests our heart...all we need to do is look to Him. Girls, we do not know our own hearts...only God does and He rewards us accordingly. When our hearts are not turned toward the truth, we are led astray and eventually find ourselves like that shrub in the desert...alone, parched, shrunken and in dire need. My heart is crying out for each one of you girls and for myself...that we would abide...stay in the word. Without His word our understanding is darkened...the light that is in us dims and we begin to walk in directions we never thought we would. Our heart, in effect, becomes blinded.
But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!-- Matt 6:23
let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water--Heb 10:22
For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.--Heb 10:22
Love
Mom
Dear Suzanne, Rebecca, Anna and Mikayla,
Jeremiah starts off in verse 1 of Chapter 17 saying that the sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron and the point of a diamond on their hearts. They were committed to their sin...to their disobedience and because of this they would not enjoy His blessings...not the ones He had for them now nor the ones that He had planned for them. We miss out on so many of the blessings of the Lord, girls, both the eternal and the temporal ones when we sin. They thought they could get by without Him...by relying on their own ability. They followed blind leaders and allowed their own eyes to be blinded so much so that they went into the ditch together.
Next, he compares the man who trusts in the Lord to the one who trusts in man. The comparison is well let's say....stark. The one who trusts in man is like a shrunken shrub in the desert...dry and parched. The one who puts his trust in the Lord, like a tree planted by the rivers of water whose leaf is ever green and bears fruit continually...even in times of drought. THAT is a beautiful picture. Girls put your hope in the Lord, immerse yourself in the water of His word. Abide in Him...hang on to the vine. The fruit will come without any effort on your part. There will be no struggle. When you find yourself in a trial, look up to Him...not to the world for help...not to the people around us...not inside yourselves...but to Him. The One who knows the end from the beginning...the One who holds the world in the palm of His hand. The One who knows your situation and has you exactly where He wants you to be and knows exactly what you need moment by moment. I love what Warren Wiersbe says here: " Look at others and be distressed, look at yourself and be depressed, look to God and you'll be blessed!"
We come here to one of my favorite verses in Scripture. “ The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?" It remind me that it is not others that are the problem. It is always my heart that is the problem...it is why the Lord tells us to keep our hearts with all diligence for out of it springs the issues of life. Matthew tells us that out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. The Lord shows us our hearts only as we gaze deeply into His word. There He reveals to us our motives, desires and wrong thinking. In fact, as I remember back to when I first got saved, I thought if I just stopped doing this or that then I would be perfect. HA! We all have a tendency to think that we can do some pretty good things without the Lord...but that is because we are deceived by our own hearts. The funny thing is though that the longer you walk with the Lord the more you see your own depravity and your need for Him and understand the depth of His forgiveness and your utter need for His grace to you in Christ Jesus. Your conscience is no longer hardened by so much sin and as you surrender to Him, the layers are peeled away making your heart more tender and your vision sharper to see that the problem is truly incurable.(See Romans 7 and then thank God for Romans 8...esp 8:1) You realize that it is only Christ living in you doing the work alone that is good. Your love for Him grows deeper with each and every moment that you abide in Him... And this verse from Romans 5 takes on an increasing depth of meaning... But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
The last verses we look at here (verse 10) tell us the Lord is who tests our heart...all we need to do is look to Him. Girls, we do not know our own hearts...only God does and He rewards us accordingly. When our hearts are not turned toward the truth, we are led astray and eventually find ourselves like that shrub in the desert...alone, parched, shrunken and in dire need. My heart is crying out for each one of you girls and for myself...that we would abide...stay in the word. Without His word our understanding is darkened...the light that is in us dims and we begin to walk in directions we never thought we would. Our heart, in effect, becomes blinded.
But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!-- Matt 6:23
let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water--Heb 10:22
For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.--Heb 10:22
Love
Mom
Friday, October 15, 2010
Joy Comes in the Morning....
Dear Suzanne, Rebecca, Anna and Mikayla,
Now in one of my lasts post God had told Jeremiah to go out and buy a girdle...a new pair of underwear. God sometimes asked His prophets to do some strange things. In Chapter 16 God tells Jeremiah not to get married, and not to attend funerals, weddings or feasts. Lots and lots of fun to be had being God's prophet.
Let's look at the marriage prohibition first. Now really, when we think about it, Jeremiah with all his trials, was probably better off single. These restrictions were all symbolic, however, of the bigger picture. The time was coming when children would die by either the sword or starvation...Jeremiah was to be alone as the people would be alone...bereft.
So why not attend the people's feasts, funerals and weddings? Turning down funeral, wedding and feasts invitations as well as not getting married would just make Jeremiah even more unpopular. Even so, he was not to do the socially acceptable thing because soon there would be people dying in the streets and no time to even bury them let alone comfort the families...as for the weddings and the feasts....there would be no joy in the land of destruction.
What was Jeremiah to answer the people when they asked why he was not getting married or attending Uncle John's funeral or Aunt Patty's wedding? God's answer begins in verse 10.
“And it shall be, when you show this people all these words, and they say to you, ‘Why has the LORD pronounced all this great disaster against us? Or what is our iniquity? Or what is our sin that we have committed against the LORD our God?’ then you shall say to them, ‘Because your fathers have forsaken Me,’ says the LORD; ‘they have walked after other gods and have served them and worshiped them, and have forsaken Me and not kept My law. Therefore I will cast you out of this land into a land that you do not know, neither you nor your fathers; and there you shall serve other gods day and night, where I will not show you favor.’ And you have done worse than your fathers, for behold, each one follows the dictates of his own evil heart, so that no one listens to Me.
So didn't the people know that what they had been doing was wrong...I mean they had to ask?? My only answer is the title of a previous post. Sin makes us stupid! We can give ourselves all kinds of reasons or excuses for what we are doing and eventually believe our own lies. The people were comfortable with their sin and their conscience's were seared. They really thought that God would not allow His Holy City and His own temple to be desecrated....history had proven to them that He would...but they still believed it would not happen to them. God tells them they had done worse than their fathers because each one did what they wanted to...and did not listen to Him.
The Lord remembers mercy in verse 14 and 15 and tells Jeremiah that He will bring the people back from the land of the north and from all the places that they had been scattered. Our God is so good...Weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning. His compassion fails not. They would return from Babylon a corrected people who would never again turn to the idols of the Gentile nations around them. Jeremiah 25 speaks about the 70 years of exile and Jeremiah 23 and 31 speak of the remnant returning to rebuild the temple and the nation. What Jeremiah (God) said would happen...happened. History recorded in advance. Amazing!
In the last verses Jeremiah not only sees the remnant returning but also the coming of the Gentile nations to worship the Lord...Here are his (His) words:
The Gentiles shall come to You
From the ends of the earth and say,
“ Surely our fathers have inherited lies,
Worthlessness and unprofitable things.”
20 Will a man make gods for himself,
Which are not gods?
21 “ Therefore behold, I will this once cause them to know,
I will cause them to know
My hand and My might;
And they shall know that My name is the LORD.--Jeremiah 16:19-21
Now as I read this my heart burst for joy for two reasons. The first one is prophecy! Girls...the prophet, Zechariah was given the same message as was the prophet, Isaiah. They all foresaw a day when the Gentile nations would turn from their useless idols and worship the Living God. The Bible predicts what will happen ahead of time...that is because it is written by Someone who knows the end from the beginning. Someone who lives outside of time. We do not believe cunningly devised fables...we believe in Him who holds the world in the palm of His hand and controls the nations. Prophecy is not only an encouragement to our faith but a confirmation of it. As I read these and think of all the prophecies that have already been fulfilled especially the ones regarding Jesus I am so encouraged...Israel is once again back in her land and a nation! No other people group in the history of the world has come back from the kind of devastation and scattering that they faced...not even once. The Jewish nation has returned to the land twice.
The second reason that I was filled with joy was in thinking about how our trials lead us into a deeper relationship with Jesus. When we come through the trial we shine brighter for Him...there is now less of us and more of Him...Others will see it and glorify our Father in Heaven!
Love
Mom
The verses referenced from Isaiah and Zechariah are below...
The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
2 Now it shall come to pass in the latter days
That the mountain of the LORD’s house
Shall be established on the top of the mountains,
And shall be exalted above the hills;
And all nations shall flow to it.
3 Many people shall come and say,
“ Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
To the house of the God of Jacob;
He will teach us His ways,
And we shall walk in His paths.”
For out of Zion shall go forth the law,
And the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
4 He shall judge between the nations,
And rebuke many people;
They shall beat their swords into plowshares,
And their spears into pruning hooks;
Nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
Neither shall they learn war anymore.--Isaiah 2:1-5
10 “ And in that day there shall be a Root of Jesse,
Who shall stand as a banner to the people;
For the Gentiles shall seek Him,
And His resting place shall be glorious.”
11 It shall come to pass in that day
That the Lord shall set His hand again the second time
To recover the remnant of His people who are left,
From Assyria and Egypt,
From Pathros and Cush,
From Elam and Shinar,
From Hamath and the islands of the sea.
12 He will set up a banner for the nations,
And will assemble the outcasts of Israel,
And gather together the dispersed of Judah
From the four corners of the earth.
13 Also the envy of Ephraim shall depart,
And the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off;
Ephraim shall not envy Judah,
And Judah shall not harass Ephraim.
14 But they shall fly down upon the shoulder of the Philistines toward the west;
Together they shall plunder the people of the East;
They shall lay their hand on Edom and Moab;
And the people of Ammon shall obey them.
15 The LORD will utterly destroy[a] the tongue of the Sea of Egypt;
With His mighty wind He will shake His fist over the River,[b]
And strike it in the seven streams,
And make men cross over dryshod.
16 There will be a highway for the remnant of His people
Who will be left from Assyria,
As it was for Israel
In the day that he came up from the land of Egypt.--Isaiah 11:10-16
14 Thus says the LORD:
“ The labor of Egypt and merchandise of Cush
And of the Sabeans, men of stature,
Shall come over to you, and they shall be yours;
They shall walk behind you,
They shall come over in chains;
And they shall bow down to you.
They will make supplication to you, saying, ‘Surely God is in you,
And there is no other;
There is no other God.’”--Isaiah 45:14
20 “Thus says the LORD of hosts:
‘ Peoples shall yet come,
Inhabitants of many cities;
21 The inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying,
“ Let us continue to go and pray before the LORD,
And seek the LORD of hosts.
I myself will go also.”
22 Yes, many peoples and strong nations
Shall come to seek the LORD of hosts in Jerusalem,
And to pray before the LORD.’
23 “Thus says the LORD of hosts: ‘In those days ten men from every language of the nations shall grasp the sleeve of a Jewish man, saying, “Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.”’”--Zechariah 8:20-23
Now in one of my lasts post God had told Jeremiah to go out and buy a girdle...a new pair of underwear. God sometimes asked His prophets to do some strange things. In Chapter 16 God tells Jeremiah not to get married, and not to attend funerals, weddings or feasts. Lots and lots of fun to be had being God's prophet.
Let's look at the marriage prohibition first. Now really, when we think about it, Jeremiah with all his trials, was probably better off single. These restrictions were all symbolic, however, of the bigger picture. The time was coming when children would die by either the sword or starvation...Jeremiah was to be alone as the people would be alone...bereft.
So why not attend the people's feasts, funerals and weddings? Turning down funeral, wedding and feasts invitations as well as not getting married would just make Jeremiah even more unpopular. Even so, he was not to do the socially acceptable thing because soon there would be people dying in the streets and no time to even bury them let alone comfort the families...as for the weddings and the feasts....there would be no joy in the land of destruction.
What was Jeremiah to answer the people when they asked why he was not getting married or attending Uncle John's funeral or Aunt Patty's wedding? God's answer begins in verse 10.
“And it shall be, when you show this people all these words, and they say to you, ‘Why has the LORD pronounced all this great disaster against us? Or what is our iniquity? Or what is our sin that we have committed against the LORD our God?’ then you shall say to them, ‘Because your fathers have forsaken Me,’ says the LORD; ‘they have walked after other gods and have served them and worshiped them, and have forsaken Me and not kept My law. Therefore I will cast you out of this land into a land that you do not know, neither you nor your fathers; and there you shall serve other gods day and night, where I will not show you favor.’ And you have done worse than your fathers, for behold, each one follows the dictates of his own evil heart, so that no one listens to Me.
So didn't the people know that what they had been doing was wrong...I mean they had to ask?? My only answer is the title of a previous post. Sin makes us stupid! We can give ourselves all kinds of reasons or excuses for what we are doing and eventually believe our own lies. The people were comfortable with their sin and their conscience's were seared. They really thought that God would not allow His Holy City and His own temple to be desecrated....history had proven to them that He would...but they still believed it would not happen to them. God tells them they had done worse than their fathers because each one did what they wanted to...and did not listen to Him.
The Lord remembers mercy in verse 14 and 15 and tells Jeremiah that He will bring the people back from the land of the north and from all the places that they had been scattered. Our God is so good...Weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning. His compassion fails not. They would return from Babylon a corrected people who would never again turn to the idols of the Gentile nations around them. Jeremiah 25 speaks about the 70 years of exile and Jeremiah 23 and 31 speak of the remnant returning to rebuild the temple and the nation. What Jeremiah (God) said would happen...happened. History recorded in advance. Amazing!
In the last verses Jeremiah not only sees the remnant returning but also the coming of the Gentile nations to worship the Lord...Here are his (His) words:
The Gentiles shall come to You
From the ends of the earth and say,
“ Surely our fathers have inherited lies,
Worthlessness and unprofitable things.”
20 Will a man make gods for himself,
Which are not gods?
21 “ Therefore behold, I will this once cause them to know,
I will cause them to know
My hand and My might;
And they shall know that My name is the LORD.--Jeremiah 16:19-21
Now as I read this my heart burst for joy for two reasons. The first one is prophecy! Girls...the prophet, Zechariah was given the same message as was the prophet, Isaiah. They all foresaw a day when the Gentile nations would turn from their useless idols and worship the Living God. The Bible predicts what will happen ahead of time...that is because it is written by Someone who knows the end from the beginning. Someone who lives outside of time. We do not believe cunningly devised fables...we believe in Him who holds the world in the palm of His hand and controls the nations. Prophecy is not only an encouragement to our faith but a confirmation of it. As I read these and think of all the prophecies that have already been fulfilled especially the ones regarding Jesus I am so encouraged...Israel is once again back in her land and a nation! No other people group in the history of the world has come back from the kind of devastation and scattering that they faced...not even once. The Jewish nation has returned to the land twice.
The second reason that I was filled with joy was in thinking about how our trials lead us into a deeper relationship with Jesus. When we come through the trial we shine brighter for Him...there is now less of us and more of Him...Others will see it and glorify our Father in Heaven!
Love
Mom
The verses referenced from Isaiah and Zechariah are below...
The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
2 Now it shall come to pass in the latter days
That the mountain of the LORD’s house
Shall be established on the top of the mountains,
And shall be exalted above the hills;
And all nations shall flow to it.
3 Many people shall come and say,
“ Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
To the house of the God of Jacob;
He will teach us His ways,
And we shall walk in His paths.”
For out of Zion shall go forth the law,
And the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
4 He shall judge between the nations,
And rebuke many people;
They shall beat their swords into plowshares,
And their spears into pruning hooks;
Nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
Neither shall they learn war anymore.--Isaiah 2:1-5
10 “ And in that day there shall be a Root of Jesse,
Who shall stand as a banner to the people;
For the Gentiles shall seek Him,
And His resting place shall be glorious.”
11 It shall come to pass in that day
That the Lord shall set His hand again the second time
To recover the remnant of His people who are left,
From Assyria and Egypt,
From Pathros and Cush,
From Elam and Shinar,
From Hamath and the islands of the sea.
12 He will set up a banner for the nations,
And will assemble the outcasts of Israel,
And gather together the dispersed of Judah
From the four corners of the earth.
13 Also the envy of Ephraim shall depart,
And the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off;
Ephraim shall not envy Judah,
And Judah shall not harass Ephraim.
14 But they shall fly down upon the shoulder of the Philistines toward the west;
Together they shall plunder the people of the East;
They shall lay their hand on Edom and Moab;
And the people of Ammon shall obey them.
15 The LORD will utterly destroy[a] the tongue of the Sea of Egypt;
With His mighty wind He will shake His fist over the River,[b]
And strike it in the seven streams,
And make men cross over dryshod.
16 There will be a highway for the remnant of His people
Who will be left from Assyria,
As it was for Israel
In the day that he came up from the land of Egypt.--Isaiah 11:10-16
14 Thus says the LORD:
“ The labor of Egypt and merchandise of Cush
And of the Sabeans, men of stature,
Shall come over to you, and they shall be yours;
They shall walk behind you,
They shall come over in chains;
And they shall bow down to you.
They will make supplication to you, saying, ‘Surely God is in you,
And there is no other;
There is no other God.’”--Isaiah 45:14
20 “Thus says the LORD of hosts:
‘ Peoples shall yet come,
Inhabitants of many cities;
21 The inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying,
“ Let us continue to go and pray before the LORD,
And seek the LORD of hosts.
I myself will go also.”
22 Yes, many peoples and strong nations
Shall come to seek the LORD of hosts in Jerusalem,
And to pray before the LORD.’
23 “Thus says the LORD of hosts: ‘In those days ten men from every language of the nations shall grasp the sleeve of a Jewish man, saying, “Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.”’”--Zechariah 8:20-23
Thursday, October 14, 2010
NO REFUGE!
Lamentations 2...
Dear Suzanne, Rebecca, Anna and Mikayla,
I was going to skip a post on this chapter because Jeremiah is so graphic in his description of the destruction of both the city and its people. I thought...what could I say? Maybe this: "And because the people refused to hear, the Lord brought the destruction foretold on Jerusalem?" As I read through the chapter a few times, however, I began to see many applications for us.
Chapter 2 of Lamentations depicts absolute destruction and devastation for Judah and the city of Jerusalem....Everything the people loved and trusted in was destroyed. God's people either died of starvation, or by the sword, or were carried off to Babylon in chains as slaves.
Every "horn" of Israel was cut-off. Every horn means every strength. The people had no refuge. NONE. Not in the walls around the city, not in the army, not in their temple, not in their religious rituals, not in their homes, not in their leaders or in their kings. They were trapped like animals, killing and eating their own children for sustenance. "The Lord has swallowed up and has not pitied." If the people left the city they were slain by the sword if they remained in the city they died of starvation. They had nowhere to turn and no one willing to help them. All their allies had abandoned them.
Jeremiah makes it clear from his writing that he knew it was not the Babylonians who were were really in charge...they were servants of the Lord God...doing His bidding. This was God's chosen people...His beloved...they had been given so much. They took all their blessings for granted. They enjoyed the gifts but did not worship the Giver. To them had been given the oracles of God and to them had been given the privilege of representing Him to the world. They were very accountable. God kept His word...to bless them when they obeyed and to chasten or discipline them when they did not. They had not obeyed. Judgment time had come...just as had been promised ...their little ones were fainting from hunger at the top of every street. The suffering was so intense that Jeremiah says this about it: "What shall I compare with you, that I may comfort you,"...He had run out of descriptions and says that their wound was as deep and wide as the sea. If only they hadn't listen to the false prophets...if only they had turned...now the cloud of His anger was over head.
Hebrews 10:30-31 For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. And again, “The LORD will judge His people.”31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
So what are the applications for us.
Whatever else we might deem important in this life pales in comparison to what we do with Jesus. The only thing that is important is our relationship with Him...everything else will either burn or be destroyed..It is the one thing WE CAN take with us. It is the one thing that can and does save us. We run after so many things in this life...Run after Him..spend your time with Him and His word. It is the one and only thing that is necessary...
Another one that screamed out at me was that our children really do suffer when we as parents sin. Jeremiah cried copiously for the babies and the young children that were killed or were starving in the streets. Sometimes our sin affects many of those around us. The leaders of Jerusalem refused to listen and led Israel astray by telling them what they wanted to hear, not exposing there sin and not calling them to repentance.. Consequently the entire nation were either killed or went into servitude.
Jeremiah did not get offended. He grieved not for himself and his own pain and suffering but for the people he preached to and prayed for. The very people who rejected him and persecuted him. Jeremiah did not allow offense to get in the way of love and obedience. What an example that is to us. Girls, sometimes we can get so embroiled in conflict by getting offended that we really grieve the Spirit of God and put stumbling blocks in the paths of those whom the Lord wants to reach. It is not about us...It is about Christ...we are here for one purpose to glorify and magnify Him. God wants us to overcome evil with good...to put on love..to owe no one anything but love....to put off offense...to commit ourselves to Him who judges righteously...to let our gentleness be made known. (getting the picture) Surrender to His Spirit and allow His love...His fervent love...to be poured out on those around you.
Jeremiah's ministry in terms of converts was not a success, BUT he wept for God's people, suffered for telling them the truth, did not get offended and was rewarded by being identified with Jesus...WOW...see Matthew 16:13-14. Jeremiah suffered...was despised and rejected...was a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief and instead of it making him bitter he surrendered and obeyed and allowed it to make Him more like His Lord.. You could meditate on that one for a long long time. Think of it the next time you are offended or search your heart and find unforgiveness there. Remember always "it is about Him".
Last one...God suffers long but God does discipline those that are His...consequence and judgment come if turning does not occur.
Love
Mom...who loves Jeremiah!
Dear Suzanne, Rebecca, Anna and Mikayla,
I was going to skip a post on this chapter because Jeremiah is so graphic in his description of the destruction of both the city and its people. I thought...what could I say? Maybe this: "And because the people refused to hear, the Lord brought the destruction foretold on Jerusalem?" As I read through the chapter a few times, however, I began to see many applications for us.
Chapter 2 of Lamentations depicts absolute destruction and devastation for Judah and the city of Jerusalem....Everything the people loved and trusted in was destroyed. God's people either died of starvation, or by the sword, or were carried off to Babylon in chains as slaves.
Every "horn" of Israel was cut-off. Every horn means every strength. The people had no refuge. NONE. Not in the walls around the city, not in the army, not in their temple, not in their religious rituals, not in their homes, not in their leaders or in their kings. They were trapped like animals, killing and eating their own children for sustenance. "The Lord has swallowed up and has not pitied." If the people left the city they were slain by the sword if they remained in the city they died of starvation. They had nowhere to turn and no one willing to help them. All their allies had abandoned them.
Jeremiah makes it clear from his writing that he knew it was not the Babylonians who were were really in charge...they were servants of the Lord God...doing His bidding. This was God's chosen people...His beloved...they had been given so much. They took all their blessings for granted. They enjoyed the gifts but did not worship the Giver. To them had been given the oracles of God and to them had been given the privilege of representing Him to the world. They were very accountable. God kept His word...to bless them when they obeyed and to chasten or discipline them when they did not. They had not obeyed. Judgment time had come...just as had been promised ...their little ones were fainting from hunger at the top of every street. The suffering was so intense that Jeremiah says this about it: "What shall I compare with you, that I may comfort you,"...He had run out of descriptions and says that their wound was as deep and wide as the sea. If only they hadn't listen to the false prophets...if only they had turned...now the cloud of His anger was over head.
Hebrews 10:30-31 For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. And again, “The LORD will judge His people.”31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
So what are the applications for us.
Whatever else we might deem important in this life pales in comparison to what we do with Jesus. The only thing that is important is our relationship with Him...everything else will either burn or be destroyed..It is the one thing WE CAN take with us. It is the one thing that can and does save us. We run after so many things in this life...Run after Him..spend your time with Him and His word. It is the one and only thing that is necessary...
Another one that screamed out at me was that our children really do suffer when we as parents sin. Jeremiah cried copiously for the babies and the young children that were killed or were starving in the streets. Sometimes our sin affects many of those around us. The leaders of Jerusalem refused to listen and led Israel astray by telling them what they wanted to hear, not exposing there sin and not calling them to repentance.. Consequently the entire nation were either killed or went into servitude.
Jeremiah did not get offended. He grieved not for himself and his own pain and suffering but for the people he preached to and prayed for. The very people who rejected him and persecuted him. Jeremiah did not allow offense to get in the way of love and obedience. What an example that is to us. Girls, sometimes we can get so embroiled in conflict by getting offended that we really grieve the Spirit of God and put stumbling blocks in the paths of those whom the Lord wants to reach. It is not about us...It is about Christ...we are here for one purpose to glorify and magnify Him. God wants us to overcome evil with good...to put on love..to owe no one anything but love....to put off offense...to commit ourselves to Him who judges righteously...to let our gentleness be made known. (getting the picture) Surrender to His Spirit and allow His love...His fervent love...to be poured out on those around you.
Jeremiah's ministry in terms of converts was not a success, BUT he wept for God's people, suffered for telling them the truth, did not get offended and was rewarded by being identified with Jesus...WOW...see Matthew 16:13-14. Jeremiah suffered...was despised and rejected...was a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief and instead of it making him bitter he surrendered and obeyed and allowed it to make Him more like His Lord.. You could meditate on that one for a long long time. Think of it the next time you are offended or search your heart and find unforgiveness there. Remember always "it is about Him".
Last one...God suffers long but God does discipline those that are His...consequence and judgment come if turning does not occur.
Love
Mom...who loves Jeremiah!
Lamentations 2
1 How the Lord has covered the daughter of Zion
With a cloud in His anger!
He cast down from heaven to the earth
The beauty of Israel,
And did not remember His footstool
In the day of His anger.
2 The Lord has swallowed up and has not pitied
All the dwelling places of Jacob.
He has thrown down in His wrath
The strongholds of the daughter of Judah;
He has brought them down to the ground;
He has profaned the kingdom and its princes.
3 He has cut off in fierce anger
Every horn of Israel;
He has drawn back His right hand
From before the enemy.
He has blazed against Jacob like a flaming fire
Devouring all around.
4 Standing like an enemy, He has bent His bow;
With His right hand, like an adversary,
He has slain all who were pleasing to His eye;
On the tent of the daughter of Zion,
He has poured out His fury like fire.
5 The Lord was like an enemy.
He has swallowed up Israel,
He has swallowed up all her palaces;
He has destroyed her strongholds,
And has increased mourning and lamentation
In the daughter of Judah.
6 He has done violence to His tabernacle,
As if it werea garden;
He has destroyed His place of assembly;
The LORD has caused
The appointed feasts and Sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion.
In His burning indignation He has spurned the king and the priest.
7 The Lord has spurned His altar,
He has abandoned His sanctuary;
He has given up the walls of her palaces
Into the hand of the enemy.
They have made a noise in the house of the LORD
As on the day of a set feast.
8 The LORD has purposed to destroy
The wall of the daughter of Zion.
He has stretched out a line;
He has not withdrawn His hand from destroying;
Therefore He has caused the rampart and wall to lament;
They languished together.
9 Her gates have sunk into the ground;
He has destroyed and broken her bars.
Her king and her princes are among the nations;
The Law is no more,
And her prophets find no vision from the LORD.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion
Sit on the ground and keep silence;
They throw dust on their heads
And gird themselves with sackcloth.
The virgins of Jerusalem
Bow their heads to the ground.
11 My eyes fail with tears,
My heart is troubled;
My bile is poured on the ground
Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people,
Because the children and the infants
Faint in the streets of the city.
12 They say to their mothers,
“ Where is grain and wine?”
As they swoon like the wounded
In the streets of the city,
As their life is poured out
In their mothers’ bosom.
13 How shall I console you?
To what shall I liken you,
O daughter of Jerusalem?
What shall I compare with you, that I may comfort you,
O virgin daughter of Zion?
For your ruin is spread wide as the sea;
Who can heal you?
14 Your prophets have seen for you
False and deceptive visions;
They have not uncovered your iniquity,
To bring back your captives,
But have envisioned for you false prophecies and delusions.
15 All who pass by clap their hands at you;
They hiss and shake their heads
At the daughter of Jerusalem:
“ Is this the city that is called
‘ The perfection of beauty,
The joy of the whole earth’?”
16 All your enemies have opened their mouth against you;
They hiss and gnash their teeth.
They say, “We have swallowed her up!
Surely this is the day we have waited for;
We have found it, we have seen it!”
17 The LORD has done what He purposed;
He has fulfilled His word
Which He commanded in days of old.
He has thrown down and has not pitied,
And He has caused an enemy to rejoice over you;
He has exalted the horn of your adversaries.
18 Their heart cried out to the Lord,
“ O wall of the daughter of Zion,
Let tears run down like a river day and night;
Give yourself no relief;
Give your eyes no rest.
19 “ Arise, cry out in the night,
At the beginning of the watches;
Pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord.
Lift your hands toward Him
For the life of your young children,
Who faint from hunger at the head of every street.”
20 “ See, O LORD, and consider!
To whom have You done this?
Should the women eat their offspring,
The children they have cuddled?[a]
Should the priest and prophet be slain
In the sanctuary of the Lord?
21 “ Young and old lie
On the ground in the streets;
My virgins and my young men
Have fallen by the sword;
You have slain them in the day of Your anger,
You have slaughtered and not pitied.
22 “ You have invited as to a feast day
The terrors that surround me.
In the day of the LORD’s anger
There was no refugee or survivor.
Those whom I have borne and brought up
My enemies have destroyed.”
With a cloud in His anger!
He cast down from heaven to the earth
The beauty of Israel,
And did not remember His footstool
In the day of His anger.
2 The Lord has swallowed up and has not pitied
All the dwelling places of Jacob.
He has thrown down in His wrath
The strongholds of the daughter of Judah;
He has brought them down to the ground;
He has profaned the kingdom and its princes.
3 He has cut off in fierce anger
Every horn of Israel;
He has drawn back His right hand
From before the enemy.
He has blazed against Jacob like a flaming fire
Devouring all around.
4 Standing like an enemy, He has bent His bow;
With His right hand, like an adversary,
He has slain all who were pleasing to His eye;
On the tent of the daughter of Zion,
He has poured out His fury like fire.
5 The Lord was like an enemy.
He has swallowed up Israel,
He has swallowed up all her palaces;
He has destroyed her strongholds,
And has increased mourning and lamentation
In the daughter of Judah.
6 He has done violence to His tabernacle,
As if it werea garden;
He has destroyed His place of assembly;
The LORD has caused
The appointed feasts and Sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion.
In His burning indignation He has spurned the king and the priest.
7 The Lord has spurned His altar,
He has abandoned His sanctuary;
He has given up the walls of her palaces
Into the hand of the enemy.
They have made a noise in the house of the LORD
As on the day of a set feast.
8 The LORD has purposed to destroy
The wall of the daughter of Zion.
He has stretched out a line;
He has not withdrawn His hand from destroying;
Therefore He has caused the rampart and wall to lament;
They languished together.
9 Her gates have sunk into the ground;
He has destroyed and broken her bars.
Her king and her princes are among the nations;
The Law is no more,
And her prophets find no vision from the LORD.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion
Sit on the ground and keep silence;
They throw dust on their heads
And gird themselves with sackcloth.
The virgins of Jerusalem
Bow their heads to the ground.
11 My eyes fail with tears,
My heart is troubled;
My bile is poured on the ground
Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people,
Because the children and the infants
Faint in the streets of the city.
12 They say to their mothers,
“ Where is grain and wine?”
As they swoon like the wounded
In the streets of the city,
As their life is poured out
In their mothers’ bosom.
13 How shall I console you?
To what shall I liken you,
O daughter of Jerusalem?
What shall I compare with you, that I may comfort you,
O virgin daughter of Zion?
For your ruin is spread wide as the sea;
Who can heal you?
14 Your prophets have seen for you
False and deceptive visions;
They have not uncovered your iniquity,
To bring back your captives,
But have envisioned for you false prophecies and delusions.
15 All who pass by clap their hands at you;
They hiss and shake their heads
At the daughter of Jerusalem:
“ Is this the city that is called
‘ The perfection of beauty,
The joy of the whole earth’?”
16 All your enemies have opened their mouth against you;
They hiss and gnash their teeth.
They say, “We have swallowed her up!
Surely this is the day we have waited for;
We have found it, we have seen it!”
17 The LORD has done what He purposed;
He has fulfilled His word
Which He commanded in days of old.
He has thrown down and has not pitied,
And He has caused an enemy to rejoice over you;
He has exalted the horn of your adversaries.
18 Their heart cried out to the Lord,
“ O wall of the daughter of Zion,
Let tears run down like a river day and night;
Give yourself no relief;
Give your eyes no rest.
19 “ Arise, cry out in the night,
At the beginning of the watches;
Pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord.
Lift your hands toward Him
For the life of your young children,
Who faint from hunger at the head of every street.”
20 “ See, O LORD, and consider!
To whom have You done this?
Should the women eat their offspring,
The children they have cuddled?[a]
Should the priest and prophet be slain
In the sanctuary of the Lord?
21 “ Young and old lie
On the ground in the streets;
My virgins and my young men
Have fallen by the sword;
You have slain them in the day of Your anger,
You have slaughtered and not pitied.
22 “ You have invited as to a feast day
The terrors that surround me.
In the day of the LORD’s anger
There was no refugee or survivor.
Those whom I have borne and brought up
My enemies have destroyed.”
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Christ:The Wife's Heart
From Chapter 7 of Martha Peace's book the Excellent Wife.
We've reached Part II: A Wife's Responsibility...Uh oh.
Chapter seven I think is aptly named...Christ the Wife's Heart. The heart is the seat of our will and our emotions. As such it becomes a battleground where a spiritual war is waged. It is definitely where my battle is waged.
Has Christ completely captured your heart? Are you ruthless with anyone, anything or any desire that attempts to gain influence or worse yet control your heart? Is your heart Christ controlled or over run with the influences of the world and day to day living? Having read this book through many times I have noticed that the themes are intertwined and repetitive and have come to see this as a good thing. Scripture is also repetitive. We as humans maybe need to hear things more than once so they can reach our heart. I exhort you now to examine your own heart and ask Christ to show you where your desires and His desires are not in alignment.
What is your heart set on? Is it so set on a certain thing that you are willing to sin to get it? Are you willing to tear down your house for it, disrespect your husband, or make your children listen to you rant and rave. Remember circumstances don't cause us to sin...our idolatrous hearts that meditate on wrong things do! Set your mind on the things above. Ask yourself that (what is your heart set on) in the middle of an argument with your husband. Ask yourself that when there is strife with your children. Ask yourself that when you feel discontented with your lot in life or feel that you have been slighted in some way. Ask yourself that when you are not getting what you want. (I wish I had done this last night when I attempted to bring something back to an unnamed store in accordance with their return policy...although I outwardly remained calm, I inwardly seethed...my desire was thwarted and I got angry!) Having done this repent of any wrong desires and ask God to give you the right desires (see pages 65-69) and by faith make the decision to move in the direction where Christ is leading you. Do it whether you feel like it or not, asking and counting on Him to align your will with His. Little by little you will see the fruit.
This process is the key to the whole Christian life. It is a moment by moment dying to self and living for Christ. Putting off the old man and putting on the new. Remember you are part of God's plan. You have works that He has prepared beforehand that you should walk in them. You can't fulfill his perfect plan for you unless you are living for Him and dying to your wants and desires. You can't do that without surrendering moment by moment to God's Spirit and allowing Him to live through you. As a believer God promises to work all things together for you for good, but imagine what he can do with a Christian wife who is fully submitted to Him and His desires. Imitate Christ who fully submitted Himself to His Father making our redemption possible. Put all your energies and efforts into living for Christ not just outside your home where people can see you but more importantly live for Christ inside your home.
Earlier I asked if you were ruthless with those things that might attempt to gain influence over your heart. This can be subtle. Be aware of what you are reading, watching, listening or even who you may be keeping company with that may influence your heart in the wrong way. When your heart is under any other influence but Christ you and your family will suffer and Christ will not be glorified.
Do this and watch the Lord work and your life become like the tree that is planted by rivers of water in Psalm One.
We've reached Part II: A Wife's Responsibility...Uh oh.
Chapter seven I think is aptly named...Christ the Wife's Heart. The heart is the seat of our will and our emotions. As such it becomes a battleground where a spiritual war is waged. It is definitely where my battle is waged.
Has Christ completely captured your heart? Are you ruthless with anyone, anything or any desire that attempts to gain influence or worse yet control your heart? Is your heart Christ controlled or over run with the influences of the world and day to day living? Having read this book through many times I have noticed that the themes are intertwined and repetitive and have come to see this as a good thing. Scripture is also repetitive. We as humans maybe need to hear things more than once so they can reach our heart. I exhort you now to examine your own heart and ask Christ to show you where your desires and His desires are not in alignment.
What is your heart set on? Is it so set on a certain thing that you are willing to sin to get it? Are you willing to tear down your house for it, disrespect your husband, or make your children listen to you rant and rave. Remember circumstances don't cause us to sin...our idolatrous hearts that meditate on wrong things do! Set your mind on the things above. Ask yourself that (what is your heart set on) in the middle of an argument with your husband. Ask yourself that when there is strife with your children. Ask yourself that when you feel discontented with your lot in life or feel that you have been slighted in some way. Ask yourself that when you are not getting what you want. (I wish I had done this last night when I attempted to bring something back to an unnamed store in accordance with their return policy...although I outwardly remained calm, I inwardly seethed...my desire was thwarted and I got angry!) Having done this repent of any wrong desires and ask God to give you the right desires (see pages 65-69) and by faith make the decision to move in the direction where Christ is leading you. Do it whether you feel like it or not, asking and counting on Him to align your will with His. Little by little you will see the fruit.
This process is the key to the whole Christian life. It is a moment by moment dying to self and living for Christ. Putting off the old man and putting on the new. Remember you are part of God's plan. You have works that He has prepared beforehand that you should walk in them. You can't fulfill his perfect plan for you unless you are living for Him and dying to your wants and desires. You can't do that without surrendering moment by moment to God's Spirit and allowing Him to live through you. As a believer God promises to work all things together for you for good, but imagine what he can do with a Christian wife who is fully submitted to Him and His desires. Imitate Christ who fully submitted Himself to His Father making our redemption possible. Put all your energies and efforts into living for Christ not just outside your home where people can see you but more importantly live for Christ inside your home.
Earlier I asked if you were ruthless with those things that might attempt to gain influence over your heart. This can be subtle. Be aware of what you are reading, watching, listening or even who you may be keeping company with that may influence your heart in the wrong way. When your heart is under any other influence but Christ you and your family will suffer and Christ will not be glorified.
Do this and watch the Lord work and your life become like the tree that is planted by rivers of water in Psalm One.
You Are What You Think...Uh oh...
Dear Suzanne, Rebecca, Anna and Mikayla,
Woe is me, my mother, That you have borne me, A man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth! I have neither lent for interest, Nor have men lent to me for interest. Every one of them curses me. --Jeremiah 15:10
Jeremiah was a persecuted outcast among His own people because of the destruction he foretold as God's prophet. People avoided him like they would avoid calls from a collection agency today. The Lord then encourages him by telling Him that it would be well with the remnant and that he himself would not be turned over to the enemy. He would not, however, relent from bringing judgment on His people nor would He shield Jeremiah from the persecution that came and would come would from his own people.
In response Jeremiah says this:
Remember me and visit me, And take vengeance for me on my persecutors.In Your enduring patience, do not take me away. Know that for Your sake I have suffered rebuke. Your words were found, and I ate them, And Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart; For I am called by Your name, O LORD God of hosts. I did not sit in the assembly of the mockers, Nor did I rejoice; I sat alone because of Your hand, For You have filled me with indignation. Why is my pain perpetual And my wound incurable, Which refuses to be healed? Will You surely be to me like an unreliable stream, As waters that fail?--Jeremiah 15:15-18
Remember God had just finished telling Jeremiah that destruction would come...He would not relent. Jeremiah then tells God what is on his heart. He asks God to remember him, protect him, and take vengeance on his enemies. He tells Him that His word was like food to him and that it was the joy and rejoicing of His heart. But in the next sentence he reminds God of how much His people are suffering and how much he is suffering and how difficult a job God had given him. He even says that God is like an unreliable stream...as waters that fail. Uh oh...Jeremiah called the fountain of living waters an unreliable stream. Now I like how Jeremiah did not pretend and just speak the words that he knew he should...he truly did pour out his heart. I was "with" Jeremiah at first...especially when he was talking about how difficult a job God had given him. Jeremiah was, however, God's spokesperson and as such more was required...Here was God's reply...which I was a little shocked at...but God really spoke to my heart through it. After all....we who name the name of Christ are all ambassadors of Christ...we need to represent Him truthfully. Here is God's reply:
Therefore thus says the LORD: “ If you return, Then I will bring you back; You shall stand before Me; If you take out the precious from the vile, You shall be as My mouth. Let them return to you, But you must not return to them. And I will make you to this people a fortified bronze wall; And they will fight against you, But they shall not prevail against you; For I am with you to save you And deliver you,” says the LORD. “ I will deliver you from the hand of the wicked, And I will redeem you from the grip of the terrible.”--Jeremiah 15:19-21
Did you notice what the Lord says in verse 19...I had to look three times...and then make sure I knew who He was talking to. The Lord tells Jeremiah "if you return, then I will bring you back". Wow..God is saying Jeremiah needed to repent! Now in the reread I understood why. Jeremiah was not speaking words of faith...and He was misrepresenting God's character. (My guess is that the meditation of his heart had not been on what is right in the hours before he spoke those words either). God told Jeremiah that He would restore him if he would stop uttering worthless words and begin to utter worthy ones...take out the precious from the vile. (15:19)
Girls, this is such an important lesson for us! What are we meditating on? Do we speak words of faith to one another when we are discouraged...do we think or speak them to ourselves...do we remind ourselves when we get discouraged of who God is and what He has done?? Or do we whine, complain and doubt? Now if you are hearing from your lips words of doubt, whines and complaints, especially in your unguarded moments, the chances are very good that you are not meditating on the right things. Your mind is on yourself rather than God. Look at what Jeremiah said and see where He went wrong. "I did not sit in the assembly of the mockers, Nor did I rejoice; I sat alone because of Your hand, For You have filled me with indignation. Why is my pain perpetual And my wound incurable, Which refuses to be healed? Will You surely be to me like an unreliable stream, As waters that fail?" His words are saying that he thinks he deserves better because of what he has done and what he has been through. He questions God and even tells Him He is unreliable!
So many times I find myself thinking like Jeremiah here. Focusing on what I am not getting instead of being thankful for what I have. Meditating on doubt or whining and complaining against God. When we do that, we don't even have to call the Fountain of living water an unreliable stream because we are already telling Him by our complaining and whining that we can't trust Him. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks, as a man thinks so he is and anything that is not from faith is sin.
Our access to His grace is by our faith....when we speak or meditate on words of doubt or when we question God we quench the Spirit and do not walk by faith. Listen to your words and thoughts, girls, in unguarded moments...they will reveal much about your heart. If you are complaining against God...feeling dissatisfaction or perhaps even anger for where He has you and what He has you doing and/or facing, then you need to repent. I know God does not want us to ignore what we are feeling...that would be self-deceit and He Himself tells us the keep our hearts with all diligence. So what do we do...exactly what Jeremiah did...pour our heart out to God...He is not surprised at what we are going to tell Him. Repent, ask God to align our will with His and increase our faith. When we falter, we are to renew our minds with Scripture and remember what He has done for us in the past and the hope we have for the future. God promises us tribulation, but He also tells us that He will be with us and that we are more than conquerors...the battle has already been won and the battle is not ours anyway. His grace is sufficient. His love is perfect. We are to trust Him through it all. I end with some verses in Philippians.
Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. Do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain or labored in vain. Yes, and if I am being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. For the same reason you also be glad and rejoice with me.--Philippians 2:12-18
Love
Mom
Woe is me, my mother, That you have borne me, A man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth! I have neither lent for interest, Nor have men lent to me for interest. Every one of them curses me. --Jeremiah 15:10
Jeremiah was a persecuted outcast among His own people because of the destruction he foretold as God's prophet. People avoided him like they would avoid calls from a collection agency today. The Lord then encourages him by telling Him that it would be well with the remnant and that he himself would not be turned over to the enemy. He would not, however, relent from bringing judgment on His people nor would He shield Jeremiah from the persecution that came and would come would from his own people.
In response Jeremiah says this:
Remember me and visit me, And take vengeance for me on my persecutors.In Your enduring patience, do not take me away. Know that for Your sake I have suffered rebuke. Your words were found, and I ate them, And Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart; For I am called by Your name, O LORD God of hosts. I did not sit in the assembly of the mockers, Nor did I rejoice; I sat alone because of Your hand, For You have filled me with indignation. Why is my pain perpetual And my wound incurable, Which refuses to be healed? Will You surely be to me like an unreliable stream, As waters that fail?--Jeremiah 15:15-18
Remember God had just finished telling Jeremiah that destruction would come...He would not relent. Jeremiah then tells God what is on his heart. He asks God to remember him, protect him, and take vengeance on his enemies. He tells Him that His word was like food to him and that it was the joy and rejoicing of His heart. But in the next sentence he reminds God of how much His people are suffering and how much he is suffering and how difficult a job God had given him. He even says that God is like an unreliable stream...as waters that fail. Uh oh...Jeremiah called the fountain of living waters an unreliable stream. Now I like how Jeremiah did not pretend and just speak the words that he knew he should...he truly did pour out his heart. I was "with" Jeremiah at first...especially when he was talking about how difficult a job God had given him. Jeremiah was, however, God's spokesperson and as such more was required...Here was God's reply...which I was a little shocked at...but God really spoke to my heart through it. After all....we who name the name of Christ are all ambassadors of Christ...we need to represent Him truthfully. Here is God's reply:
Therefore thus says the LORD: “ If you return, Then I will bring you back; You shall stand before Me; If you take out the precious from the vile, You shall be as My mouth. Let them return to you, But you must not return to them. And I will make you to this people a fortified bronze wall; And they will fight against you, But they shall not prevail against you; For I am with you to save you And deliver you,” says the LORD. “ I will deliver you from the hand of the wicked, And I will redeem you from the grip of the terrible.”--Jeremiah 15:19-21
Did you notice what the Lord says in verse 19...I had to look three times...and then make sure I knew who He was talking to. The Lord tells Jeremiah "if you return, then I will bring you back". Wow..God is saying Jeremiah needed to repent! Now in the reread I understood why. Jeremiah was not speaking words of faith...and He was misrepresenting God's character. (My guess is that the meditation of his heart had not been on what is right in the hours before he spoke those words either). God told Jeremiah that He would restore him if he would stop uttering worthless words and begin to utter worthy ones...take out the precious from the vile. (15:19)
Girls, this is such an important lesson for us! What are we meditating on? Do we speak words of faith to one another when we are discouraged...do we think or speak them to ourselves...do we remind ourselves when we get discouraged of who God is and what He has done?? Or do we whine, complain and doubt? Now if you are hearing from your lips words of doubt, whines and complaints, especially in your unguarded moments, the chances are very good that you are not meditating on the right things. Your mind is on yourself rather than God. Look at what Jeremiah said and see where He went wrong. "I did not sit in the assembly of the mockers, Nor did I rejoice; I sat alone because of Your hand, For You have filled me with indignation. Why is my pain perpetual And my wound incurable, Which refuses to be healed? Will You surely be to me like an unreliable stream, As waters that fail?" His words are saying that he thinks he deserves better because of what he has done and what he has been through. He questions God and even tells Him He is unreliable!
So many times I find myself thinking like Jeremiah here. Focusing on what I am not getting instead of being thankful for what I have. Meditating on doubt or whining and complaining against God. When we do that, we don't even have to call the Fountain of living water an unreliable stream because we are already telling Him by our complaining and whining that we can't trust Him. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks, as a man thinks so he is and anything that is not from faith is sin.
Our access to His grace is by our faith....when we speak or meditate on words of doubt or when we question God we quench the Spirit and do not walk by faith. Listen to your words and thoughts, girls, in unguarded moments...they will reveal much about your heart. If you are complaining against God...feeling dissatisfaction or perhaps even anger for where He has you and what He has you doing and/or facing, then you need to repent. I know God does not want us to ignore what we are feeling...that would be self-deceit and He Himself tells us the keep our hearts with all diligence. So what do we do...exactly what Jeremiah did...pour our heart out to God...He is not surprised at what we are going to tell Him. Repent, ask God to align our will with His and increase our faith. When we falter, we are to renew our minds with Scripture and remember what He has done for us in the past and the hope we have for the future. God promises us tribulation, but He also tells us that He will be with us and that we are more than conquerors...the battle has already been won and the battle is not ours anyway. His grace is sufficient. His love is perfect. We are to trust Him through it all. I end with some verses in Philippians.
Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. Do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain or labored in vain. Yes, and if I am being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. For the same reason you also be glad and rejoice with me.--Philippians 2:12-18
Love
Mom
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