July 19, 2013

Today you should read: Jeremiah 12

Rough day at work? For Jeremiah — absolutely. His was called to be a prophet. While that sounds super spiritual and Christian-like, it wasn’t easy by any means. The people he had to preach to were disobedient and quite hard-hearted. Not only did they disdain the message, but now they were plotting Jeremiah’s death. It can be easy for us to approach the scriptures and look at a passage like this and say, “Why is he complaining? He’s serving God. It can’t be that bad.” Well, it was pretty bad. Honestly, I would have complained sooner. And it would have sounded like a whining 2-year-old.

I can appreciate this passage for a lot of reasons. Here’s the running list of thoughts I had from diving into Jeremiah 12.

1) Jeremiah shows us that serving God is tough. This passage reveals that even our most spiritual heroes had hard days in their walk with the Lord and in their ministries.

2) Jeremiah shows us how to approach God. He reminded himself, first and foremost, that God is righteous. This came before the complaint.

3) Jeremiah shows us that God is approachable. He is immanent. Jeremiah could bring his cares to God. Of course, this is only because of the mercy and grace of God, because even Jeremiah didn’t deserve to stand before His holiness.

I see these first three ideas especially in the prologue of the chapter:

“Righteous are you, O Lord, when I complain to you;
yet I would plead my case before you.
Why does the way of the wicked prosper?
Why do all who are treacherous thrive?” (Jeremiah 12:1 ESV)

4) This chapter shows us that God answers prayer, but in His perfect, sovereign way and not necessarily the way we want or expect.

5) God disdains sin and evil. If God’s response sounds harsh to you… it should. He is coming down with judgment not only against Israel’s neighbors but to the house of Judah as well. He is to be worshiped/served/honored on His terms.

CPC — what did you grab from the passage? What did the Lord teach you today?

Posted by: Todd Thomas