SCRIPTURE: Jeremiah 14:1-16

OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
1. “They go to the cisterns but find no water” – Looking for love (or meaning or purpose or belonging) in all the wrong places. Water was symbolic of our most basic needs, and the cisterns represent places or activities or relationships or experiences that we turn to to satisfy our deepest longings. Jesus is the living water, the only true satisfier of our deepest, most basic needs.
2. “Although our sins testify against us, O LORD, do something for the sake of your name” – Jeremiah is pleading for mercy, even though he acknowledges how bad their collective sin is. He claims the covenant relationship (“we bear Your name”) as the reason for God to be merciful.
3. “Do not pray for the well-being of this people” – God hears Jeremiah, but He cannot ignore the lack of repentance on the part of the nation. It is not that God does not care (He has cared for centuries, to no avail), but that He is finally coming down in judgment. That is their ONLY hope for a cure. Mercy will not help them anymore.
4. “Although they fast, I will not listen to their cry” – Fasting was an extreme sign of repentance, accompanied by symbolic destitution (covering oneself with ashes, tearing clothes, etc.), all in an attempt to convince God that their repentance was sincere. Sometimes it was sincere, but it also came to be a spiritual performance.
5. “The prophets are prophesying lies in my name” – The one’s who ought to be warning the people are confirming the people in their rebellion and wayward hearts. In the name of God they say everything is OK, and this angers God most of all! God’s harshest judgment comes against the leaders who mislead His sheep.

PRAYER:
Lord, people today are also looking in the wrong places, and many of us are ignoring the warnings, and will one day reach the point where mercy will not help us. As a leader, help me not to mis-represent You, but give me an intercessory heart like Jeremiah, while there is still the opportunity for mercy. Amen.