PLEASE READ THIS FIRST: Jeremiah 1-2
What do you sense the Lord saying to you in this passage?
“How skilled you are at pursuing love!” (Jeremiah 2:33)
Jeremiah has the unenviable job of challenging his own people.
Though he is young, he must expose their hypocrisy and immorality.
He is speaking to those who claim to be believers, yet who do not love God.
They still act religious and claim innocence but their hearts are not in it.
It is not that they do not love, but they love the wrong things.
They love themselves, their pleasure, their comfort, their own ambitions.
Actually they are skilled at pursuing love, just not the right kind of love.
The things they love are broken cisterns that cannot satisfy or protect them.
Jesus comes to remind us again that God alone is the spring of living water.
Only God can satisfy our thirsty hearts with the love we were made for.
Jesus reminds us how God loves us, and how we are to love God and others.
How skilled am I at receiving his love, and making this my first desire?
How skilled am I at sharing his love, so that others can know God too?
If I am to love with all my heart, soul, mind and strength… am I?
PRAYER
Lord, show me again the other loves that distract me, and how unsatisfying they are. Help me to develop the skill of pursuing your love, and sharing it with others.
Jeremiah is urged to be Bold “They will fight against you but will not overcome you,” God assures him that he will protect him – even though it will not be easy.
The message is that God’s people have neglected their God: “The priests did not ask, ‘Where is the Lord?’ Instead they took up trust in images that they themselves made to which they worshipped instead. But their trust is in worthless ‘gods’ and in other lands, Egypt/Assyria but God tells Jeremiah to prophesy: “for the Lord has rejected those you trust; you will not be helped by them.”
Reminds me, where to I put my trust – if it’s in securities and accomplishment on my own – drinking from my own cistern but not the living water – then I too need to take this prophesy at heart. Lord, may I not neglect you. You are my God – I trust in you!
God chooses His servants to speak to the people to show them the way they have lost. The prophets spoke His word of life to the people who went after the desires of their own hearts and not serving the Lord their God. Their eyes did not hear His voice and their eyes did nor desire to see His presence. The people were pleasure seekers having their own way. In their troubles they sought help in the wrong places. Their and my only source of strength is the Lord who created me to serve Him. Help me daily to listen to Your Voice Lord saying, This is the way. Walk in it.
When we walk with the Lord in the light of His Word,
What a glory He sheds on our way!
While we do His good will, He abides with us still,
And with all who will trust and obey.
Trust and obey, for there’s no other way
To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.