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Tag Archives: Jeremiah

Jeremiah 23:21-17

25 Jun


21 “I have not sent these prophets,
    yet they run around claiming to speak for me.
I have given them no message,
    yet they go on prophesying.
22 If they had stood before me and listened to me,
    they would have spoken my words,
and they would have turned my people
    from their evil ways and deeds.
23 Am I a God who is only close at hand?” says the Lord.
    “No, I am far away at the same time.
24 Can anyone hide from me in a secret place?
    Am I not everywhere in all the heavens and earth?”
    says the Lord.

25 “I have heard these prophets say, ‘Listen to the dream I had from God last night.’ And then they proceed to tell lies in my name. 26 How long will this go on? If they are prophets, they are prophets of deceit, inventing everything they say. 27 By telling these false dreams, they are trying to get my people to forget me, just as their ancestors did by worshiping the idols of Baal.

Jeremiah 23:21-27

Dear God, verse 24 was the verse of the day for Bible Gateway, but I wanted to bring in at least the verses around it. Of course, this is you talking about the false prophets in Jeremiah’s time who were selling the people what they wanted to hear. They were doing it for all the wrong reasons. Acceptance. Influence. Notoriety. Power. Maybe even money. I wonder how many of them took their own hopes and simply ascribed them to you and then told the people, “Jeremiah’s wrong. God loves us. It’s all going to be okay.”

There are people speaking on a national level right now who I don’t trust. I guess it goes back to what Paul said in Galatians 5 about evaluating people based on their fruit. If I see someone claiming to speak for you but their fruit is “19b sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, 21a envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these,” then I reject them. But if I see “22b love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23a gentleness, and self-control,” then I am more likely to give them credibility.

A couple of weeks ago, I remembered this song from Steve Camp. It basically talks about believing in the wrong people. It made me wonder what he’s been up to lately, and, frankly, I was disappointed to see that nearly 35 years later it seems like he and I would disagree on who is to be trusted and who isn’t.

Father, I am fallible. I make mistakes. I can have bad judgment. I can believe in the wrong people and even the wrong things. I can defend the indefensible and ignore atrocities. Please forgive me. Please, Holy Spirit, help me and teach me. Help me to be what you and the people whose lives my life touches be blessed by you working through me.

I pray this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen

 
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Posted by on June 25, 2026 in Jeremiah

 

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Ephesians 4:11-16

30 Apr

11 Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. 12 Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. 13 This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.

14 Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. 15 Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. 16 He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.

Ephesians 4:11-16

Dear God, I was talking with a friend just yesterday about this last part that talks about us being different parts of the body. He suggested that I get involved with him on a project he’s doing, and I had to tell him that it didn’t fit my gifting. To his credit, he understood and didn’t push. I really appreciated that.

But going back to verses 14 and 15, oh, how this is a fear for me. There is a lot of talk the last few years about Christians “deconstructing” their faith. It is mainly talked about as something to fear and be rejected. I think the theory goes that we have been handed down these teachings for generations (although some are newer than a lot of people think) so we need to just rely on them, believe them, and then move on to something else. And there is something to be said for that. Leaning into the teachings of those who came before me and who have more experience than I have can be important.

However, sometimes people are wrong. Sometimes teaching is wrong. Was Jesus born in a barn/stable? People have always taught me that he was, but I can’t find that in the Bible anywhere. People have taught me that Jeremiah 29:11 is for me specifically: 11 “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ says the Lord. ‘They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.‘” But is it? Is that what God was telling me through Jeremiah, the weeping prophet? As you and I continue on this discipleship journey day by day, I am trying to see through the fog and into your nature. I try to get a regular dose of teaching from people I trust, and I am grateful that I don’t always agree with them because it allows me to challenge my thoughts and then filter them to see if I should change my mind.

Father, at the end of the day, I will go to my grave with errant theology. I heard on a podcast yesterday that great theologians centuries ago used to make their last writing a set of retractions of things they had said earlier. They used St. Augustine and his writing called Retractations as an example. So who am I to think I’m not a fool who is wrong about a lot of things? So I come into this day being grateful for you. Grateful for my wife. Thank you. Grateful for my children. Thank you. Grateful for our health. Thank you. Grateful for the food I will eat. Thank you. Grateful for my home. Thank you. Grateful for my job. Thank you. Grateful for my friends. Thank you. The list goes on and on. I also come into this day really loving you. I love you, Father, Jesus, and Holy Spirit. I am grateful for your love in return. Thank you. And now I take this love and share it with others. Thank you for that opportunity. Please keep me from teaching anything that would lead one person away from you.

I pray all of this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen

 
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Posted by on April 30, 2025 in Ephesians

 

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Joy to the World by John Piper – Advent Day 17

17 Dec

28 In the past I deliberately uprooted and tore down this nation. I overthrew it, destroyed it, and brought disaster upon it. But in the future I will just as deliberately plant it and build it up. I, the Lord, have spoken!

29 “The people will no longer quote this proverb:

‘The parents have eaten sour grapes,
    but their children’s mouths pucker at the taste.’

30 All people will die for their own sins—those who eat the sour grapes will be the ones whose mouths will pucker.

31 “The day is coming,” says the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. 32 This covenant will not be like the one I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and brought them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant, though I loved them as a husband loves his wife,” says the Lord.

33 “But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel after those days,” says the Lord. “I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 34 And they will not need to teach their neighbors, nor will they need to teach their relatives, saying, ‘You should know the Lord.’ For everyone, from the least to the greatest, will know me already,” says the Lord. “And I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins.”

Jeremiah 31:28-34

Dear God, Piper’s Advent reading for today focused on verse 31, but I wanted to bring in the verses around it for a little more context. Frankly, I love the lead-in for verse 31. I love the description of each person reaping what they sow as opposed to children being punished for their father’s sins (see Noah, Ham, and Canaan). I like this because I would hate to think the mistakes I make would be visited upon my own children. I want them to reap from their own fields, not mine. Not that my mistakes do not affect them at all. Sometimes they do. Of course they do. But knowing they can be free from my mistakes through Jesus… Knowing that I can be free of my parents’ mistakes–my grandparents’ mistakes–through Jesus… Well, that just gives me hope. It gives me a release that I can be at peace before you. Through repentance, I can be clean before you.

No one preparing for the Messiah had a clue what you were setting up for us, the freedom you were setting up for us, through Jesus. They thought they knew what they wanted. They wanted power again. They wanted self-determination. they wanted to rule the land. They wanted to throw off their oppressors. They wanted to see powerful struck down and the rich sent empty away. But you knew that’s not what they (we) needed. We needed freedom from our sin and relationship with you. We needed to all be able to relate to you and love you, Jew or Gentile. Slave or free. Woman or man. These descriptors were no longer material in the New Covenant.

I want to quote Piper’s last paragraph from today: “God is now free, in his justice, to lavish us with the new covenant. He gives us Christ, the greatest reality in the universe, for our enjoyment. And he writes his own will–his own heart–on our heart so that we can love and trust and follow Christ from the inside out, with freedom and joy.”

Father, thank you for not giving me what I want, but what I need. Thank you for letting me reset my life through repentance and relationship with you. I pray for this same freedom for those I love who have not yet found it. I pray for it for everyone. I am going to have an opportunity to speak to a large group of people at a Christmas service in a couple of nights. Keep me from wasting this opportunity. Use me to draw at least one person in that room closer to yourself. Make them hungry for you as I conclude my talk. Be glorified through me. Help me to decrease so that you might increase. To quote the Casting Crowns song, “I’m just a nobody, trying to tell everybody all about somebody who saved my soul.”

I pray this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen

 
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Posted by on December 17, 2024 in Advent 2024, Jeremiah

 

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