Tag Archives: Jeremiah

When there is no (obvious) happy ending..

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But the Lord said to me, “.. You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you… See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.. Today I have made you a fortified city.. to stand against the whole land – against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests and the people of the land. They will fight against you but will not overcome you, for I am with you and will rescue you”

(Jer 1.7,8&10,18&19)

“O remnant of Judah, the Lord has told you, ‘Do not go to Egypt.’…when Jeremiah finished telling the people all the words of the Lord their God.. all the arrogant men said to Jeremiah, “You are lying!.. Baruch son of Neriah is inciting you to hand us over to the Babylonians, so that they may kill us or carry us into exile.” So.. all the people disobeyed the Lord’s command .. and all the army officers led away all the remnant of Judah.. and Jeremiah the prophet and Baruch son of Neriah. So they entered Egypt in disobedience to the Lord.

(Jer 42.19; 43.1-3,5-7)

‘This is what the Lord says [to Baruch]: ‘I will overthrow what I have built and uproot what I have planted, throughout the land. Should you then seek great things for yourself? Seek them not. For I will bring disaster on all people, declares the Lord, but wherever you go I will let you escape with your life.’

(Jer 45.4&5)

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for… These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.

(Heb 11.1&39-40)

So I finished reading Jeremiah: at 52 chapters it is quite an undertaking and full of fearful prophecies of judgement. As a follower of Jesus, who would have known this book all his life as part of the Hebrew Scriptures, I must trust that there is truth here for me as a disciple, wisdom that can help me to live in the world as a faithful witness and remain steadfast.

There is much that grieves, as we read Jeremiah’s deep lament both for the way his people reject him and the message that God has given him, but also for the wayward people themselves as they face a dreadful reckoning at the hands of the Babylonian armies. There is much to bemuse, as slaughter, starvation, humiliation and the destruction of the temple come to Judah because they have broken their covenant with God over and over again. I am not able to unpack the whole business of God’s judgement on his people in this time, so instead I have been reflecting on what I can learn from Jeremiah.

God takes sin very, very seriously. His covenant people cannot break their pledge to him without consequences, and the price to be paid is so high.

God is full of compassion towards his people, and the grief which their rebellion and subsequent sufferings cause him is unspeakable. He views separation from them with horror, and yet cannot dwell with their sin.

God is sovereign over all the nations, and in holiness and justice will act to fulfill his purposes in and through them. His ways are beyond my finding out, and I am called – like Jeremiah and the people of Judah – to trust that when it looks as though all is lost, yet He is still at work for good and for His glory.

God calls us to faithfulness in difficult places, among rebellious people, where we may experience rejection, mockery and persecution.

God goes with us when – like Jeremiah and Baruch – we are unable to resist the tide of history around us and are carried off into the land where God had commanded the people not to go.  In such days of judgement, it would be counted a great blessing to escape with one’s life, a sure sign of God’s favour and protection.

It is our personal faithfulness, so far as we are able to live it out, which matters most. Our relationship with the living God, and not our geographical location, or the trappings of ‘religion’, are what keep us safe in the ultimate things.

God calls his servants to apparently fruitless ministries, to death in exile, to suffering and hardship endured in faith.

There is surely much here from which we can learn in these days for the body of Christ which is the church in our world, a world where the gospel and its messengers are often rejected and mocked, or else actively persecuted and attacked. We can pray for those who are called to lead and teach, but also for one another as believers.

Heavenly Father, let us be like Jeremiah, living by faith, trusting in your love and provision for us in what appear to be fruitless situations. Encourage us to be faithful in the places where we are called to live, blessing our communities in Jesus’ name, whether they want to hear of his love or not. In obedience, may we be content, trusting that very soon, we will hear the trumpet sounding for your return, and the dawning of the day when all your faithful servants down all the ages are made perfect and united in your presence. In Jesus’ precious name and for his glory, we pray these things. Amen

A powerful testimony…

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Then they [all the people] said to Jeremiah, “May the Lord be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not act in accordance with everything the Lord..sends you to say to us. Whether it is favourable or unfavourable, we will obey..so that it will go well with us, for we will obey the Lord our God.”

(Jer 42.5)

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well…Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father…The words I say to you are not just my own..the Father, living in me.is doing his work.

(Jn 14.6,7,9&10)

He [Jesus] said to them…”you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

(Acts 1.8)

We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eye-witnesses of his majesty. for he received honour and glory from  God the Father when the voice came…, saying, “This is my son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

(2 Pet 1.16&17)

These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. I know your deeds,…Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. so be earnest and repent..

(Rev 3.14,15&19)

Do you notice how the words in Jeremiah are mirrored by the words from Revelation? This struck me today as I considered how to write about the wonderful name Jesus takes to himself in Revelation, speaking to his church in sorrow and summoning them to repent and return to the covenant love which once they had known.

The Hebrew Scriptures (our Old Testament) are a sorry tale of disobedience by the covenant people, to which God, by his prophets and by direct revelation bears witness. Time and again, the truth about their rebellion is brought before them, and repeatedly they fail to learn from the consequences of their actions. God calls them to repent and return, but in vain.

In Jesus, this act of witnessing to the truth – about God, about human depravity and helplessness, and about the gift of salvation – is brought to a climax. There is no more accurate revelation about God than that which we see in Jesus. He is the ultimate and utterly reliable word of truth on all these subjects. He is THE faithful witness, the only man who never failed to live and speak in ways which truly reflected God’s character and will. That faithfulness took him to the cross, but the truth to which he testified raised him from the grave again in triumph, and now he stands as eternal witness to the irresistible reality of salvation by grace, to a living hope in a new heaven and earth, a new body and an unimaginably rich future life.

The comfort to me from this wonderful name of Jesus is that I can fully rely on him; the challenge is that he has called me in turn to bear witness to the world. I am now to be one who speaks the truth – about God, about human hopelessness and the gift of salvation. I am called to suffer, as Jesus did, for being faithful to this message; speaking of the holiness of God, the depths of sin, and the wonder of grace. I know that I have failed in faithfulness, but also that by the Spirit at work in me I am being transformed into the likeness of this true and faithful witness, Jesus.

Lord God, may I rejoice in my calling to be in my own place a true and faithful witness – even when this brings me pain or rejection. Renew my trust in your truth, so that I may be steadfast in my testimony. Oh Lord, renew and revive your church, that we may increasingly embrace this calling to witness to you. Turn us from complacency, from mere institutional self-preservation and comfort-seeking, to  courageous witness to your holiness and saving power, and to the compassion and love of Jesus.

Stumbling across glory…

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For great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; he is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the nations are idols, but the Lord made the heavens. Splendour and majesty are before him; strength and glory are in his sanctuary…worship the Lord in the splendour of his holiness; tremble before him, all the earth…Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; let the sea resound, and all that is in it; let the fields be jubilant and everything in them. Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy; they will sing before the Lord for he comes…

(Ps 96.4-6,9, 11&12)

I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end…That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil – this is the gift of God. I know that everything God does will endure for ever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him..Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few.

(Ecc 3.10-14; 5.2)

But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream…

(Jer 17.7&8)

Beautiful in its time…which means that beauty will come to an end, will pass away, and that ache in our hearts which is briefly assuaged by it must return. The writer of Ecclesiastes explains just why the fleeting quality of beauty is so painful for us to bear – because God has set eternity in our hearts, that reflection of his nature which is designed for an everlasting expression and experience of love.

We seek to prolong our experience of beauty – by trying to capture it in a photograph; finding words to convey it others; creating methods of remembering and reproducing it in the case of music – and even by trying to prolong our own lives in order to increase the amount of beauty we may experience! But ultimately, none of these can satisfy the eternal appetite which is placed within us by God, an appetite which can only be appeased when finally we find in the new creation the full expression of all those things of which beauty in this world is only a shadow.

The author, academic and christian apologist, CS Lewis gave his biography the title “Surprised by Joy”, because it was through these ecstatic, and fleeting experiences of beauty (which he calls ‘Joy’), that he first hungered after an other-world, a place from which this joy came and to which he belonged. It was in the gospel of Christ that he finally found the source of joy, and his adoption into the kingdom where the great Author of joy, the source of beauty and glory reigns. And in many writings, especially his ‘Narnia’ series, he reflects on the purpose of these moments when the beauty of this world grabs us and take our breath away.

God’s creation must reflect his power and character, his essential beauty is revealed in so many ways in his handiwork. Is it not natural that those whose hearts are formed to mirror this divine nature should thrill in response to such glimpses of glory? We are not the Creator, but the creatures, and our own attempts to generate true beauty can never satisfy in the same way as the real thing. So we respond in celebration to the glories around us, and we gladly acknowledge our inability to match God in creation. We remember that God is in heaven, and we on the earth, so that our words – and our ambitions – should be few!

When I stumble into the presence of glory, I worship with a full heart. When my heart aches in contemplating the beauty of this broken world, I rejoice because one day, Lord make it soon, I shall be at home in the unimagineable beauty of a perfect, re-created world, and I shall be sharing my joy with the Author and Creator himself, face-to-face. When I have to pass on, when the beauty is gone, I do not grieve as those who have no hope, but allow the experience to feed my home-sickness for heaven, and to nourish my soul with fresh hope and expectation.

My God knows my need; and I choose to trust him for the supplies I need along this journey – especially for continual discoveries of glory along the way, as his power, splendour and majesty are revealed in his creation, and my appetite for my glory-home grows stronger. Let us worship along the way, and press on towards the goal!

When forgetting is hard..

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Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions….Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight..

(Ps 51.1&4)

Out of the depths I cry to you, Lord; Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy. If you, Lord, kept a record of sins, Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, so that we can, with reverence, serve you.

(Ps 130.1-4)

“This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel'” declares the Lord. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people….For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”

(Jer 31.33&34)

In Christ, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us…

In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.

(Eph 1.7; 6.16)

The enemy of God’s house and family, the so-called ‘accuser of the brothers and sisters’, is skilled in disguising himself and getting past our guard. How often have we had that mental shock when we catch ourselves going down a thought -path which seemed to start out well, but end up in places of bitterness, resentment, or flat out rebellion against God? We have been beguiled – as Eve was – by smooth and plausible words and ideas, and failed to recognise the personality of our companion.

This can be particularly painful when, as was my experience recently, the accuser takes our own lived experiences of sin and failure, and under the guise of our good conscience, stirs up a perfect storm of anxiety and grief over past hurts to others. The memories return too clearly – of hasty words; careless forgetfulness and selfish behaviour which have left a legacy in the lives of others. They may have forgiven us, but the damage was done and cannot be undone by all our tears and genuine repentance.

It was a dark time; swamped by awareness of my sin and the impact on others, I cried out to God for mercy and help as a drowning man calls for assistance. And the word came, the gracious reminder that this accusing voice did not come from God. My God has promised to keep no record of my sins, to make no effort to remember them and certainly not to use the memory of them to rob me of strength and joy for today.

What is the truth of our situation? Yes, we have sinned against others – and will continue to do so until we die. Yes, those sins have consequences. BUT, God in his mercy has provided forgiveness for our sins, so that we are released from guilt over our past, and it cannot define who we are anymore. AND, God in his grace promises that the consequences of our sin in the lives of others are all within his providential care for them – none of it is wasted, all is formed into part of the whole!

Even as God uses the consequences of other people’s sin in my life to teach me about his faithfulness, and my own need to depend on him alone – so he also teaches others through my failures. How wonderful, how marvellous; to know that even my most grievous wrongs are not able to thwart God’s purposes, and my loved ones are not somehow disqualified from God’s best for them by my sin.

As this year draws to a close, I rejoice in the daily mercies of forgiveness from God, and the ability which that gives me to forgive others. I praise him because nothing can separate us from his love – and that includes our sins against one another – because in Christ, we are securely adopted into his family. I choose to take up my shield of faith – faith in the effectiveness of Jesus’ blood to deal with sin, to quench the painful attacks of the enemy of my redeemed people, and faith in the Almighty God, who is working all things together for the good of those whom he has called.

God has forgiven me, let me never dare to refuse to forgive myself; but rather humbly and gladly accept that I can depend only and always on him to do what is right and best. I pray that I may never treat sin lightly, but I rejoice that forgiveness is always free, and I need not be crippled by fear of the consequences of my failures. I serve a great and awesome God, nothing is impossible with him!

Growing old, or growing up?

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Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah….

(Ps 95.6-8)

“Hear this, you foolish and senseless people, who have eyes but do not see, who have ears but do not hear: should you not fear me?” declares the Lord.

(Jer 5.21)

“I could not address you as spiritual but as wordly – mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready.

(1Cor 3.1-3)

I have a lot more to say about this, but it is hard to get it across to you since you’ve picked up this bad habit of not listening. By this time you ought to be teachers yourselves, yet here I find you need someone to sit down with you and go over the basics on God again….so come on, let’s leave the preschool finger-painting exercises on Christ and get on with the grand work of art. Grow up in Christ. The basic foundational truths are in place…God helping us, we’ll stay true to all that. but there’s so much more. Let’s get on with it!

(Heb 5.11-6.3: The Message; Eugene Peterson)

Much as we may enjoy and even cherish the infant stages of life, we would be deeply disturbed if they never passed into something else – it would be a sign that something was wrong, and cause for great concern. We are designed to grow up, to mature, to become capable of bearing responsibility and in time, nurturing the next generation. This is just as much true in our spiritual lives, as in our human bodies, as these words from an understandably exasperated apostle illustrate!

Each of us must make our own response to God’s word – we are charged to work out what God is saying to us, and then to do it. We are commanded to meditate on the word, letting it dwell in our hearts so that our thoughts and actions are transformed. God’s word can be resisted, we can close our hears and minds to his loving command and if we do so long enough, we become unable to hear him.

Is this not a terrifying prospect? I don’t believe that I can fall utterly away from God’s safe keeping, but I long to be found responsible in my handling of all the good gifts which I have received, to know that I have glorified God by bringing every aspect of my life under his command to be used as he pleases.

The bible teaches us in so many ways, that God is continually seeking to draw his people closer to him in faith and obedience, and that it is through their witness that his name is honoured. The people of Israel brought dishonour on God when they doubted him in the desert after leaving Egypt; they dishonoured him when they turned again and again to the worship of idols; they dishonoured him when – in Jesus’ day – they worshipped the observance of the law and temple procedure instead of the holy One himself. Am I bringing dishonour on Jesus by refusing to let him work out his purposes in  my life, closing my mind to what he says?

As a ransomed, new-created and holy child of God, I am called to grow out of my infant diet; to progress from the early stages of understanding my new position to working out in detail just what difference God makes in my life, and how he does it. Mine should be a mature faith which can stand the test and grow, stepping forward to embrace trials as a means by which God shows his love and manifests his glory. It is maturing faith which can step into positions of responsibility, and be entrusted with the pastoral care of others. It is mature faith which can say with Job – “Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him”

I know that the days, months and years which God has yet for me will include difficult times, pain and suffering – my own, that of my loved ones and of the wider world. I do not want to be like a vulnerable infant, dependant on the people around me to look after me, but rather a responsible adult, one who can do the task for which God has called and enabled me. I want to grow up in my faith as I grow old in my body, making the most of the time that I am granted to serve my gracious God as faithfully as I can.

May God keep my spirit soft to receive his teaching, and my ears sensitive to his voice. Although I may weary of my own imperfections and repeated failings, God does not give up on me, and I ask for a persevering spirit to continue to grow in faith and to press on towards the glory which he has promised.

Like a spring of living water..

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A voice says, “Cry out.” And I said, “What shall I cry?”

“All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the Lord blows on them. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands for ever.”

(Isa 40.6-8)

Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.

(Jer 17.7&8)

On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.”

(Jn 7.37&38)

On 31st August, 2014, the first ‘forgetfulsoul’ blog was published, the fruit of many months of pondering and preparation, and also a step of obedience to a call to speak, to cry out what was in my heart and trust that if God wanted my words, he had plans to use them to bless.

The writing of these pieces has been a great blessing to me, as well as a healthy discipline, proving over and over the truth that God’s word is alive and powerful, endlessly relevant and the only reliable foundation for our faith. In scripture, I find the great narrative of God’s actions in creation and re-creation, as he works to bring about his dwelling with his people in perfect union and harmony. I see that my salvation is but a tiny part of an eternal theme of love, redemption, and transformation. I see Jesus, high and lifted up, the man in glory where his resurrected body stands as a guarantee of my own eternal future.

As I have wrestled with concepts and scriptures week by week, I have been reminding myself of the truth; pursuing the renewing of my mind according to God’s will; seeking for strength, hope, comfort, words to express my joy or despair, and finding over and over that He is faithful. Although I am ashamed that I seem to need the same lessons over and over again, yet I am also exultant, because the Lord has called me beloved, precious and even beautiful. He sees my weaknesses and has taken all into account, so that I can rest in his love for me, as one who is fully known and yet delighted in.

In writing and publishing these meditations each week, I have offered them to God for his use in blessing others, in encouraging his children wherever they may be, to persevere and to trust him. It has been a privilege to occasionally hear from people that they have indeed been blessed – and all the glory goes to the great author himself, who has given me the words and spoken through them. What a delight and honour, to be able to serve in this way, and to cry out for the Lord who loves and has saved me!

So I give thanks today, for these five years of service to the King of Kings, offered in faith and for the blessing of his people. Rejoice with me in the love which has been bestowed on us; the costly salvation which has been won for us; the grace which daily covers all our weaknesses and continues to forgive and cleanse us.

Praise the Lord, you his angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding, who obey his word. Praise the Lord, all his heavenly hosts, you his servants who do his will.

Praise the Lord, all his works everywhere in his dominion. 

Praise the Lord, O my soul!

(Psalm 103.20-22)

When your place is in the shadows..

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Cursed be the day I was born!

Why did I ever come out of the womb to see trouble and sorrow and to end my days in shame?

(Jeremiah 20.14&18)

My splendour is gone and all that I had hoped from the Lord.

(Lamentations 3.18)

The prophet Jeremiah is not perhaps our favourite personality in cast of bible characters. He has a name for gloom, for predicting disaster and generally spoiling the party! It is quite true that much of his writing is filled with warnings of judgement to come, of rebuke to a stubbornly rebellious people from their long-suffering God. Jeremiah spoke the heart of God; a broken heart, a jealous heart, which could no longer hold back the tide of invasion, destruction and exile which would finally destroy the last hold of idolatry from the heart of the people whom He loved.

But do you ever think about the cost which this ministry was to Jeremiah? As you take the time to read his words – both the long prophesy and also the devastating book of Lamenations which follows it – you find a desperate man, bereft of comfort and wrestling with the God who called him to this appalling ministry.

In his words, his grief, anger and despair, I find comfort for my own struggles. Am I the only follower of Jesus who is disappointed with some of the ways that God has chosen to direct their life? Does everyone else really live in the sunlight all the time? I beg to doubt it, and I thank God that in the words of this faithful prophet, we find permission to speak our pain; and comfort that we are not alone in it.

Very few of us are called to such a difficult path as that which faced Jeremiah – and that alone should give us cause to rejoice, and to see that we are greatly blessed to have been spared much pain! The point is that Jeremiah was doing exactly what God had called him to do, and yet his life was incredibly hard and sad. How often do we fall into the trap of thinking that a difficulty or sadness in our lives is a sign that we should be changing something, “fixing it” in any way that seems good to us? I believe this can be a very clever distraction and even a trap for us, by which the devil distracts us from faithful obedience into a fretful dissatisfaction with God, and even outright disobedience.

God is not primarily in the business of making life easy for his children. Does that surprise you? It shouldn’t, because the bible never promises that He will. Instead, we are assured that we will suffer; we are told that the world will hate us for Jesus’ sake; we are reminded that until the coming of the new creation, there will be sin, pain, death and suffering of all kinds. God is in the business of calling his people, of making all things new, and only he can see the full picture of which our lives are a tiny part. He is building a kingdom, making the name of his son known throughout the world and creating disciples. My role in the process will not be clear to me, and indeed I may feel it is completely insignificant if it has any value at all. BUT.. if I am making choices about my life directed by God’s word, desiring always to obey and glorify him then I will be a useful tool in his hand and bring him pleasure through my service.

So, whether it is a job which becomes incredibly difficult and challenging to sustain – seeming to call for qualities which I do not possess – or a relationship which drives me continually to my knees in prayer for strength to go on giving love, forgiving hurt and trusting God for the future; in all and any such callings, I have the example of Jeremiah to draw on in my struggles. What did he do? Over and over again, and often in the midst of a prophecy, he turns to God in his agony and pours it all out. First the pain, the anger of being in such a difficult position; and then his determination to trust God to be good and to be faithful to him.

Heal me , O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me and I shall be saved, for you are the one I praise. 

They keep saying to me, “Where is the word of the Lord? Let it now be fulfilled!” I have not run away from being your shepherd; you know I have not desired the day of despair….do not be a terror to me; you are my refuge in the day of disaster.

(Jeremiah 17.14-16)

May we know and share the faith which allowed Jeremiah to cling to God in the darkness and to continue in faithful submission to the calling which he had received. Our Lord quailed in Gethsemane at the prospect of pain which lay before him, but chose obedience – may we by His strength be enabled to do likewise.