- And if you say in your heart, ‘Why have these things come upon me?’ it is for the greatness of your iniquity that your skirts are lifted up and you suffer violence. Jeremiah 13:22 – As a believer one of the aspects to our faith life is helping others see the consequences that will follow their choice of sin. Yet this is often not something we desire to do, especially when we accept the depths of pain someone may go through as a result of their sin. Take the verse above, we have the audience of Jeremiah in his prophecy asking the question “why have all these horrible things come upon me?” We see then the violent image Jeremiah used to describe the pains that were to come for the people. The image is of a lady having her clothes ripped off and violently ravished. Truly horrible images being depicted, and once again, why was such a future for the nation of Judah? It was because their sin was so great and they refused to turn away from them. Through His prophets the Lord was repeatedly telling them the sort of pain they would experience due to their sin, but they refused to listen and eventually experienced all the pain that was foretold. Our role is much like Jeremiah’s, we are to help people in our life see the pain a choice of sin will lead to so they can have the proper information to make the right decision. Yes, they may still choose to pursue sin like the people in Jeremiah’s day, but it wasn’t because they weren’t told of the foolishness of that choice. We can’t control the paths that people take in life, but our role is to help them see the path of following Jesus is available to them and any other path will lead to their harm. I love you, but Jesus loves you more – Mac – Daily DEVO 3242
- Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil. Jeremiah 13:23 – We need to make sure we read this verse how it was meant to be read. Just as we can’t change our skin color or a leopard his spots, we can’t just change from evil to good on our own. Our efforts to change ourselves from evil to good will be pointless pursuit if Christ isn’t behind it. Know there is hope for change, but the hope doesn’t come from us but from God. The nasty, dark things we don’t like about ourselves change as a result of God getting a hold of them. So how often do you feel like it’s your responsibility to take care of those things? Today hear that it’s only with God’s help you can change those parts of you. Lift those parts to God, hand those over to Him, and follow His lead on what to do with them. I love you, but Jesus loves you more – Mac – Daily DEVO 932
- For as the loincloth clings to the waist of a man, so I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to me, declares the Lord, that they might be for me a people, a name, a praise, and a glory, but they would not listen. Jeremiah 13:11 – In the first portion of this chapter God gives some unique commands with a loincloth to Jeremiah as a sign of what’s to come. We see here that there is a design for a loincloth, to cling and be close to the body. That’s what it was created to do and when on the body it finds its full purpose fulfilled. Like a loincloth, God was reminding His people they have been designed to be close to Him and when they are clinging to Him is when they find their purpose fulfilled. Yet, they had found themselves like a loincloth buried in the rocks by a river, spoiled and far from doing what they were designed to do. God’s design for us is clinging to Him as well. We find our purpose in life fulfilled when we are holding fast to Him. It’s no wonder then if you are finding yourself feeling worn and tattered if you aren’t clinging to Jesus tightly. You have been designed in a unique way to find fullness close to Jesus yet you are existing away from that design. Draw then close to Jesus once again and cling tightly to Him. Only there can we fully exist how we were designed to live. I love you, but Jesus loves you more – Mac – Daily DEVO 2145
Daily DEVO 