Ephesians 1 -- Blown Away By Something New

I read something pretty profound in my commentary this morning pertaining to little verse 3:

 

“The heavenlies describes that place where Jesus Christ is right now and where the believer is seated with Him.  The battles we fight are not with flesh and blood on earth, but with satanic powers in the heavenlies.  The Christian really operates in two spheres:  the human and the divine, the visible and the invisible.  Physically he is on the earth in a human body, but spiritually he is seated with Christ in the heavenly sphere – and it is this heavenly sphere that provides the power and direction for the earthly walk…. This is the basis of his life and power.” 

 

That certainly better helps us understand how we “are free from the law, free from slavery to sin, as well as free from the power of Satan and the world.”

 

It sounds like the battles are really going on “up there”, and we see the shadows of those battles reflected on the walls of our lives down here.  This is going to take some thought and prayer.  My commentary said that Paul was trying to get his Ephesian friends to understand the vastness of the riches they had in Christ at that moment – not someday.

 

Father, let this soak into my brain and into my heart.  Form these thoughts so that I can come to a much better understanding of it all.  Reveal these true riches that I’ve only caught a glimpse of here in this life.

 

Your Brother In Christ,

 

 

 

Gary Ford

Song of Solomon -- A Different Look At God's Best For Us

Max Lucado wrote, “It’s unlike anything in the Bible.  For that reason, it should be read differently than any book in the Bible … Don’t search for hidden codes or submerged messages.  Love letters are to be appreciated, not analyzed … You are opening someone else’s shoebox of letters and reading the correspondence between two people madly in love.  I guess God knew we needed a reminder that romance was His idea.”  I thought about Adam and Eve, discovering all about each other on the first day they were together.  A pure love, undefiled by prior relationships, media, less-than-godly thoughts, etc.  THIS must have been what they felt.    No competition around.  Just them and God.  So I read it that way. 

 

Just as we might think, the words come pouring out:  “Kiss me … the smell of your perfume … your name … where do you ___? (discovering things about each other they don’t know).  Your cheeks … your neck … your eyes … Oh, you are beautiful! … You are so handsome (that’s nice to hear, guys!) … Our bed is the grass … my lover’s left hand is under my head, and his right arm holds me tight (visualize that scene) … My loves is mine, and I am his …. your eyes … your hair …. your teeth … your lips … your mouth … your breasts … my bride … She says:  my lover is healthy and tan … his head … his hair … his eyes … his cheeks … his smell … his lips … his hands … his body … his legs … his mouth is sweet to kiss, and I desire him very much (what guy wouldn’t want to hear all of that!) … I belong to my lover, and he desires only me … I have saved them for you, my lover … love bursts into flames and burns like a hot fire … Hurry, my lover!”

 

God created us male and female, and He created sex and romance and designed it all to fulfill us along with Him and to cement together two people for a lifetime.  He said it was good.  These love letters I think are God’s way of reminding us of this.  All of the “thou shalt not’s” we’ve read elsewhere apply to anything outside of the covenant marriage that He knows is His absolute best for us.  Anything else is only settling for less.

 

Father, thanks for the reminder.  Please keep Satan from whispering that anything else is worth seeking, for it’s not.  It’s only settling.  Help me to want only Your best.

 

Your brother in Christ,

 

Gary Ford

Jeremiah 52 - The End of The Book, AND The Nation

“The Lord was angry with them.  Finally, He threw them out of His presence … In all 4,600 people were taken captive.”

 

God had brought probably 2-3 million Israelites out of Egypt in the Exodus.  He’d helped them take ownership of the Promised Land, and now He’d taken 4,600 to Babylon to live as captives for 70 years.  They were all that were left.  They’d also lost it all.

 

In Matthew 16, people were saying that Jesus was like Jeremiah.  What a compliment to Jeremiah!  My commentary said, “Jeremiah became like Jesus because he shared the fellowship of His sufferings.  In the furnaces of life, Jeremiah was conformed to the image of God’s Son.  Jeremiah may not have realized that this process was going on in his life, and he might have denied it if it were pointed out to him, but the transformation was going on just the same.”

 

It continued, “Both Jesus and Jeremiah recognized that a nation’s greatest problem is not unemployment, inflation, or lack of defense; it’s sin.  The nation that doesn’t deal with sin is wasting time and resources trying to solve national problems, which are only symptoms of the deeper problem, which is sin….  It isn’t enough for a nation to put In God We Trust on its currency, to mention God in its pledge to the flag, or to tip the hat to God by quoting the Bible in political campaign speeches.  It’s righteousness, not religion, that exalts a nation.”

 

Father, first I ask You to conform me to the image of Your Son in the furnaces of life I find myself in.  Help me to react as He would.  It’s been tough lately.  And Father, please help our nation, one heart at a time, to come back to You, for that is our only hope to save it.  Cause our leaders to step up and not think about their re-election, but instead to do the right thing to get us back on track both fiscally and spiritually.

 

Your Brother In Christ,

 

Gary Ford

 

Jeremiah 50-51 Be Careful About Being God's Tool

It sure seems that, after all God had said about Judah and what awaited the nation as it was taken to Babylon to be punished, God was then going to rip the heart out of Babylon for being evil enough to have been used by Him to punish His own people for their apostasy.  Where Jerusalem would be destroyed and later rebuilt, Babylon would remain a ruin forever.

 

God said, “Babylon, I set a trap for you, and you were caught before you knew it!”  Ten times god said of Babylon, “I use you…”  Babylon wasn’t supreme.  It was a puppet used by the Lord to chasten His people.  Everything that God had told Jeremiah to say was written on a scroll and sent to Babylon to be read to King Zedekiah and all the Israelites in captivity, so that they’d know what would later befall their captors.  Then it was to be thrown into the Euphrates River, weighted by a stone.  Wouldn’t that be awesome to find on a fishing trip today!

 

Father, we ought to understand from this that we cannot become evil and fight You and expect to win.  You are sovereign, and any people who work against You are doomed from the start.  Their stubborn pride will be their ruin.  Please don’t let that be America’s ruin, Father.

Jeremiah 47-49 Messages of Doom, But Some Hope

“The time has come to destroy all of the Philistines …  Moab is destroyed…. The people of Moab thought they were greater than the Lord… The nation of Moab will be destroyed … The time will come when I will make Rabbah, the capital city of the Ammonites … become a hill covered with ruins … You are like an unfaithful child who believes his treasures will save him … I will bring disaster on the people of Esau … I will strip Edom bare … Edom will be no more … I will bring you down … Edom will be destroyed like the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah … I will set fire to the walls of Damascus and it will completely burn the strong cities … Kedar and Hazor will be an empty desert forever … I will bring disaster to Elam and show them how angry I am…”

 

God had planned so much terror and disaster for people in the middle east.  Their own apostasy was the cause.  My commentary said, “God sees what the nations do, and He rewards them justly … God never gave the law of Moses to any of the nations that Jeremiah addressed, but He still held them accountable for the sins they committed against Him and against humanity.  Because of the witness of creation around them and conscience within them, they were without excuse.”

 

I couldn’t help but also notice this though:  “But in days to come, I will make good things happen again in Moab … But the time will come when I will make good things happen to the Ammonites again … But I will make good things happen to Elam again in the future,” says the Lord.

 

God was making promises of judgment.  But He also, in a few cases, made promises to restore after judgment.  I hope He has that in mind for us.  The last thing I’d want to hear Him say is, “America will be no more.”

 

Father, turn us around as a nation.  Cause us to see what we’ve done in the name of political correctness.  Show us the way back to You.

 

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Jeremiah 45-46 It's Coming

Egypt had taken sides against God in the past and had paid dearly for it with the ten plagues.  Discovering the power of Yahweh, they did not, however, come to worship Him.  Instead, they kept up their idol worship and now God had a message for them through Jeremiah:

 

“Get ready for war, because the battle is all around you … The King’s name is the Lord All-Powerful.  Egypt’s army’s time of destruction is coming … The people of Egypt will be ashamed.  They will be handed over to the enemy … I will punish Egypt, her kings, her gods, and the people who depend on the king.  I will hand these people over to their enemies, who want to kill them.  I will give them to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and his officers.  But in the future, Egypt will live in peace as it once did.”

 

There was also a message to Israel in there:  “People Jacob, my servants, don’t be afraid; don’t be frightened, Israel.  I will surely save you from those faraway places … The people of Jacob will have peace and safety again and no one will make them afraid … Do not be afraid, because I am with you.  I will completely destroy the many different nations where I scattered you.  But I will not completely destroy you.  I will punish you fairly, but I will not let you escape your punishment.”

 

Even the people of God cannot escape punishment for their sins.  Their guilt may be forgiven, but the consequences of sin must play out. 

 

Father, all too often we as Christians presume upon Your grace.  We sin and then ask for forgiveness, knowing You’ve promised to give it if we repent in our hearts.  Yet every sin effectively nails another nail into Your Son on the cross.  Help us to realize the incredible cost of our sin on our Savior.  Help us to love Him enough that we won’t want to see Him hurt by our actions and thoughts again.

 

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Jeremiah 37-44 The Last 30 Minutes Of The Movie

Wow!  That’s what it felt like reading this today.  I couldn’t stop, because I wanted to ride it out.

 

King Zedekiah begged Jeremiah to pray to God for them.  God simply answered that it was time to get ready.  It was gonna happen.

 

Jeremiah was imprisoned in a dungeon, then the courtyard of the guards, then lowered into a deep, muddy well.  But a man interceded for him with the king and at least got him removed from the well.  The king them secretly met with him to ask what would happen.  God told Jeremiah to tell him that he must obey God and surrender to Nebuchadnezzar in order to live.  Zedekiah said what we all often say:  “I’m afraid!”  And he let his fear override his trust in the Lord.  Rather than surrendering, he tried to leave the city under the cover of darkness.  The result of his disobedience was that he watched his sons being killed and was then blinded so that the last image he’d remember would be their death.  He was taken in chains to Babylon.  Look what his fear cost him!

 

The local commander of the Babylonian force was tasked with finding Jeremiah and giving him whatever he needed.  This was not collaboration.  This was God using an enemy to take care of His faithful servant.  Jeremiah chose to remain in Judah amidst the destruction, rather than living a life of luxury in Babylon.  He moved in with the appointed governor, who was likely seen as an enemy collaborator by the guerilla forces still roaming the countryside.  It wasn’t long before the governor was assassinated, along with many others.  The soldiers who did it then asked Jeremiah to pray to God for them and ask where they should go and what they should do.  They devoutly promised to do it. 

 

The message God sent made it clear that God already knew that they too would disobey Him:  “If you stay in Judah, I will build you up…. Don’t be afraid … I am with you … If you make up your mind to go and live in Egypt you will die there in war, from hunger or from terrible diseases… I will show My anger against you when you go to Egypt … You will never see Judah again … DON’T GO TO EGYPT!  Be sure you understand this;  I warn you today that you are making a mistake that will cause your deaths … So today I have told you but you have not obeyed the Lord your God … So now be sure you understand this:  You want to go to live in Egypt, but you will die there by war, hunger, or terrible diseases.”

 

Stubborn and hard hearted, they headed to Egypt anyway, even making Jeremiah go with them!  When they arrived, God gave Jeremiah another action sermon:  “Take some large stones.  Bury them in the clay in the brick pavement in front of the king of Egypt’s palace.  Do this while the Jews are watching you … Say: ‘I will soon send for My servant, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.  I will set his throne over these stones I have buried … He will come here and attack Egypt.  He will bring death to those who are supposed to die.’”

 

It wouldn’t do them any good to try to sneak back to Judah, for God wasn’t going to allow delayed obedience either.

 

The questions God had for them should shake us to the core as well:

 

“WHY are you doing such great harm to yourselves? … WHY do you WANT to make Me angry? … You will destroy yourselves … You are still too proud.  You have not learned to respect Me or to follow My teachings.”

 

It was all now too late.  The last ones who’d escaped destruction had blown their chance to re-form the nation.  God said, “I am determined to bring disasters on you … I have sworn by My great name … I am watching over them, not to take care of them, but to hurt them.  The Jews who live in Egypt will die from swords or hunger until they are all destroyed.”

 

God may have established them as His chosen people, but they had spat in His face, cursed Him, and overrun His mercy and grace.  He was giving them what they deserved.

 

Father God, on this Thanksgiving Day, I am so thankful that You planted us and built us up here in America.  For 236 years You have watched over us and blessed us as a nation and the world because of us.  Yet now it seems that Your people have become a minority here.  The majority seem to want nothing to do with You.  They do not trust You.  It’s never been this way before.  Like Zedekiah, I’m afraid.  I know that we are not yet to the point Israel and Judah had reached.  There is still a faithful remnant.  And You are still God.  Soften hearts and wake up souls, Father.  Cause people to fear You and to understand what their apostasy is doing to our land.  As in the past, where apostasy brought drought and famine, we see drought gripping our nation even now.  Please bring spiritual revival.  Please make sure we have something to be thankful for next year.

 

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Jeremiah 34-36 Hearing, But Not Obeying

God had spoken a warning to King Zedekiah through Jeremiah, making a promise to him that if he obeyed, he’d go to Babylon and not be killed by the sword, but later have an honorable burial.  Yet Zedekiah failed to honor the word of the Lord by ordering Hebrew slaves freed as the law of Moses required.

 

God also spoke to Jeremiah to prepare a scroll with all of the words God had given him and to have it eventually delivered to King Jehoiakim.  But when the king heard the words, he disrespectfully sliced the scroll into strips and used them as fuel for his fire.  He care so little for God’s word.

 

My Bible’s sidebar, by Oswald Chambers, said, “We don’t consciously and deliberately disobey God – we simply don’t listen to Him.  God has given His commands to us, but we pay no attention to them – not because of willful disobedience, but because we do not truly LOVE AND RESPECT HIM… Why are we so terrified for God to speak to us?  It is because we know that when God speaks we must either do what He asks or tell Him we will not obey.  But if it is simply one of God’s servants speaking to us, we feel obedience is optional, not imperative.  We respond by saying, ‘Well, that’s only your own idea, even though I don’t deny that what you said is probably God’s truth.’  Am I constantly humiliating God by ignoring Him, while He lovingly continues to treat me as His child?”

 

Father, I’m sorry for all those times I’ve read Your word or heard Your servants speak and failed to take to heart what You’ve told me.  Give me a greater love for You and help me to honor and respect You more.  Don’t let me let Your word pass through my ears without entering my heart.

 

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Jeremiah 32-33 Doing The Illogical Because God Said To

With the invading Babylonian army outside the gates of Jerusalem, Jeremiah (now under arrest in the courtyard of the guard for his God-given prophesies about the fall of Jerusalem) is given another action sermon, and it would appear to all to be the most illogical thing he could do.  His relative came to him wanting to sell him a field that was already in Babylonian hands outside of the city.  To others, it appeared that everything was lost.  But God knew His plans for them, and Jeremiah knew God, so he completed the transaction.  While others laughed at the impossibility of Jeremiah ever living long enough to enjoy the land (if his prophesy of 70 years of captivity proved correct), God was saying, “In the future My people will once again buy houses and fields …”  Jeremiah sounded a little doubtful again in verses 24-26, but God answered, “I am the Lord, the God of every person on the earth.  Nothing is impossible for Me.”

 

God said of the people still living there, “They turned their backs to Me, not their faces.  I tried to teach them again and again, but they wouldn’t listen or learn.”  He was going to change all that in the future, though.  “The people of Israel and Judah will be My people, and I will be their God … They will truly want to worship Me all their lives …”  He would definitely be God of the impossible to accomplish that!

 

How serious was He?  “With My whole being I will surely plant them in this land and make them grow.”  Who knows if He’d ever used His whole being to get anything done before!  Even the creation of the world had been just a thought!

 

He then spoke of The Good Branch coming from the stump of what was once David’s royal family – Jesus – who would always sit on the throne.  With the Babylonian army about to enter the city and burn it to the ground, God is promising Messiah!  How much better to listen to Him than to the world.

 

Father, the news out of Israel right now is beginning to sound like this chapter could play out again.  Yet You promised that with Your whole being You would plant them there and make them grow.  I know which side I’d support!  So in the midst of all the frightening news in the world, I turn my ear to you.  Tell me as You did Jeremiah that it will all be all right – that You are still God and You reign in power, for You will always be on Your throne.

 

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Jeremiah 30-31 The NEW Covenant

Jeremiah had two horizons in view here, my commentary said:  the return of the exiles and the regathering of Israel in the end times.  The new covenant He promised was based on the work of Christ on the cross.

 

I read something that our government needs to understand if it’s ever going to get it right – “Any plan for the betterment of human society that ignores the sin problem is destined to failure.”  Taking God out of government won’t make it better.  “The heart of every problem is the problem of the heart.  God must change the hearts of people so that they want to love Him and do His will.”

 

“The new covenant is inward so that God’s law is written on the heart and not on stone tablets.  The emphasis is personal rather than national, with each person putting faith in the Lord and receiving a new heart and with it a new disposition toward godliness.  The Old covenant tried to control conduct, but the new covenant changes character so that people can love the Lord and one another and want to obey the Lord,” my commentary added.

 

Father, continue to bring about Your new covenant in the hearts and lives of people everywhere.  Help the whole world to understand the greatest gift You’ve given with the death of Your Son for them!  Continue to change our hearts to cause us to want to obey.  Take out the stubborn hearts of stone.  Create in us clean hearts, Father!

 

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Jeremiah 27-29 He Said This WHEN?

We seem to always think God's message to us will be GOOD news.  But we ought to EXPECT bad news from Him if we HAVEN'T been obeying Him.  That's the problem that Judah was having.  Jeremiah was told to say, "ALL NATIONS will serve Nebuchadnezzar and his son and GRANDSON (meaning "a very long time")."

 

Refusal to accept this would lead to destruction.  That was tough news to hear.  How could they NOT fight a heathen invader?  How could they POSSIBLY dwell in a heathen land?  The answer was that they'd already been ACTING like heathens, and they HAD to be punished and accept God's will again.

 

False prophets were delivering false messages of hope -- messages that were causing the people NOT to want to settle in for the long haul as God intended.  So God had Jeremiah send a letter with very familiar wording to us today from God:  

 

"I KNOW the plans I have for you.  I have GOOD plans for you, not plans to hurt you.  I will give you HOPE and a GOOD future.  THEN you will call My name.  You will COME to Me and PRAY to Me and I will LISTEN to you.  You will SEARCH for Me.  And WHEN you search for Me with all your heart, you WILL find Me.  And I will bring you BACK from your captivity."

 

We so often forget that these wonderful, encouraging words were spoken by God to His people who were PRISONERS OF WAR, thousands of miles from home, facing SEVENTY YEARS of "imprisonment" in Babylon.  Things didn't look rosy.  God was telling them to settle in, make the best of it, and be witnesses for Him to their captors.  They were even to do GOOD THINGS for the cities where they would be living.  How incredible that must have sounded to them!

 

And what if He happens to be giving US the same message today?  What if He's about to pull the rug out from under our own existence in a prosperous land because we too have defied Him as a nation?  What if He brings economic ruin as a result of our disobedience?  How would we react to the SAME message?  "Settle in, for it's going to be 70 years before things get better."

 

If He does, then WE are to also ACCEPT it and LIVE like kingdom people, KNOWING that God has plans for US, to prosper us and not to harm us.  

 

Father, help us to bow to Your sovereignty and Your will before it is too late.  Remind us often that You have GOOD plans for us, despite our willful rebellion.  Teach us to TRUST You, even in Your punishment, to have only our GOOD in mind.

Jeremiah 26 -- Check Out The Past

God sent Jeremiah to the Temple with another message.  Still God’s mercy and grace can be seen in His thoughts:  “Maybe they will listen and stop their evil ways.  If they will, I will change My mind…”

 

After Jeremiah delivered the message, though, the people grabbed him, intending to kill him.  The message had been, “Obey Me, or I will destroy My Temple as I destroyed My Holy Tent at Shiloh.”  The people charged Jeremiah with prophesying against Jerusalem.  In their minds, God’s covenant meant eternal protection for Jerusalem and the Temple, and when Jeremiah said the Temple would be destroyed, they felt he was saying God would break His covenant.  They seemed to forget that it was a conditional covenant, based on their obedience.

 

Of course, God knew their thoughts and what their response would be.  That’s why He’d had Jeremiah mention Shiloh.  In other words, there was historical precedent for this very event to happen.  God had done it before because the people had done it before – disobeyed.

 

This set them to thinking.  They remembered Micah prophesying that Jerusalem would be plowed like a field, and he wasn’t killed.  But then Uriah prophesied the same thing but he was killed.  Jeremiah had told them he was innocent, having only delivered God’s message, and that killing an innocent man would bring disaster upon them.  Now, they couldn’t decide whether to fish or cut bait, so they erred on the side of caution by not killing him.

 

The 2-ton elephant in the room, though, was that he’d not prophesied against Jerusalem – he’d prophesied against the people there.  They didn’t obey.  They didn’t repent.  They didn’t changed their hearts and lives.  And since they didn’t, God would bring the disaster He promised upon them.

 

When we are in sin, it is so very easy to try to deflect criticism – to do anything to get the spotlight off of ourselves.  No one who’s not obeying God wants to be told they need to change.  They attack the confronter as being judgmental or holier-than-thou, when they should be thanking God for sending someone to warn them.

 

Father, help me to be watching for warnings You send my way, and let me not deflect them, but instead act upon them in repentance.  Please direct the hearts of the citizens of our nation to do the same.  Thank You for Your longsuffering and Your mercy and grace.  Don’t give up on us!

 

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Jeremiah 25 -- His Message Hasn't Changed

God’s message had always been, “Stop your evil ways.  Stop doing what is wrong so you can stay in the land … Don’t follow other gods to serve them or to worship them.  Don’t make Me, the Lord, angry by worshiping idols …”  God promised that all the nations around Judah would be destroyed and left in ruins forever.  “I will bring an end to the sounds of joy … and I will TAKE AWAY THE LIGHT OF THE LAMP.”  Not only would they suffer economic ruin – they would also suffer judicial blindness.   God promised that Babylon (which is modern-day Iraq) would be a desert forever, and would end up having to serve many other nations.

 

God’s anger was going out to all nations.  “They will drink My anger and stumble about … I made all the kingdoms on earth drink from the cup of the Lord’s anger.”  There was no not doing it.  “If they refuse … say to them, ‘The Lord All-Powerful says this:  You must drink from this cup.’  I am sending war on all the people of the earth … Disaster will soon spread from nation to nation … Cry, you leaders! … It is now time for you to be killed … There will be no place for the leaders to hide.  They will not escape … The Lord is very angry.  Like lion, He has left His den.”

 

Father, You know us.  We are but humans, infected with sin.  You speak to us and in our pride we think we know better.  But we don’t.  Our sin causes us not to listen to Your Word.  Your righteousness and holiness causes You to act.  You deserve much better than us.  Save us anyway, Father.  Bring out Your mercy.  Lead us when our own leaders won’t.  Be our salvation.

 

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Jeremiah 23-24 Hope In The Middle Of Despair

“The days are coming when I will raise up a good branch in David’s family … This will be His name:  “The Lord Does What Is Right”.  God gave Jeremiah a vision of two baskets of figs.  One basket had rotten figs – the then-current leadership of Judah – good for nothing.  The other basket represented the exiles who would live in Babylon and one day return to the land.

 

My commentary said, “In times of national catastrophe, no matter how discouraging the circumstances may be, God doesn’t desert His faithful remnant … true believers find God faithful to meet their needs and accomplish His great plans.  The people who returned to the land after the captivity were by no means perfect, but they had learned to trust the true and living God and not to worship idols…. God the Potter would remake His people and they would return to the land chastened and cleaned.”

 

Father, I don’t know where we would go.  Will You do the same here?  Will you preserve a remnant once more and then destroy everything we’ve come to know because of our sinfulness as a nation?  Our leaders are acting the same way as the leaders in Jeremiah’s time.  Will history repeat itself yet again?  Raise up that good branch.  Do what is right.

 

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Jeremiah 21-22 Is It Coming?

Judah was hearing God say:  “In My anger, My very great anger, I Myself will fight against you with My great power and strength.  I will kill everything living in Jerusalem … I will let those win who want to kill the people of Judah … I will let you choose to live or die.  Anyone who stays .. will die … Anyone who leaves … will save his life…. Jerusalem, I am against you … I will give you the punishment you deserve … People from many nations will … ask each other, ‘Why has the Lord done such a terrible thing…?’  And the answer will be:  ‘Because [they] quit following the agreement with the Lord their God …’  As surely as I live … I will hand you over.”

They’d messed it all up by choosing to sin, and now it was too late to say I’m sorry!  God was bringing discipline on Judah.  He will just as surely bring discipline on America.  My sidebar by Charles Stanley said, “God’s discipline arises from His love for His people … People who accept the discipline of God realize that His discipline is for their own protection.  They do not view it as something negative.  They see it as an expression of His love, for that is exactly what it is … So when God disciplines us, He is trying to keep us from the greater harm that comes from involvement with sin.  We will not fully appreciate the love God has expressed toward us through His discipline until we get to heaven.”

 

Father, I’m thankful that I’ve been able to see Your love for me in the discipline You’ve sent to my life.  I understand.  I only wish that our country understood in the same way.  I fear that we are too much like Judah was, and that we’ve left You with no other alternative but discipline.

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Jeremiah 19-20 He Couldn't NOT Speak

God had another action sermon for Jeremiah to deliver to his country’s leaders.  He was to smash a clay pot in front of them and tell them that God said, “I will soon bring a disaster on this place that will amaze and frighten everyone who hears about it.  The people … have quit following Me … they burn their children in the fire to Baal.  That is something I did not command or speak about; it never even entered My mind … At this place I will ruin the plans of the people… I will completely destroy this city.  People will make fun of it … I will break this nation and this city just as someone breaks a clay jar that cannot be put back together again.”

 

The government sure didn’t like those words, and Jeremiah paid for the sermon with a beating and a night in the stocks.  But the next day, he went to the highest officer of the Temple and told him that God now had a new name for him:  “Terror On Every Side”.  God said, “I will soon make you a terror TO YOURSELF and to all your friends … I will give all the wealth of this city to its enemies.”

 

In other words, destruction would start from within.  I can’t help thinking that this is exactly what’s happening to America right now.  Laws and directives are making us become a terror to ourselves because they threaten our very economic existence, as though we’d bombed ourselves.

 

I don’t like these messages.  Jeremiah didn’t like those he received, either.  He’d gotten to the point where he said, “I will forget about the Lord.  I won’t speak anymore in His name … But then His message becomes like a burning fire inside me, deep within my bones.  I get tired of trying to hold it inside of me, and finally I cannot hold it in.”  I’m taking a lesson from Jeremiah and just writing what I sense God saying through what I read in His word each day. 

 

Jeremiah didn’t quit.  He soon said, “The Lord is with me like a strong warrior, so those who are chasing me will trip and fall; they will not defeat me.”

 

Father, thank You for speaking to my heart.  I never want to stop hearing from You.  Help me to be faithful only to write what I hear You showing me.  May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing to You.

 

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Jeremiah 18 -- Is It US?

God told Jeremiah to go to a potter’s house for a lesson.  As the pottery wheel was spinning and the pot was beginning to take shape, something went wrong – the clay resisted the potter’s hand, so that the pot was ruined.  With patience, the potter took what remained of the design and kneaded it back into a ball of clay and started again to form another pot.

 

God said about the nation of Judah at the time, “Can’t I do the same thing with you?”

 

Then He said something that made me shake my head in wonder this morning:

 

“There may come another time when I will speak about a nation that I will build up and plant.  But if I see it doing evil by not obeying Me, I will change My mind and not carry out My plans to do good for them … I am preparing disaster for you and making plans against you.  So stop doing evil.  Change your ways and do what is right.”  But the people will answer, “It won’t do any good to try!  WE WILL CONTINUE TO DO WHAT WE WANT.  Each of us will do what his stubborn, evil heart wants!”

 

God continued, “My people have forgotten me … They walk along back roads and on poor highways [He wasn’t referring to deteriorating infrastructure.  I think He’s saying that they are settling for less than the best He has for them – for instance, they could be traveling on an interstate highway instead!]…. At that awful time, they will not see Me coming to help them; they will see Me LEAVING.”

 

Pay attention to those italicized parts above!

 

We can watch how Jeremiah reacted and judge it against how we react today.  “There is a righteous anger against sin that is acceptable to God.  Psalm 97:10 says, “You who love the Lord, hate evil!”  “Righteous anger turns the matter over to God and seeks to help the offender.  Anguish is anger plus love,” my commentary said.

 

Father, I can see that, rather than becoming the vessel You intended for us to be – to carry Your message to the world as we once did – our nation too has become warped and misshapen.  We are clay in Your hands, yet as a nation, like the stubborn clay, we resist You.  Do what You must as our sovereign God to reform us and make us into what You had originally planned.  Don’t let us resist You and Your love!

 

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Jeremiah 17 -- It Begins

“Their sins were cut with a hard point into the stone that is their hearts … Your wealth and treasures I will give away to other people … You will lose the land I gave you, and it is your own fault.  I will let your enemies take you as their slaves … A curse is placed on those who trust other people, who depend on humans for strength, who have stopped trusting the Lord … More than anything else, a person’s mind is evil and cannot be healed.  No one truly understands it.  But I, the Lord, look into a person’s heart and test the mind … Your ancestors did not listen or pay attention to me.  They were very stubborn and did not listen … If you don’t obey me, I will start a fire at the gates … and it will burn even the strong towers.  And it will not be put out.”

 

That’s God’s word to a nation which had decided to pursue pleasure and self rather than Him.  And He kept His word.  His word has not changed.

 

Even as He delayed His punishment, giving time for the people to turn back to Him, He said, “But the person who trusts in the Lord will be blessed.  The Lord will show him that He can be trusted.  He will be strong, like a tree planted near water … not afraid … not worrying…”

 

Father, I’m thankful that You are sovereign.  Although You still have the ability to turn our nation around, I pray that You also have the desire to do so.  Throughout history, though, You’ve been fair and just, giving nations what they deserve.

 

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Jeremiah 16 -- The Day Of Disaster -- Praying It's Not For Us

In my Bible, this chapter is entitled, “The Day of Disaster”.  I’m praying that it’s not also describing today for America.

 

God says dreadful things here that shook Jeremiah to the core, and it ought to do the same for our country:

 

“I have taken back My blessing, My love, and My pity from these people… I will soon stop the sounds of joy and gladness … This will happen during your lifetime … This is happening because your ancestors quit following Me … and quit obeying My teaching.  But you have done even more evil than your ancestors.  You are very stubborn, and do only what YOU want to do; you have not obeyed Me.  So I will throw you out of this country and send you into a land [where] you can serve [your sins] night and day.  I will not help you or show you any favors … They cannot hide from Me the things they do; their sin is not hidden from My eyes.  I will pay back…twice for every one of their sins, because they have made My land unclean … I will teach them … This time I will teach them about My power and strength.  Then they will know that my name is the Lord.”

 

My commentary mentioned how strange it was that the people couldn’t even see that they were sinning.  The answer?  They’d been led astray by false prophets telling them that what they were doing was okay, they were comfortable in their sins, and their consciences were dead.  “The nation owed a great debt to the Lord for the way they had treated His law and His land.  Now the note was due.  God said, ‘I will repay them double for their wickedness and their sin.’ “

 

Father, please let this not be a day of disaster for us.

 

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford