Category: Daily Thought

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The Simple Certainty

Daily Reading

Jeremiah 38-41

Daily Thought

Jeremiah’s prophetic warning is summarized in one proclamation: “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: ‘Behold, I will fulfill my words against this city for harm and not for good, and they shall be accomplished before you on that day’” (Jeremiah 39:16). When the day arrives and Judah at long last falls to Babylon, it is recorded in a perfunctory cadence, “In the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army came against Jerusalem and besieged it. In the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, on the ninth day of the month, a breach was made in the city” (Jeremiah 39:1-2). There is no joy in judgment, but a simple certainty that God is true to his word.

The same applies not only in judgment, but salvation as well. “But I will deliver you on that day” (Jeremiah 39:17), declares the Lord to Jeremiah, short and sweet, and there is found the joy, a simple certainty that God is true to his word.

For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build one another up. ~1Thessalonians 5:9-11

Daily Prayer

My God, thank You so much for salvation, saving me from the judgment I deserve. The future is certain, but which certain is up to me and Who I follow. I choose You.

May my life lead others to follow, as well. God, Your Word is true, and it is good.

Amen

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Rebellion

Daily Reading

Jeremiah 35-37

Daily Thought

The sin common to all is unbelief. It may be a lack of faith in God’s good intent, fooling myself that I know better what will satisfy my desire; or it is a disbelief in the certainty and finality of God’s judgment, brushing aside “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23), as Eve did when she trusted the serpent above God. “You will not surely die” (Genesis 3:4). Yes you will. 

This common sin is a terrible sin, yet there is worse, and that is a sin of rebellion. Rebellion is not unbelief; rather it believes and rejects. Jehoiakim “was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord” (2Kings 23:36-37). His reign was the end of the road for Judah, yet God was still extending grace. The Lord instructed Jeremiah, “Take a scroll and write on it all the words that I have spoken to you against Israel and Judah and all the nations. It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the disaster that I intend to do to them, so that every one may turn from his evil way, and that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin” (Jeremiah 36:2-3). One last chance.

The scroll was read to the people of Judah, and they responded rightly, with fear and fasting, until the scroll came to the king. As the scroll was read to the king, three or four columns at a time, “the king would cut them off with a knife and throw them into the fire in the fire pot, until the entire scroll was consumed in the fire” (Jeremiah 36:23).

The sin rooted in rebellion is Satan’s sin, a defiance that says, “I believe God, and his way is true, even good, but I prefer my way because I prefer me.”

Daily Prayer

Heavenly Father, Your Word is life itself. It lights the path in front of me and leads me in the way everlasting. It is good, and it is good for me. I will read it and hear it, listen to it and follow it. I will put it in my heart and meditate on it.

There are other words, other advisers, calling out to me, distracting me from Your Word and Your way. What they offer sounds fun and free, worldly and wonderful. May I choose what is heavenly and good, what comes from faith and gives hope. May I choose Your joy and Your love. May I choose You.

Amen

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Trust and Treasure Go Together

Daily Reading

Jeremiah 32-34

Daily Thought

Jeremiah spoke a terrible and terrifying truth, “Thus says the Lord: Behold, I am giving this city into the hands of the Chaldeans and into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and he shall capture it. The Chaldeans who are fighting against this city shall come and set this city on fire and burn it” (Jeremiah 32:28-29). Then he spoke of a hope and a future, “Behold, I will gather them from all the countries to which I drove them in my anger and my wrath and in great indignation. I will bring them back to this place, and I will make them dwell in safety. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God” (Jeremiah 32:37-38). It was a package deal. As sure as there was something terrible about to happen, (Jeremiah 32:2, “the army of the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem” at that very moment”), there was a certain hope to come.

So sure was Jeremiah of the truth of his word that he put his money where his mouth was, he put his treasure into the land of Israel, “I bought the field at Anathoth from Hanamel my cousin, and weighed out the money to him, seventeen shekels of silver. I signed the deed, sealed it, got witnesses, and weighed the money on scales” (Jeremiah 32:9-10). He would have a place to build when he returned.

There is a coming judgment of my deeds, and there is good news of God’s Kingdom through the grace of Jesus Christ. How sure I am of God is revealed by where I put my treasure.

Daily Prayer

My God, Creator of all, Creator of me, You and You alone are worthy of my worship and devotion. Everything I see is awesome. I know I use that word a lot, but it truly applies to Your handiwork. I am awe-struck at the majesty, the intricacy, the wisdom, the beauty.

I have concerns, needs, issues, problems in my life. We all do. No wonder we pray to You. You have created a grand universe, and paid attention to the tiniest details. I can trust you with anything, big or small. How I spend my money and my time reveals my trust in You. I trust You with me, all of me, all that I have.

Amen

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Sunrise, Sunset

Daily Reading

Jeremiah 30-31

Daily Thought

Thus says the Lord,
who gives the sun for light by day
and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night,
who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—
the Lord of hosts is his name. ~Jeremiah 31:35 

It says sunrise will occur at 6:32am, so I show up at 6:30 and wait. Five minutes pass, I check my watch, and still no sun. Here is what I know: either my watch is wrong or the charts were wrong, or maybe I am facing west. The sun is not wrong. It shows up exactly on schedule every morning. You can bet your life on it; in fact, God says you should: 

“If this fixed order departs
from before me,” declares the Lord,
“then shall the offspring of Israel cease
from being a nation before me forever.” ~Jeremiah 31:36

Judah sinned and was taken captive by God’s enemies. Would God remain faithful to them, they wondered, even though they were not faithful to him? Jeremiah assures them God fastens his promises to the universe; more sure is his Word than the sun and the moon and the stars. “This is the day that the Lord has made,” proclaims the Psalms. Every sunrise is a promise kept, a daily reminder that God is true.  “Let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:24).

Daily Prayer

My God, You are true and right and good. By Your breath this world came into existence, and Your Son holds it together. “He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17). You are faithful and true. When You declare what will happen, it will happen.

I place my trust in You, O God, because there is no foundation more sure. So much is outside of my control, I would feel helpless and hopeless, but I know that You, my God, are sovereign. You have declared the end from the beginning, so that I may always live in the wonderful hope of things to come.

Amen

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Most Blessed

Daily Reading

Jeremiah 26-29

Daily Thought

God was teaching the Hebrews in captivity what they had failed to learn in freedom. Israel was created by the promise of God, “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:2). The nation liked being blessed; they did not care much, however, to be a blessing.

When I was hired for my first job, I thought the company existed in order to provide me with a paycheck. My dad straightened me out, “Son, you work for them. They don’t work for you.” My employer, he explained, exists to make a product and a profit. The better they are at what they do, the better they will take care of their employees. Dad taught me making the success of a company my goal is the best way to find my success.

Judah would be captive in Babylon for seventy years. Jeremiah’s advise to Judah was Dad’s advise to me, “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare’” (Jeremiah 29:7). Be a blessing first. Your blessings follow. In fact, the most blessed in life are those who bless others most.

Daily Prayer

Father God, You made me to do Your work and will in the world. You gave humans mastery over creation, to subdue it and care for it, to populate it and enjoy it. We failed badly. We thought of ourselves first, and wanted the world to serve us, and this is how we have acted on our own ever since. It is how I act on my own.

Thank You for not leaving me on my own. You put my self-centered actions to death on the cross, and now You are working on the desires that remain. You are changing me from the inside out, teaching me grace and humility and compassion. I don’t make it easy, but thank You for persisting. Do what it takes, God, whatever it is. Make me a blessing to others and a testimony to Your grace.

Amen

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Righteousness

Daily Reading

Jeremiah 23-25

Daily Thought

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’” ~Jeremiah 23:5-6

Jeremiah speaks of Jesus and it is good that God will make him king because we would never elect him. Not with that slogan. Browse our bumper stickers and web banners and you will find words such as hope and peace and love and justice, but never righteousness. We do not place value in righteousness. 

We bought our first home and it needed a retaining wall in the backyard, so I headed to Home Depot with the measurements. I gave the clerk the height and length of the wall and he sold me the blocks. Too many blocks, I thought, and I questioned him and discovered an additional row of blocks called the footer must be buried underground. I did not like to pay for a row of blocks that would never be seen, but the wall would never stand without them. 

This is righteousness. It is not for show (Matthew 6:1, “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them”) and comes with a cost (Matthew 5:10, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake”), righteousness is buried beneath the surface, but hope and peace and love and justice will not stand without it. 

Daily Prayer

My Heavenly Father, Your Word is good, it fills me and keeps me going. It is what I live on. That’s what Jesus said, more than bread, every word from Your mouth gives me a life that is full and vibrant.

May I feast on what the right food, what brings light and life into my world, rather than the dark and empty words that waste to nothing. May I fill myself with words of hope and faith and love, grace and truth, justice and righteousness.

Amen

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A New Heart

Daily Reading

Jeremiah 14-17

Daily Thought

If you do a thing often enough, you become that thing. Pick up a basketball, practice and play, and, in time, you will become a basketball player. So, also, a pianist, a writer, a welder, and, yes, a sinner. It is argued that there are no bad people, rather people do bad things; however do a bad thing often enough, it will become part of who you are. “The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron; with a point of diamond it is engraved on the tablet of their heart, and on the horns of their altars” (Jeremiah 17:1). The heart in Jewish thought is the essence of you. Doing is becoming. Sin leaves a deep mark. Jeremiah etched with a diamond-tipped pen the sins of Judah on the stone horns of the altar, as sin itself has left its indelible mark on the hearts of the people.

Habits can be broken, but the heart requires more; “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). Jeremiah cries for a surgeon, a Savior, because more than changing habits, he is healing hearts, “Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved” (Jeremiah 17:14). A Savior will come, one who can and will, if you let him, erase what has been written and write something new, “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Jeremiah 31:33). Let him create a new you with new habits, repetitions of righteousness that change your heart.

Daily Prayer

Holy God, lead me in Your ways; change my heart. May I desire good, may I love deeply, as You do, so that my heart will be holy and righteous. I cannot do this, I need Someone who knows me better than I know myself. I am deceived by my own heart; You designed me for better than this. Take over, God.

Teach me new things, build in me new habits, create in me a new heart, O God.

Amen

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Something Good

Daily Reading

Jeremiah 10-13

Daily Thought

“But the Lord is the true God;
he is the living God and the everlasting King.
It is he who made the earth by his power,
who established the world by his wisdom,
and by his understanding stretched out the heavens” (Jeremiah 10:10, 12).

In a discussion of first causes, or “what started everything,” the believer’s answer is God. Then comes the snappy retort, “But, who created God?” Really? If someone else created God, would not that someone else then be God? Then who created that one? Ad infinitum. The point is, there is a beginning and either nothing or some One started everything. Those are the choices.

Idolatry is replacing God with something else, but Jeremiah argues that anything else is actually nothing, “Idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field, and they cannot speak; they have to be carried, for they cannot walk. Do not be afraid of them, for they cannot do evil, neither is it in them to do good” (Jeremiah 10:5). Our idols nowadays are not so much wood and stone, but ideas. In college, I was unprepared for an essay exam, so I wrote a lot of nothing, hoping volume would pass for knowledge. When the paper was graded and returned, the professor had written across the front, large and in red, “This is not right. It is not even wrong.” It was nothing. Not bad, not good; nothing. “Every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols, for his images are false, and there is no breath in them. They are worthless, a work of delusion” (Jeremiah 10:14-15). 

The problem with nothing is, well, Billy Preston sang it, “Nothin’ from nothin’ leaves nothin’.” There is a simple poetic sense to that. “Nothing comes from nothing. Nothing ever could,” submits Julie Andrews in Sound of Music. “So somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good.” She is on to something.

And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. ~Genesis 1:31

Daily Prayer

My Father in heaven, You are holy and good, righteous and wonderful, and You made me in Your image. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Every one is.

I know, God, that I am Your creation, accountable to You. I am not my own, I belong to You, and the welfare of others is my concern because it is Your concern. You have blessed me, Lord, and I shall strive to be a blessing to others. What I have I will share, holding loosely all that You have placed in my possession. May I be an agent of Your grace to this world.

Amen

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In God We Trust

Daily Reading

Jeremiah 7-9

Daily Thought

The word came to Jeremiah from the Lord, “Stand in the gate of the Lord’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, ‘Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, “We are delivered!”–only to go on doing all these abominations?’” (Jeremiah 7:1-2, 9-10). Jeremiah is speaking to Judah; the same may be said to us. “In God We Trust” is engraved on every coin, every piece of paper that bankrolls our rebellion against God laws. I do not know how we get away with it. I do not know that we will.

Judah did not. “Raise a lamentation on the bare heights, for the Lord has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath. I will silence in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, for the land shall become a waste” (Jeremiah 7:29, 34). Thus cries the weeping prophet, Jeremiah. Thus says the Lord. “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap” (Galatians 6:7).

That is the bad news; here is the good news. God’s judgment is just, yet through judgment comes grace. The word that came to Jeremiah was not the last word, for God has the final Word and “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). Our judgment would not be excused, it would be executed on a cross. “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed” (1Peter 2:24). God’s Word is true, for Judah, for us, forever. I deserve what I get, and instead Jesus took what was mine, and gave me what is his. I wear his righteousness because he bore my sin. Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound.

Daily Prayer

My Lord and God, I wear Your righteousness because You bore my sin. I am created in Your image, and I can do all things through You because it is from You and You alone that I have the power. In my sin, I diminish Your glory, but in Your Son, Your glory shines anew.

Thank You for this life, and all that is in it. God, whatever riches and pleasures and blessings come my way, may I lay them at Your feet. Your glory is my delight.

Amen

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Always Hope

Daily Reading

Jeremiah 4-6

Daily Thought

Abraham’s attempt to rescue Sodom from judgment began with, “Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city” (Genesis 18:24). Then forty-five, then forty, thirty, twenty, and, at last, ten. For ten righteous people, God would lift his hand of judgment. 

Jeremiah need only find one in Judah, 

“Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, look and take note!
Search her squares to see if you can find a man,
one who does justice and seeks truth,
that I may pardon her.” ~Jeremiah 5:1

Jeremiah found none. God’s judgment against Judah is just as he turns his creation upside down. 

“I looked on the earth, and behold, it was without form and void;
and to the heavens, and they had no light.
I looked on the mountains, and behold, they were quaking,
and all the hills moved to and fro.
I looked, and behold, there was no man,
and all the birds of the air had fled.
I looked, and behold, the fruitful land was a desert,
and all its cities were laid in ruins
before the Lord, before his fierce anger.” ~Jeremiah 4:23-26 

Little wonder Jeremiah is known as the weeping prophet, for these are the visions he must proclaim. Nevertheless, the a prophet’s job is not to pronounce final doom, but future hope. Out of destruction shall come deliverance, “for thus says the Lord, ‘The whole land shall be a desolation; yet I will not make a full end’” (Jeremiah 4:27).

Jeremiah may weep, but he need not despair. Even when there is no one found righteous, there is always God, so there is always hope.

Daily Prayer

My God, You are love, bearing all things, enduring to the end. I think I put Your patience to the test, and yet Your grace perseveres. I deserve what I should get, but You took what I deserve and gave me life, a life eternally wonderful. Thank You.

The life You give me I return to You to be used as You direct. I want to be part of good news to the world. May I live daily grateful to You, gracious to others.

Amen