Today’s Reading, Jeremiah 42-45
Focal Scripture: Jeremiah 43:2 “then Azariah son of Hoshaiah, Johanan son of Kareah, and all the other arrogant men responded to Jeremiah, “You are speaking a lie! The Lord our God has not sent you to say, ‘You must not go to Egypt to stay there for a while!’”
When you are given the option to believe a truth or the lie many people would prefer the lie. Why? Because the truth is often difficult. The truth usually means you have to change course or direction. It can often challenge your core beliefs and make you question what you thought was accurate. Don’t believe me, give somebody the uncomfortable truth that requires change or a lie that allows them to stay oblivious to what they are experiencing.
In today’s reading we see this happen. Jeremiah is giving the truth to the people. He told them if the king surrenders all would work out. He then told them if he didn’t surrender they would be destroyed. These people didn’t want to believe the truth so they accused the prophet of lying. They got an answer but it was not what they wanted to hear. This caused them to rebel and become infuriated over the word of the Lord.
Before you make an accusation and think that this could never happen with you, we need to press the pause button. We must ask ourselves if we have been confronted with the truth by God and refused to walk in it when asked. The answer for all of us would be a resounding yes. We all have rejected the truth of Gods word in our lives and pursued our own agendas. We do this because submitting to the truth of the Lord can be scary. It may cause us to go down a path we can’t see.
So what should we do? We must humble ourselves and trust the word of the Lord. We must do what he asks, when he asks. This can only be done by training ourselves to be obedient to him in the small areas of our lives. This will then lead to our obedience in larger areas of our lives. What we can’t do is reject the word of the Lord. We must be a people that is honest and upfront about our tendency to disobey.
God will asks us to do difficult things in our life. Obedience is a skill that must be flexed. It is a skill that has to be practiced. If not we will think our ways are better than the Lords.
Tomorrow, I plan on reading Jeremiah 46-48
