Jeremiah

26Jan12

Jeremiah 1:1-2 “The words of Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah, of the priests that were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin: To whom the word of the LORD came in the days of Josiah the son of Amon king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign.”

Of all the books of prophecy in the Bible, Jeremiah’s is the most personal. Large sections of Jeremiah are descriptive of what was happening in this prophet’s heart as he follows through with the task that God had called him to…and it was one of the most difficult tasks the Lord had ever assigned to someone.

From the start, God told Jeremiah his audience wouldn’t receive him, and his ministry wouldn’t appear successful to outward eyes (Jeremiah 1:18). That didn’t matter, however. Jeremiah was to speak for the Lord, no matter how unreceptive the people were. And he did. He faithfully carried out his duties as a prophet of the Lord for more than forty years.

But as hard as Jeremiah’s ministry was, he had a secret weapon. He had something that always overcame the adversity he faced. He had an uninhibited connection with God. Over and over again, the Book of Jeremiah gives us snapshots of the back-and-forth between the prophet and the Lord. And what we see is a man who was real with God when he was truly suffering. Here’s just a small sampling: “Righteous art thou, O LORD, when I plead with thee: yet let me talk with thee of thy judgments: Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously? Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth! I have neither lent on usury, nor men have lent to me on usury; yet every one of them doth curse me. Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuseth to be healed? wilt thou be altogether unto me as a liar, and as waters that fail?” (Jeremiah 12:1, 15:10, 18) Do you see how real and raw Jeremiah is with the Lord? He doesn’t approach God in a detached or cold way but speaks to Him like a real person…because He is.

Sadly, a lot of people don’t have that kind of connection with the Lord. Even many Christians never feel the freedom to be this honest when they pray to Him. Don’t let that be true of you. Be respectful and reverent towards God, but at the same time be as real with Him as Jeremiah was.