The resources God has given us to live a thriving life are His Word, Spirit, and People.
Read God’s Word:
Jeremiah 1-4
Act 2: God’s Covenant People
Scene 7: Kings and Prophets: The southern kingdom as God’s people
Background Information: Jeremiah 1-4
Jeremiah ministered for over fifty years, from the time of the good king Josiah to the final fall of Judah to Babylon. He portrays the people’s idolatry as adultery. God has been the faithful husband, Israel the unfaithful wife. God will not finally and fully reject his people, but the end of the Old Covenant is at hand. Judgment is coming, and this time there will be no reprieve. Like Moses, he is reluctant to accept the fact that God has called him to the vocation of a prophet. God refocuses Jeremiah from looking at his own feelings of inadequacy to the fact that God made him for God’s own purposes. Before he was born, God had decided to use Jeremiah in this role. Clearly, since this was true, God was smart and strong enough to equip Jeremiah with all he would need to be faithful in his calling. Spoiler alert: Jeremiah’s life and ministry would be hard, very hard. Following God’s calling does not equal an easy life, but it does equal a life filled with purpose. Imagine speaking of a coming judgment for decades to your own neighbors who had no interest in hearing of such things. Imagine being the person who others walk by, point at, and say, “There he is, that prophet of doom!” It was worse than words; Jeremiah suffered physical abuse for being faithful to his calling. We have been called by God to speak the truth of the gospel to others. We have been called to warn of impending judgment on sin for those who do not turn to Christ. We should not be a nuisance, but neither should we fail in our calling because of fear of what others think. Jeremiah elegantly describes what has brought the people to the point of judgment.
“My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”
Jeremiah 2:13
These two sins form a single movement in a person’s life. As we turn away from God, the only source of the water of life, we simultaneously turn to our own means of quenching our souls’ thirst. These wells that we dig, trying to find life on our own, bring nothing but dust; there is no life in them. The cure is repentance, another two-part, single movement. In repentance, we turn away from our sins and our own attempts to quench our thirst, and we turn towards Christ, the well of living water.
Pray:
Praise God for…
Thank God for…
Confess your sins to God
Pray for God to continue to raise us River members to go live among unreached peoples for the sake of the gospel. Pray for God to equip those in our midst who are preparing to go.
Ask God for… (what else concerns you?)
Reflect:
Write down one passage of scripture that stood out to you today.
Write down why this passage stood out to you.
Engage Community:
Text or call someone now and tell them…
– What you are praying for.
– What stood out from God’s word today.