Tuesday, June 25, 2019

"I am a God who is everywhere..." Jeremiah 23:23-24


Jeremiah 23:23-24 (GNT)
In this passage God is speaking to His people through Jeremiah and letting His people know that He hasn’t abandoned them even though there have been false prophets in the camp prophesying things that God has not said. 

It is a common tendency for us to look to the professionally trained pastor, teacher, or prophet to lead us when we are in need of direction or guidance regarding our spiritual life.  It is that tendency to fall back to wanting to live a biblical life by the book, rather than living a Christ Centered life being led by the spirit listening for Jesus speaking to us.  Jesus came so that we could be set free “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free...” Galatians 5:1  

It is recognizing that being led by the spirit is what has been intended all along, not trusting another man’s vision or training to lead us.

Jeremiah saw this clearly and prophesied about it in chapter 31:31-34
The Lord says, “The time is coming when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the old covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and led them out of Egypt. Although I was like a husband to them, they did not keep that covenant. The new covenant that I will make with the people of Israel will be this: I will put my law within them and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. None of them will have to teach a neighbor to know the Lord, because all will know me, from the least to the greatest. I will forgive their sins and I will no longer remember their wrongs. I, the Lord, have spoken.”

Notice that the result of the New Covenant would be that God’s people would not turn to teachers for wisdom about God because “I will put my law within them and write it on their hearts” and “because they will all know me, from the least to the greatest” says the Lord.  

It probably sounded like craziness to the Israelites, but it shouldn’t sound crazy now to us who are being saved, seeing what provision God has provided us through the death of Jesus on the cross.  

This New Covenant is now in place and we are heirs to that promise.  We are not called to lives based on biblical knowledge alone, we are called to live lives which are in Christ, being centered and led by the Holy Spirit and what God has written in our hearts.

God the Father loves us so much that he would rather die than be separated from us, He proved that through His son Jesus.  We have such good news that we are loved by the Father and that Christ now lives inside of us.  Christ will teach us about everything that we need to know regarding the love of the Father that we may personally encounter and relate intimately with Him, 
just ask Him.  (ref: 1 John 2:27)

For further reading, read the story of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15:11-32.  Jesus told this story as an example of the outpouring love of the Father, never condemning but always desiring a close relationship with His children.  The Father will never cut you off or disown you, no matter what you have done.  His only desire is to know His children and to receive them back into a close personal relationship with Himself and His family.
Be Blessed;
Stephen Barnett

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