Theological Commentary: Click Here
Discipleship Focus: Approval
- Approval: We all need to feel as though we are accepted. When we seek the approval of God, our Up is in the right place. But when we seek the approval of other people besides God, we open the door to pursuing false gods and risk putting someone or something other than God in our Up position.
I love
Jeremiah. Here is a man who is
repeatedly hated because of his message.
Here is a man whose messages largely didn’t bring comfort to the people
who heard them. But when we look at
Jeremiah we continue to see a man who looked to God for approval. Jeremiah didn’t look to men for approval; he
looked to God.
How can
we see this in this chapter? Well, the
first place is pretty easy. Jeremiah is
proclaiming that the Hebrew people need to surrender to Babylon and submit to
God’s plan for captivity. This is not a
popular plan. The leaders in Jerusalem
don’t care for this message. They think that he is subverting the loyal Jews in
Jerusalem. So they throw him into a
cistern. In fact, they leave him to die. They leave him without food or water. If there is any greater evidence that
Jeremiah wasn’t looking for the approval of mankind, I’m not sure what it would
look like.
Second,
look at what happens after Jeremiah is rescued by the Ethiopian out of the
pit. Zedekiah the king comes to Jeremiah
and asks for a prophecy. Jeremiah is in
a place of potential favor. If Jeremiah
is looking for a place to get the approval of Zedekiah, here’s his
opportunity. But I commend Jeremiah for
what he says. Jeremiah passes on the
opportunity to please Zedekiah and instead tells Zedekiah that he isn’t going
to say anything because Zedekiah won’t like what Jeremiah has to say. Jeremiah stays loyal to the truth. Jeremiah cares more about God’s opinion of
him rather than sparing his own life.
Jeremiah repeatedly gives us a picture of what it looks like get
approval from God even if it costs us the approval of mankind.
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