Year 6, Day 71: Jeremiah 18

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. 

God calls Jeremiah to go and visit a potter.  I don't know if you have ever watched a pottery wheel in action, but I find it a hypnotic experience.  The clay goes around and around.  The potter has wet hands to shape the clay.  The clay can't be too dry or it won't mold.  But the clay can't be too wet or it will collapse and lose its form.  If you watch long enough – even with expert potters – you will see a structure collapse.  This is what Jeremiah sees happen.  God tells Jeremiah that the people are just like this clay. 

God wants the people to be molded in an image of His own making.  He has given them every opportunity to succeed.  But they don't want it.  They don't want to be made in His image.  They want to be made in their own image.  They want to do what they want with their life. 

As evidence of this, they reject Jeremiah's message.  Even worse, they plot to destroy Jeremiah!  They want to silence his message.  Here is what Jeremiah gets for following God.  The people put their own approval ahead of God's approval.  The people want what they want for themselves rather than what God wants for them. 

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Year 6, Day 70: Jeremiah 17

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Obedience

• Obedience: Genuine and satisfying obedience comes out of our identity.  Our true identity comes only from our Father.

The end of this chapter is crystal clear.  God tells Jeremiah to tell the people that all they have to do to enjoy God’s blessing is to respect the Sabbath.  All they have to do to have good princes and kings is to honor the day of the Lord.  It sounds so simple.  Nevermind that there are 9 other commandments; God is absolutely content to settle for a single one being honored.

No, I don’t genuinely think that God is throwing out the other 9 commandments.  But I do think that the point that God wants to make about the people of God is that our attitude towards God has a huge impact on the rest of our life.  If we are humble before God, the rest of our life will follow.  But if we are arrogant and do not humble ourselves before God then we cannot truly expect the rest of our life to be with God, either.

When we acknowledge God and center our week upon Him, we will center our lives upon Him, too.  When we are humble before God and acknowledge Him, He will look into our lives and fill it with godly people who can walk with us in our faith.  If our life is full of obedient worship of God, we aren’t likely to have trouble honoring parents, not lying, not murdering, not being envious, or any of the other things that God wants us to do.  Being godly starts with us taking up a position of obedience to Him.

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Year 6, Day 69: Jeremiah 16

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Protection

• Protection: In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus teaches us to pray that God might deliver us from evil – even the Evil One.  Sometimes we need God’s protection from the sin around us.  Sometimes we need protection from the sinful people around us.  Other times we need protection from the sin that lies within ourselves. In any case, Jesus’ point is clear.  We need protection from the Father to make it through each and every day.

It is finally in this 16^th chapter of Jeremiah that we get a glimpse of God’s full plan.  Yes, there have been all kinds of promises about judgment in the prior chapters.  There is even a healthy dose of that here in Jeremiah, too.  But it isn’t the judgment that makes this chapter special and unique.  It is the promise at the end.

As we finish this chapter, we hear the Lord make an unusual claim.  There will come a day when people stop talking about the Hebrew people as the people who were brought up out of Egypt by God.  That should make us raise our eyebrows a little.  After all, the Exodus is one of the greatest stories in the Bible!  God’s power was on full display!  Why would they stop talking about that event?  God then tell us that there will come a say when people remember the Hebrew people as the people that God brought out of the northern country.

Think about this claim for a second.  What this means is that God will have beaten the Egyptians – the big power in the world for many centuries.  Then God will have beaten the Assyrians and Babylonians, the next two big powers on the scene.  God is telling the Hebrew people – and the world – that He can protect His people from even the biggest nations in the world.  Human and worldly power means nothing to God’s plan.

But God goes further than just promising protection.  God tells us how He is going to do it.  God tells us that He is already preparing to send fisherman to catch the people who go into captivity and who turn to Him.  {As an aside, I love that the occupation represented the most among Jesus’ disciples is the fisherman!}  God tells His people through Jeremiah that hunters will go out and seek the lost.

This is what I love about God’s protection.  God isn’t passive about His protection.  He doesn’t just say, “I’m a shelter if you come to me.”  God says, “I will actively protect you.”  God says, “I will actively send people out into the world to protect you.”  That’s God’s protection.

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Year 6, Day 68: Jeremiah 15

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Obedience

• Obedience: Genuine and satisfying obedience comes out of our identity.  Our true identity comes only from our Father.

This is another difficult chapter to read in Jeremiah.  This chapter is full of God’s insistence that the people won’t repent.  God insists that Jeremiah will be like a bronze wall to them.  In other words, the people will rise up against him, speak against him, and try to overcome him in spite of their inability to do so.  This chapter is all about how the people may claim repentance but their lives don’t bear it out.

One of my favorite passages in this chapter is the claim that Moses and Samuel couldn’t help these people.  God’s not trying to be rude to Jeremiah.  He’s not trying to say that Jeremiah is inferior to Moses or Samuel.  What he is actually trying to do is to make Jeremiah feel better. 

Remember that the generation that was with Moses was the generation of the exodus.  These are the people who got to see God’s plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, the manna from heaven, the water from the rock, and several other things.  They saw all of these great things and had Moses as their leader.  Yet they rebelled so much that the whole generation died in the desert.

Or, take the generation with Samuel.  God was their king.  Yet, they rebelled against God’s nature as king.  They wanted a human king.  So they got Saul.  But the point is that even though Samuel was an incredible man and a very righteous leader the people rebelled.  They got something in their mind that was contrary to God and they disobeyed.

The generation that Jeremiah lives among is no different.  Jeremiah is a righteous man like Samuel and Moses.  But the people still do not obey.  The people are not getting their identity from God.  Jeremiah 15:6 is a telling verse.  They are so disobedient that God is weary of withholding His judgment.  That’s not a great place to find oneself.

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Year 6, Day 67: Jeremiah 14

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: In

• In: This is the word we use to express our relationships with our spiritual family.  These are often the people who hold us spiritually accountable.  They are the ones to whom we typically go for discussion and discernment.  These are the ones with whom we learn to share leadership.  They are the ones with whom we become family on mission.

The opening of this chapter is much like we’ve encountered in other chapters of Jeremiah.  Jeremiah speaks about how the Lord seems distant from the Hebrew people.  God’s response is typical of God’s responses in other places.  God tells Jeremiah that it is the people who have wandered from Him, not He who has wandered from the people.  God is willing to let us wander.  After all, is there any place we can go from which He cannot reach us?  However, when we are distant from God we need to remember that it is we who wandered.

So how does this bring us to the topic of In?  If we look into the second section of this chapter we get an opportunity to hear Jeremiah talk about how the prophets are announcing news contrary to Jeremiah.  The prophets are announcing that there will be peace, not a sword.  The prophets are announcing that God will not bring judgment.  The prophets are encouraging people to live their lives as they see fit rather than warning them of the judgment to come.  The prophets are encouraging rampant humanism rather than drawing the people closer to God.

Fundamentally, this is a problem of In.  We need to be careful about to whom we listen.  If we want to be godly, we need to make sure that when we seek advice it is from godly people.  If we do not get sound godly advice, then we will wander away from God.  If we do not get sound godly instruction then we will pursue the desires of our own heart.

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Year 6, Day 66: Jeremiah 13

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Identity

• Identity: Our true identity comes from the Father.  Only when our identity comes from God can we be obedient in ways that satisfy our person to our core.

God asks Jeremiah to go and find a linen belt.  Some translations call this a loincloth.  The main point of this garment is that it is a belt that went around the waist and held a person’s undergarments to their body.  Being close to the body, you would want it to be clean and smooth so that it wouldn’t chafe.

Then Jeremiah is told to go and bury the loincloth.  Like all things organic, the water in the soil and the soil itself works on the linen and destroys it.  The linen is no longer clean. It is no longer smooth.  If worn, the linen belt will chafe the body uncomfortably.  In other words, the linen belt has lost its ability to be useful.  It has lost its identity.

God reminds us that this linen garment is an analogy for His people.  They have allowed themselves to be corrupted in the world.  They lust after things that are not of God.  Their heart desires that for which God has not made them.  In their passion, they become soiled.  They become something that chafes when used.  God’s people have lost their identity.

Why does this happen?  God tells us why as we close out this chapter.  The people are proud.  They are self-centered.  They care only about themselves.  We only care about the crown of greatness that we can make for ourselves that we don’t even realize when that crown of earthly greatness becomes our very bondage.  We lose our identity and find ourselves soiled for the purposes of God.

Thankfully, we can know forgiveness.  We can try again.  We can be made clean again.  We may lose our identity, but God enables it to not be lost forever.  Our identity can always be restored through God.

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Year 6, Day 65: Jeremiah 12

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Challenge

• Challenge: God does not merely wish us to be in relationship with Him as we are.  He challenges us to grow, stretch, and transform as we take on the mantle of being His representatives to this world.

Jeremiah opens this chapter by lodging a complaint with God.  Mind you, this isn’t a complaint against God as we would see it.  He isn’t blaming God for making these people evil.  Jeremiah is complaining because he sees all of the unrighteous people around him going allowed to be unrighteous and not getting any punishment.  Jeremiah is wondering why it is that the unrighteous prosper.

That’s really the challenge of the righteous, isn’t it?  The people of righteousness are called to do the right thing regardless of how other people behave.  When we see people living unrighteously and prospering, it can be difficult for us to stay the course of righteousness.  It can be difficult for us to understand why the unrighteous prosper in a world over which God is supposed to be King.

That’s what Jeremiah is thinking and feeling.  That’s the challenge with which Jeremiah wrestles.  But God comes in and shows Jeremiah the way through the challenge.  God reminds Jeremiah about perspective.  We see with a perspective of “now.”  We want righteousness now.  We want justice now.  We want a verdict now.  God sees with a perspective of “all.”  God knows judgment is coming.  God knows the judgment will sift the righteous away from the unrighteous.  God knows that the judgment will bring the righteous back into restoration.  We see now; God sees all.

For the record, in Christianity we can also see through the lens of eternal.  We should always be willing to let go of the current events in light of the future existence.  Isn’t it worth putting up with a little unrighteous prospering knowing that God will make an eternity of perfection?  Isn’t the future life with God worth allowing God to give the unrighteous enough rope to prove why God’s judgment is righteous?

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Year 6, Day 64: Jeremiah 11

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.

Jeremiah continues to be a difficult book to read because so much of the book is about rebellion.  The people aren’t listening to God.  They aren’t listening to God speak through Jeremiah.  They don’t really care about God, God’s ways, or God’s desire for their life.  They aren’t looking to God or God’s messengers for approval.

In fact, they are looking to rebel against Jeremiah.  They are tired of Jeremiah and his message.  They are looking to bring harm to Jeremiah.  Not only are they not looking to Jeremiah for approval, they are finding their own approval by planning harm to Jeremiah!

So what does God say to all of this?  God tells Jeremiah to not even pray for them.  This is twice that we’ve heard this command from God.  God tells Jeremiah that if they are not going to look to Him for approval, then He will not feel the need to hear them when they cry out to Him.  Learn that lesson.

We will surely all rebel.  We will all sin.  But when we sin, we should want to repent.  We should want to be restored.  We should want God to hear us win our sin and in our need.  That is why we should seek the approval that comes from Him.

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Year 6, Day 63: Jeremiah 10

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: King

• King: This is the pinnacle of the Kingdom Triangle.  When we look towards God’s position in the universe, we acknowledge that He is an omnipotent king.  Authority comes from Him.  Power comes through His authority.  He is looking for representatives for His kingdom.

I believe that God’s omnipotence is the main theme of this chapter.  How many times do we hear a reference to God’s power?  He creates.  He establishes.  He rules.  He is the man in charge.

We also hear Jeremiah compare God to the other gods.  Can they walk around?  Can they move?  Can they do anything out of their own power?  Being fashioned by mankind, do they even have any power of their own?

I really believe that this chapter is all about God being the supreme king of the universe.  Nobody can match His power.  Nothing else can claim to have been around at the creation of the world.  Nothing else can actually do anything out of its own power.  He is the king.  He put this world into motion and it is Him who sustains it.

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Year 6, Day 62: Jeremiah 9

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Ambition

• Ambition: We all need a goal to which we can strive.  When our ambition comes from God, we find fulfillment in our obedience into that for which we have been equipped because our Out is in proper focus.  But when our ambition comes from ourselves, we find ourselves chasing after our own dreams and trying to find fulfillment in accomplishments of our own making.

I find this chapter an interesting perspective on humanity.  God complains through Jeremiah that His people cannot be trusted.  They lie.  They deceive.  They are not trustworthy.  They weary their communities.  The heap oppression upon the oppressed.  We plan to take advantage of our neighbors even while we talk nicely to one another.  God gives a horrible condemnation at the end of the chapter when He claims that all the nations are uncircumcised and even His own people are uncircumcised in their hearts.

What do all of these things say?  Human beings are selfish.  We are self-centered.  We lie to get our own advantage.  We say one thing but do another when it is to our advantage.  We make nice with the people around us until we can take advantage of them.  In other words, our ambition reigns supreme.  We want what we want and we want it now.  We don’t consider who will have to do without, we only care what we can have.

What can we really learn?  If the problem is that we spend too much time focusing on ourselves, then the answer is focusing on ourselves less.  That’s why I love Jeremiah 9:23-24.  We should not boast in our own strength, our own wisdom, or our own wealth.  We should boast in that we know the Lord.  That’s the funny thing.  When we focus on God and God’s ways we also inherently focus on our neighbors, the poor, the unprivileged, the downtrodden, the orphans, the widows, and so forth.  The cure isn’t making ourselves better.  The cure is letting go of ourselves and focusing on God more.

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Year 6, Day 61: Jeremiah 8

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Bear Fruit

• Bear Fruit: We bear fruit after we grow.  Bearing fruit is ultimately the goal of abiding and the goal of being called into the Kingdom of God.  However, while bearing fruit is our calling, it is not the end.  We bear fruit so that we can then prune, abide, grow, and bear more fruit in another season.  Bearing fruit is not the end, but rather only a portion of the whole rhythm of life into which God has called us.

I think the lens of fruit is an interesting one through which we can view this chapter.  Once more we hear God complaining about the Hebrew people.  But you’ll notice that in today’s verses we don’t focus as much on what they’ve done wrong.  What we can hear as a theme through the text is more along what the people haven’t done right.

They have healed the people lightly.  In other words, they are busy telling the people around them, “Oh, there’s nothing wrong with you.  You’re fine just the way that you are.”  They say, “Peace, peace” when there is no peace.  In other words, the Hebrew people aren’t bearing fruit of repentance and relationship with God.  They are encouraging one another to continue to exist as they want, not as they should.

In another verse, God tells them that they didn’t even know when to be ashamed of themselves.  “They don’t know how to blush,” God says.  Now we find the reason that the Hebrew people can’t correct the lives of the people in their community.  They don’t even know what is right and wrong in themselves!  It’s hard to bear fruit when you don’t even know how.

This brings us to one of my favorite phrases in Jeremiah when it comes to God’s expectation to see fruit in us.  “When I would gather, there are no grapes on the vine or figs in the trees.”  In other words, there is no fruit.  There is nothing in their lives in which God can partake.  What a sad expression of God’s own people.

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Year 6, Day 60: Jeremiah 7

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Character

• Character: Having the interior life that is necessary to support the work that God sets before a person.  It is hearing from God and obeying.  It is doing the right thing when nobody is looking.

I say above that character is doing the right thing when nobody is looking.  Here again we can hear God chastising the Hebrew people for their behavior.  They are claiming to be in relationship with God but there is no substance to their life.  They love their own desires and don’t really care that they are straying far from God’s path.

God then tells Jeremiah to not pray for these people.  God tells Jeremiah to not lift up a cry for them.  In other words, God is done with them.  Of course, remember that God had Jeremiah tell them only a few verses earlier that if they repent that God will forgive them.  Also remember that God has promised to bring them back out of captivity.  So it isn’t so much that God is done with them as it is that God is frustrated with them in the moment.

But if you are Jeremiah, what do you do?  God is clearly frustrated.  God clearly has a plan.  But these are people that you feel called to love as well.  What does a person of impeccable character do?  Love the people God has called you to love or obediently listen to the voice of God?

I’m reminder of another great leader in the Bible: Moses.  When Moses was up on Mount Sinai and the people built a golden calf, God came to Moses with a plan to smite the people and start over.  In Moses’ case, he argues for the people and carries the day.  God relents and the people live – albeit wandering through the desert for 40 years.

What do you do if you are Jeremiah?  What does having good spiritual character mean in this circumstance?

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Year 6, Day 59: Jeremiah 6

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Father

• Father: This is the pinnacle of the Covenant Triangle.  God is the Father.  He is the creator.  He is love.  Our relationship with the Father is rooted in His love for us.  We get our identity through Him.  When the Father is in our life, obedience becomes clear.

When I read through Jeremiah 6, it is clear that this chapter is a verse spoken out of frustration.  God complains that Judah – His own people – will not listen.  They won’t respond.  They won’t heed His words.  They won’t take note of the people that He sends among them.  God mourns their disobedience and He mourns their closed ears.

In many respects, I feel like God is the parent and Israel is the teenager.  If you read through this chapter, don’t you feel like God’s people are teenagers?  They are old enough to know pleasure and want pleasure, but nowhere near mature enough to put any limits on their life.  They are old enough to be taught wisdom, but they are nowhere near wise enough to actually heed any of it.  God’s people are flexing their own identity and their own interests and casting aside the teachings of their youth.  As I read through this chapter, I truly feel for God as He speaks through Jeremiah.

Every parent knows what it feels like to love their children unconditionally.  But every parent knows what it feels like to have a teenager turn away from what they’ve been taught and pursue their own interests to their own peril!  But that doesn’t mean that the parent stops loving.  That is God here in this chapter as well.  He is still the Father.  Even though they have uncircumcised ears and cannot listen, even though they scorn the very words of their Father, even though they don’t know to be ashamed when they make a transgression, even through all of these things, God still loves.  We know from a historical perspective that these people that the judgment that God brings down upon His people is not permanent. 

God truly is like a Father.  He loves us unconditionally.  He blesses us when we listen and obey.  But he also punishes us when we deserve it and require it. 

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Year 6, Day 58: Jeremiah 5

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Appetite

• Appetite: We all have needs that need to be filled.  When we allow ourselves to be filled with the people and things that God brings into our life, we will be satisfied because our In will be in proper focus.  But when we try to fill ourselves with our own desires we end up frustrated by an insatiable hunger.

God and Jeremiah have a very interesting conversation in this chapter.  God asks Jeremiah to go through all of Jerusalem and try and find a single righteous person.  In fact, God even seems to make a wager that if Jeremiah can find one then He will relent from the judgment that God has planned.  And before you guess, I want you to know that I don’t find this passage because of the massive number of people who aren’t righteous.  I’m not surprised by that.  I live in the world.  I know just how many human beings are not righteous in God’s eyes.  I know how many human beings live with themselves as the center of their life as they “look out for number one.”

What I’m surprised by is Jeremiah’s lack of response.  I honestly believe that Jeremiah understands how much righteousness is not present.  But look at what Jeremiah never says.  He never says, “Hey, God, I’m righteous!”  He never says, “What about my disciples, God?”  Jeremiah knows better.  There are no righteous people.  There are no people who seek God’s will on their own without the help of God.  Jeremiah knows the appetite that lives within His heart.

I think that this is one of the qualities that I respect about the prophets.  In truth, I think this is one of the qualities that I respect in anyone.  I respect people who have an honest evaluation about themselves.  I respect people who are not afraid to look in the mirror and see just how sinful they really are.  I do think that it is when we can see the sinful appetite within that we are then able best to rely fully upon the grace of God the best.  After all, only when I can accept that even I am not righteous on my own can I truly cling to the righteousness that God offers me for free.

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Year 6, Day 57: Jeremiah 4

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Challenge

• Challenge: God does not merely wish us to be in relationship with Him as we are.  He challenges us to grow, stretch, and transform as we take on the mantle of being His representatives to this world.

I find myself somewhat uncomfortable when reading through judgment chapters.  Of course, judgment is by its very nature uncomfortable.  Nobody likes to read verses talking about how unhappy God is at any particular moment.  But there is also a certain amount of familiarity with the condemnation.  I know I am not innocent of my own sin.  Often, I find that my own sin isn’t really all that different than the sin of the people being condemned.  When we read judgment chapters, the message typically hits home very much.

Therefore, I was struck today by the early thoughts of this chapter – especially the thoughts regarding “breaking up your fallow ground.”  Anyone who knows about an agrarian lifestyle knows that it is important to break up the fallow ground.  Sure, seeds that fall on the ground and lay there can sprout.  Trees do this kind of thing as they litter the ground with thousands – if not millions – of seeds every year and a few grow.  But if we break up the ground and plant a seed within the earth, the plant is far more likely to grow and thrive.

So where is the challenge?  The challenge is in how excited I get when I think about myself being fallow ground.  The challenge comes when I think about what it means for God to break open my fallow nature.  Do I want my nice, comfortable, and reliable life broken open?  Of course I do, but it is certainly a challenge to think about what God might do if I let Him.  The challenge is realizing that if I really do want to grow in m closeness with the Lord, I need to accept the challenge of having my fallow life broken open so God can find fertile ground to grow.

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Year 6, Day 56: Jeremiah 3

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Forgiveness

• Forgiveness: Forgiveness is when our sins are absolved by God.  We do not deserve this forgiveness, but God grants it to us anyway.  We cannot earn forgiveness, but God gives it to us anyway.  As we are forgiven by God, He also asks us to forgive others.  In fact, Jesus Himself teaches us to pray for our forgiveness in the Lord’s Prayer when He says, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

This chapter is like a roller coaster.  It begins with God absolutely slamming Judah through the words of Jeremiah.  After all, God compares Judah to a whore!  You don’t get much more critical than that.

What is it that Judah has done?  Judah has sought help from other nations.  Judah has sought help from the gods of other nations.  Judah has brought other gods into God’s Promised Land and worshipped them.  Judah has claimed to be faithful, but has proven themselves to be liars.  Judah is deserving of the condemnation.

But what is it that God says in the end of the chapter?  God looks to Israel – the northern kingdom, who is already in captivity – and promises to forgive them if they would just repent.  God even promises to grant them shepherds to lead them and teach them.  God says this as a sign to Judah.  If Judah would just turn and repent as God seeks from Israel, they too would be forgiven.

In the end, this is a very compassionate chapter after all.  We don’t deserve it, but God forgives us when we repent.  God accepts us even when we walk away from Him so long as we repent.

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Year 6, Day 55: Jeremiah 2

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Character

• Character: Having the interior life that is necessary to support the work that God sets before a person.  It is hearing from God and obeying.  It is doing the right thing when nobody is looking.

When I read Jeremiah 2, it is a very interesting chapter from God’s perspective.  This is largely a chapter about God complaining through Jeremiah about how the people have abandoned Him.  As often happens with the prophets, the complaints from God about the people easily turn into a conversation about character.

How many times in this chapter do we hear God talk about how He brought htem out of Egypt.  But they did not respond.  They did not show gratitude.  They made up their own idols and worshipped them.  They cared more about their own lives and their own gain than they did about the people around them.  They even killed the prophets that God sent among them!  Although God set them up with everything that they needed, the people fell away from God.  They didn’t have the character to stay with God.

However, the character flaws don’t actually start with the people.  Do you hear the condemnation of the leaders of the people in these verses?  The teachers didn’t teach.  The priests didn’t uphold the Law and put God in the public eye.  The failure of the people is absolutely related to a failure of the leadership.  The character flaw about which God complains through Jeremiah is absolutely connected to a character flaw in the leadership, too. 

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Year 6, Day 54: Jeremiah 1

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Authority

• Authority: Our calling.  This comes from God as king.  Because He calls us as His representatives, He gives us authority to go and do His will.

Jeremiah 1 is a great chapter.  In this chapter we hear the beginning of Jeremiah’s calling.  We hear how God calls Jeremiah.  We hear how God tells Jeremiah what he is going to be to the Hebrew people around Him.  God tells Jeremiah that he will build up, tear down, destroy, overthrown, and plant.  God has big designs for Jeremiah.

Of course, we also hear God tell Jeremiah to shut up.  When God comes to Jeremiah and tells him the plan, Jeremiah gets a bit nervous.  I can’t really say that I blame him.  Jeremiah is young.  He’s living in a time that is anticipating Babylonian conquest.  What’s not there to be nervous about?

But what I really love about this chapter is that God focuses Jeremiah away from his doubts and onto the power of God.  After all, it is God who will empower Jeremiah.  It is God who will enable Jeremiah to do what he will do.  If Jeremiah is looking to his future and looking at his own ability, he has every reason to be nervous.  But when Jeremiah remembers that God is king of the universe and Jeremiah’s authority to do these things comes from the king of the universe, suddenly he has nothing to worry about.

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Year 6, Day 53: Philemon 1

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Pioneer

• Pioneer: One who goes into the world under God’s authority to claim ground for God’s Kingdom that is not currently claimed.

I have always had a fascination with the book of Philemon.  To be clear, it isn’t because the book is short.  In truth, there are a number of short books in the Bible.  2 John and 3 John are in the New Testament and they are shorter than Philemon.  Jude isn’t much longer.  Obadiah in the Old Testament is shorter than Philemon as well.  Size doesn’t have anything to do with my appreciation for a book of the Bible, although admittedly it is neat to say, “I read a whole book of the Bible today.”

In truth, what I love about the book of Philemon is Paul’s entrepreneurial spirit.  Paul is absolutely being a trendsetter here in this book.  Mind you, the whole missionary journey in telling people about Jesus is a huge dose of trendsetting by going out on a limb.  So Paul isn’t on unfamiliar ground here.  But seldom do we get to see Paul putting this new theology into legitimate cultural practice as we see done in Philemon.  Philemon is one of the best books of the Bible to see theology applied to life in such a direct manner.

Let’s look at this book.  Paul was in prison.  While he was there, he met a runaway slave named Onesimus, who happens to be a slave owned by a man that he knows personally, Philemon.  Paul shares the Gospel of Jesus Christ with Onesimus and begins to teach him about the ways of God.  As Onesimus learns, he is convinced by Paul to return to Philemon.  Paul convinces Onesimus to return to his master in the spirit of Christ and repent for running away.  Talk about pioneering new ground and applying faith into life!

But that isn’t the end of the pioneering spirit that we see in Paul.  Paul then turns to Philemon and asks him to forgive Onesimus.  Paul asks that Philemon simply forgive the error of Onesimus without exacting retribution.  Paul asks Philemon to treat Onesimus as a brother in Christ and not a returned runaway slave.  Paul imitates the model he found in God through Jesus Christ and asks that any debt Onesimus might have incurred against Philemon might be charged to Paul instead.  In fact, Paul tells Philemon that he believes Philemon will do even more than this.  Paul not only pioneers a new way for slaves to think of masters, Paul pioneers a new way for masters to think about their slaves.

This is indeed a place that we can see Paul claiming new ground.  Paul is taking the culture around him and shaping it so that it looks more like the world he sees in Christ.  This is what I love about the book of Philemon.  Here we see theology take real shape and impact the world of slaves and slave owners around him.

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Year 6, Day 52: Titus 2-3

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Imitation

• Imitation: This is the second over-arching step of the discipleship process.  First we gain information, then we imitate our spiritual mentor.  Imitation leads to innovation of spirituality in our own life.

When we look at these last two chapters in the book of Titus, we have an excellent opportunity to look at the topic of imitation.  After all, look at how chapter 2 opens.  We have directions for male elders sober-minded, dignified, faithful, loving, and steadfast.  We see that the female elders are to be reverent, not drinking too much, and refraining from slandering people around them.  Then we have a note as to why.  Notice why it is that elders need to live a proper godly way?  They are to be an example to the next generation.  They are to train other people how to live in the faith.

This should make much sense to us.  We know that we are not saved through our good works.  We do not earn our salvation.  So why do we do good works?  Of course, we do it to show our obedience to God.  But more importantly, we do good works so that we can inspire good in others.  We do good works so that people can have an example to imitate.  We who are in the faith do good works for the sake of those who come after us.

We cannot earn our salvation.  We should never think that we can.  But that shouldn’t stop us from doing good works.  There is always an example to set.  There is always an opportunity to speak through our life and into the lives of others.  There is always a time and a place to be obedient to the will of the Father so that others can see this obedience and be inspired to imitate it.

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