Year 6, Day 79: Jeremiah 26

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Grace

• Grace: Grace comes to us when we make mistakes and have a failing of character.  Grace comes to us when we have a typical D₂ moment.  Grace comes to us when we need space to recognize a mistake, repent of it, and allow God to redeem it while calling us back into His will.  Grace is partnered by Time and Vision.

Here is another chapter where God tells Jeremiah to go before the people and proclaim their need to repent.  Of course, the people don’t like it.  Nobody likes to hear that they are wrong and need to change.  Nobody likes to hear how their actions cause other people to suffer.

Character is shown by how we respond in such moments.  People with high character at least take the time to listen and ponder if they might be guilty.  People with little character immediately lash out and reject the message.  That is what we see here.  The people who hear Jeremiah demand that he be executed for his treasonous prophecy.  There is little character to be found in the leadership of the Hebrew people in Jeremiah’s time.  Of course, for anyone who’s been reading Jeremiah since the book started, there’s not much of a surprise there.

What I love in this chapter is what we see in Jeremiah.  Jeremiah gives them grace.  Jeremiah reminds them that if they repent that God will forgive them and spare their calamity.  Jeremiah even offers up his life in a willing submission to their illegitimate authority.  He doesn’t lash back.  He gives grace when every human instinct would say to give wrath.  He truly is a man of God.

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