Good morning to all on this Friday, the 12th of August. My beloved and I are celebrating our anniversary today! We have been married for 23 years and look forward to 23 more! We had a great day with friends in Kingston and partied like it was 1999--the old girl and boy still have it. We are still in Kingston and enjoying every day. We were able to host a friend the other day that is applying a for a position with a local phone company. It was fun to catch up with him. Thank you for your well wishes and continue to keep us in your prayers!
I am continuing my journey in Jeremiah 9 verses 18 - 26, "This is what the LORD Almighty says: Consider now! Call for the wailing women to come; send for the most skillful of them. Let them come quickly and wail over us till our eyes overflow with tears and water streams from our eyelids. The sound of wailing is heard from Zion: How ruined we are! How great is our shame! We must leave our land because our houses are in ruins. Now, you women, hear the Word of the LORD; open your ears to the Words of His mouth. Teach your daughters how to wail; teach one another a lament. Death has climbed in through our windows and has entered our fortresses; it has removed the children from the streets and the young men from the public squares. Say, “This is what the LORD declares: Dead bodies will lie like dung on the open field, like cut grain behind the reaper, with no one to gather them. This is what the LORD says: Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know Me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, or in these I delight, declares the LORD. The days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will punish all who are circumcised only in the flesh— Egypt, Judah, Edom, Ammon, Moab and all who live in the wilderness in distant places. For all these nations are really uncircumcised, and even the whole house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart." Amen. May the Lord add a blessing to the hearing and doing of His Words.
Can you imagine Jeremiah giving this message to a hostile and disobedient people? He, Jeremiah, has for nine chapters let the children of Israel know that God was not pleased with their behavior of idol worship and wanton living. He, Jeremiah, has talked about death as the consequence of their behaviors and yet they do not turn away from their sins and continue in their behavior. How many of us would have stayed the course and continued to deliver the message? How many of us would have walked away because it was clear that these people would remain in their sins? I am sure he, Jeremiah, was not popular among his family and friends. In fact I am sure many you knew him probably thought he had lost his mind and accused him of all kinds of things. I am sure he was encouraged by family members just to tone down some of the rhetoric but Jeremiah was obedient and we see in these nine chapters that he continues in his faithfulness and conveys the warnings of God. Although these Israelites were probably tired of hearing these warnings what they should realize is that while God is still chastising us, we have time to turn away from sin and turn to God. God does not give up on us! He is disappointed at times; He weeps at our sinful lives and choices but He never gives up on us. He cannot however change the ultimate decision that if we die in sin we will live an eternity without Him which is why He urgently tells us to turn from sin and turn our hearts to Him. He delights in exercising kindness, justice and righteousness however He also says that the day will come when we die to this body and are then face to face with our sins. We need the Blood of Jesus to cover our sins on that "Great Gettin' Up Mornin" and then we will spend an eternity with Him Who loves us the best! Hallelujah!
Yesterday, Waine and I found out about some calamity that had befallen a couple that we know in Atlanta. The man is not a very nice man; arrogant and full of himself much like the folk Jeremiah is writing about. Not an honest person in his heart and in fact once he told Waine he always records a "normal" blood pressure so that when he is audited or a bad outcome befalls one of his patients there would be no untoward consequences for him. When I heard this story I knew this physician was not a good person. As it turns out, he was also a philanderer and when his wife found out she attempted to stab him. I was saddened by this news because they have four children who are now affected by these events; they are the innocent ones. This is what God is talking about in Jeremiah. There are consequences to living a life outside of God because outside of God is much confusion. It doesn't matter how educated we are or how well off we are when confusion is in the picture you can believe that sin is in the picture. Chaos is the "fingerprint" of Satan and sin. When you find yourself in the middle of chaos, don't fight it just pray and you will find that the Peace of God that you have allowed into the equation will not only stabilize chaos, you can actually get good out of evil.
Like Jeremiah, we need to pray for this world of chaos. The last several weeks have been no less that catastrophically chaotic in the world. The world is imploding on itself because of sin. We need to be about Kingdom building constantly. We are the Jeremiahs sent out to preach the good news that through Jesus, peace, hope and abundance exists. This sad world needs this Good News!
Now may the LORD bless you and keep you; may the LORD make His face shine on you and be gracious to you; may the LORD turn His face toward you and give you peace.
Stephanie
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