One Year Bible - October 3, 2010

JEREMIAH 1:1 - 2:30                                                                                                             
THE MAN: Jeremiah was a young man of about 30 years old when he began his ministry.  He was from the priestly family, lived in a town of all priests, and was himself a priest.  He never married, and was misunderstood by EVERYONE, including his family.  He prophesied to the last five kings of the southern Kingdom of Judah.  Of course, his prominent subject was the coming captivity of Judah by the Babylonians.

HIS MINISTRY: Jeremiah was a warm-hearted, personable man, but had to deliver a harsh, judgmental message.  When false priests and prophets prohibited Jeremiah from appearing in public, God told him to put these prophesies in writing.   King Jehoiakim destroyed the book and ordered Jeremiah to be arrested.   So Jeremiah re-wrote the book!   When Jeremiah prophesied that the Babylonians would return again and again until they burned the city, the king accused him of being a traitor and put him into a below-ground dungeon with a mud floor.   His message was never received by anyone.   Never did he see any sign that what he was saying had any impact at all on these people.  Yet, he preached for 42 years.   Jeremiah lived through one good king and four evil (or wishy-washy) kings, and saw the total ravaging of the land by war and the carrying away of his people into slavery.   He was left behind in a desolated place when he was about 80 years old.  Jeremiah saw nations rise and fall, and he was absolutely certain that Jehovah was the power behind those events.  He even called Nebuchadnezzar God's "servant".  Eventually he was taken by force into Egypt, where he continued to prophecy and finally died.  Tradition says he was stoned to death by Jews.

HIS CALL: When God intervenes in history, He begins with a baby.  He creates each one of us genetically perfect for our assignment.   How does He prepare us?  "Go, for I am with you."  And so God sets us in the midst of death and destruction (the "plague" of "sin and death") with His promise to perform His Word.   We are called to warn people not to "forsake God".  Turning to substitutes and counterfeits instead of God is considered "forsaking God" and will destroy a nation and the each individual in it.  "Hewing out cisterns for themselves" shows the absurdity of our actions, because this water isn't flowing, it has to be "captured" and stored in the cistern.   If it runs off a mountainside, it is dirty and not always plentiful - it disappoints and leaves us thirsty for more. Eventually, when the cistern is cracked, we are left with NOTHING (but our same addictions and obsessions.). 

HIS LESSONS: (1) The sovereignty of God: God's control over all the nations of the earth. (2) The ruthless judgment of God that would be without mercy against people who refuse to repent. (3) The faithfulness of God Who always fulfilled His Word, no matter what. (4) He learned to suffer like God over the condition of His people who had turned away, and the tenderness of God that draws them back.

HIS MESSAGE: REPENT! (OT word, "return") .   We forsake God, or "forget" God, or turn away from God, because we are arrogant, insensitive and self-sufficient.   We find ways to protect ourselves from God.  Repentance is ALWAYS movement TOWARD God.  I "return" to Him in dependence and trust.   I must instruct my heart to trust God and to believe what He says.  Renewing my mind helps me to re-orient my heart toward God.   Genuine repentance turns my heart away from earthly dependencies (broken cisterns) - to "drink" from God to fill my thirst.  If my thirst is unmet, my repentance is incomplete, and I will turn back to my broken cistern.   When the water is all leaked out, all I have left are addictions and obsessions.

WHAT IS SO APPALLING? Observe the people around you who don't know God.  They don't keep changing gods!   They are more faithful to their false gods that we are to the One True God!   We should be appalled and shudder with great horror (2:12).  God compares us to a mare in heat, lusting - sniffing the wind for a mate.   When we forsake the living God, we become AVAILABLE to any and every force around us.   God calls that "spiritual harlotry".  We are so "thirsty" and needy, that we'll take up with anything!

RESPONSE: There is no greater bondage than to serve my own appetites.   Nothing is ever enough. It is important that we stop ourselves from DRIFTING away from God.  I don't think most Christians decide one day to walk away from God.  It happens in increments.  Well, so does sanctification, and re-orienting our lives around God.  INCREMENTS - it can work FOR us or AGAINST us.

PHILIPPIANS 4:1-23                                                                                                          
WOMEN WHO "LABORED" WITH PAUL:  Gr: "sun/athleo"  To wrestle in the company of. These were in the center ring with Paul, "in the Gospel". We can be assured they were preaching, teaching, praying right along with Paul and the other men.

"REJOICE IN THE LORD ALWAYS":  Yes!  This is a command.  Our joy is centered in the Lord.   1Th 5:16 says we are to be happy ALL THE TIME!   This is a CHOICE, not a FEELING.   When things are going wrong, we can still give praise and thanksgiving to God for His goodness and His greatness.   Joy is a fruit of the Spirit, therefore it is always resident in us.   Joy is our first line of defense against weakness, failure, and diseases of the mind and body.

PEACE:  Joy leads to inner calmness because our hearts are reassured.   I am not being pulled in several different directions by philosophies, worries, fears, or other compulsive feelings.  Peace is abandonment to God.  Peace is the prevalence of order, or the result of bringing the war against UN-belief and UN-righteousness to a close.  When those things are settled, we have peace regardless of what else is happening.  Worry is really UNBELIEF.  Someone else has said, "worry is practical atheism and an affront to God." Instead we pray. Prayer helps us grow in oneness with God and with His purpose. Prayer teaches me to "reign with Him".   Prayer also helps me to break my addiction to living by sight. To be at peace is to have confidence that the outcomes are in God's hands, so I'm no longer striving to avoid or to save some outcome.

SATISFIED: (contentment)  If we are not content in whatever state we are in, then we become open targets for covetousness.   2 Cor 6:10 says, "As sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things."   What I need to get the job done, God will make provision for.   If we are waiting for life to be "fair", we are unrealistic and unbiblical.   Some people think that accounts have to be balanced before they are content, and they are never satisfied.   Our satisfaction comes from the sufficiency, might and strength that are in God.   We have access to all He has.

THOUGHT FILTERS:  (4:8) To help us think straight, there are "filters" our thoughts should pass through.  Basically, if the thoughts are MAD, SAD OR BAD, ditch them!   Replace them with good thoughts.  We don't empty our minds, we fill them with the thoughts of God.   A  "passing thought" is just that - "passing".  Don't allow "dirty birds" to build nests in your brain. We dwell on Truth.   Regardless of the bludgeoning of world-thought, circumstances or the devil, we orient our lives around God.   That means we don't complain - because that is negative meditation.   Complaining focuses on discontent, self-pity, anger, and it brings spiritual darkness.   So we make a deliberate decision to dwell on God and what God said.  We think about God's Works, God's goodness, God's person.  Our lives depend on it. We can't be joyful, be peaceful, or be content without being centered on God.

RESPONSE: I can choose to believe and obey the Word, even when I don't feel like it.   My heart may be insensitive or still have sin in it, but I can choose God anyway.   Feelings of my own hypocrisy or unreality are just emotions and not worth considering.  My choice is made with my WILL, not my emotions or feelings.  My emotions will change as I expose them to Truth.  I abandon myself to God and trust Him to help me hold fast to my decision, and bring my feelings along as I pressure them with Truth.  Moving Truth from my head to my heart takes repetition. 

PSALM 75:1-10                                                                                                               
Keeping trials in life in perspective is one of the great secrets of life.  God announces here that His judgment is sure to come at His "set time".   What is perceived as chaos in the world, actually has order to it.  It only LOOKS like the world is falling apart.  God is setting the stage.  An evil man's strength is not real because their power and authority is usurped by force, money or manipulation.  They did not consider God to be the author of power.  They think their authority is based on their own merits and that they are not accountable to anyone.   It never occurred to them that their afflictions could have come from God.  The truth is that everyone drinks from God's cup - the strength of the drink and of the misery is up to God alone, but the wicked drink the dregs.

PROVERBS 24:17-20                                                                                                           
ENEMIES & THE WICKED:  We can't gloat when they fall, we can't be happy when they get hurt (God will turn His anger toward us.).   We should never be envious of anything the evil or wicked have or do, because they are only temporary.  So what should we do about enemies and the wicked? Matt 5:39 says, "But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also."  We are never to defend ourselves, never demand our own way, and never complain (Phil 2).  However, we are not victims, we are voluntary sacrifices. There is a big difference.  In Matt 5:44-46 "But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?"  I guess that's pretty plain. If we don't gloat, and don't try to avenge ourselves, God will take care of it.