Friday, September 26, 2014

The Lord Acts with Steadfast Love

Sustaining Hope
The Days Are Surely Coming


Improbable Possibilities

Jeremiah 9:17-24  The Message

A Life That Is All Outside but No Inside

17-19 A Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies:
“Look over the trouble we’re in and call for help.
    Send for some singers who can help us mourn our loss.
Tell them to hurry—
    to help us express our loss and lament,
Help us get our tears flowing,
    make tearful music of our crying.
Listen to it!
    Listen to that torrent of tears out of Zion:
‘We’re a ruined people,
    we’re a shamed people!
We’ve been driven from our homes
    and must leave our land!’”
20-21 Mourning women! Oh, listen to God’s Message!
    Open your ears. Take in what he says.
Teach your daughters songs for the dead
    and your friends the songs of heartbreak.
Death has climbed in through the window,
    broken into our bedrooms.
Children on the playgrounds drop dead,
    and young men and women collapse at their games.
22 Speak up! “God’s Message:
“‘Dead bodies everywhere, scattered at random
    like sheep and goat dung in the fields,
Like wheat cut down by reapers
    and left to rot where it falls.’”
23-24 God’s Message:
“Don’t let the wise brag of their wisdom.
    Don’t let heroes brag of their exploits.
Don’t let the rich brag of their riches.
    If you brag, brag of this and this only:
That you understand and know me.
    I’m God, and I act in loyal love.
I do what’s right and set things right and fair,
    and delight in those who do the same things.
These are my trademarks.”
    God’s Decree.

For Reflection
We strut around wearing the robes of righteousness but at times they just don't seem to fit. We admire the singers warbling empty lyrics.  We follow the crowd against the advise of our own beliefs.  We join the living dead, brag about false wisdom, and long to touch the heroes and the powerful and wealthy as though they had special properties that could rub off on us.

Wear the robes in humility and perfect confidence in the hope of God.  Live for the good in others.
Pray
prayers of thanksgiving for the perfect redemption in God.  Pray so that the the Holy Spirit will sustain you during good times and bad times.  Pray that you will adopt the magnificent love that God has gifted you and that God intends for you to use.

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