Devotion for 13 November

A brief prayer is offered that you can add to your daily prayers this week. The scripture is from our Sunday Service Bulletin for today.  Today is the first of two sermons on the OT prophets.

The Lord made it known to me and I knew;
    then you showed me their deeds.
¹⁹ But I was like a gentle lamb
    led to the slaughter.
I did not know it was against me
    they devised schemes, saying,
“Let us destroy the tree with its fruit,
    let us cut him off from the land of the living,
    that his name be remembered no more.”
²⁰ But, O Lord of hosts, who judges righteously,
    who tests the heart and the mind,
let me see your vengeance upon them,
    for to you have I committed my cause.

It seems that most of the Old Testament prophets suffer when they share God’s words and those words of judgement hit their mark. In Jeremiah’s time, the people of Judah had broken God’s covenant and were rejecting His laws. Now his own townspeople were plotting to kill him and try to remove his name from memory, “shooting the messenger” if you will. The fact that Jeremiah’s story is one of the longest books in the bible will show you the abject failure of that plot. Jeremiah tries to stay away from being judgmental and asks God to be the one who provides vengeance. Jeremiah is a faithful believer and is trustful of God’s protection as he shares God’s word. The moral of the story here is that no matter what worries the world throws at you, you are a child of God. He will be faithful unto you and He has got your back. Know that He has already prepared a welcoming place for you in His kingdom.