Jeremiah 3, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: Jesus Taps at Your Door

Jesus says in Revelation 3:20, "Here I am. I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me."
The world rams at your door but Jesus taps at your door. The voices scream for your allegiance but Jesus softly and tenderly requests it. Which voice do you hear? There is never a time that Jesus is not speaking. There's never a room so dark that the ever-present, ever-pursuing, relentlessly tender Father is not there, tapping gently on the doors of our hearts-waiting to be invited in.
Few hear His voice. Fewer still open the door. But never interpret your numbness as His absence. He says, "Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age" (Matthew 28:20).  "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you" (Hebrews 13:5). Never.
From In the Eye of the Storm

Jeremiah 3

Your Sex-and-Religion Obsessions

 God’s Message came to me as follows:

“If a man’s wife
    walks out on him
And marries another man,
    can he take her back as if nothing had happened?
Wouldn’t that raise a huge stink
    in the land?
And isn’t that what you’ve done—
    ‘whored’ your way with god after god?
And now you want to come back as if nothing had happened.”
    God’s Decree.

2-5 “Look around at the hills.
    Where have you not had sex?
You’ve camped out like hunters stalking deer.
    You’ve solicited many lover-gods,
Like a streetwalking whore
    chasing after other gods.
And so the rain has stopped.
    No more rain from the skies!
But it doesn’t even faze you. Brazen as whores,
    you carry on as if you’ve done nothing wrong.
Then you have the nerve to call out, ‘My father!
    You took care of me when I was a child. Why not now?
Are you going to keep up your anger nonstop?’
    That’s your line. Meanwhile you keep sinning nonstop.”

Admit Your God-Defiance
6-10 God spoke to me during the reign of King Josiah: “You have noticed, haven’t you, how fickle Israel has visited every hill and grove of trees as a whore at large? I assumed that after she had gotten it out of her system, she’d come back, but she didn’t. Her flighty sister, Judah, saw what she did. She also saw that because of fickle Israel’s loose morals I threw her out, gave her her walking papers. But that didn’t faze flighty sister Judah. She went out, big as you please, and took up a whore’s life also. She took up cheap sex-and-religion as a sideline diversion, an indulgent recreation, and used anything and anyone, flouting sanity and sanctity alike, stinking up the country. And not once in all this did flighty sister Judah even give me a nod, although she made a show of it from time to time.” God’s Decree.

11-12 Then God told me, “Fickle Israel was a good sight better than flighty Judah. Go and preach this message. Face north toward Israel and say:

12-15 “‘Turn back, fickle Israel.
    I’m not just hanging back to punish you.
I’m committed in love to you.
    My anger doesn’t seethe nonstop.
Just admit your guilt.
    Admit your God-defiance.
Admit to your promiscuous life with casual partners,
    pulling strangers into the sex-and-religion groves
While turning a deaf ear to me.’”
    God’s Decree.
“Come back, wandering children!”
    God’s Decree.
“I, yes I, am your true husband.
    I’ll pick you out one by one—
This one from the city, these two from the country—
    and bring you to Zion.
I’ll give you good shepherd-rulers who rule my way,
    who rule you with intelligence and wisdom.

16 “And this is what will happen: You will increase and prosper in the land. The time will come”—God’s Decree!—“when no one will say any longer, ‘Oh, for the good old days! Remember the Ark of the Covenant?’ It won’t even occur to anyone to say it—‘the good old days.’ The so-called good old days of the Ark are gone for good.

17 “Jerusalem will be the new Ark—‘God’s Throne.’ All the godless nations, no longer stuck in the ruts of their evil ways, will gather there to honor God.

18 “At that time, the House of Judah will join up with the House of Israel. Holding hands, they’ll leave the north country and come to the land I willed to your ancestors.

19-20 “I planned what I’d say if you returned to me:
    ‘Good! I’ll bring you back into the family.
I’ll give you choice land,
    land that the godless nations would die for.’
And I imagined that you would say, ‘Dear father!’
    and would never again go off and leave me.
But no luck. Like a false-hearted woman walking out on her husband,
    you, the whole family of Israel, have proven false to me.”
        God’s Decree.

21-22 The sound of voices comes drifting out of the hills,
    the unhappy sound of Israel’s crying,
Israel lamenting the wasted years,
    never once giving her God a thought.
“Come back, wandering children!
    I can heal your wanderlust!”

22-25 “We’re here! We’ve come back to you.
    You’re our own true God!
All that popular religion was a cheap lie,
    duped crowds buying up the latest in gods.
We’re back! Back to our true God,
    the salvation of Israel.
The Fraud picked us clean, swindled us
    of what our ancestors bequeathed us,
Gypped us out of our inheritance—
    God-blessed flocks and God-given children.
We made our bed and now lie in it,
    all tangled up in the dirty sheets of dishonor.
All because we sinned against our God,
    we and our fathers and mothers.
From the time we took our first steps, said our first words,
    we’ve been rebels, disobeying the voice of our God.”

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion   
Saturday, August 08, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:

2 Corinthians 5:14–21

For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

16 So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:[a] The old has gone, the new is here! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin[b] for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Read full chapter
Footnotes
2 Corinthians 5:17 Or Christ, that person is a new creation.
2 Corinthians 5:21 Or be a sin offering

Insight
Various forms of the key New Testament word reconcile are found five times in 2 Corinthians 5:18–20. At the root of this term are the ideas of change or exchange. In the context of money, it signifies coins that were exchanged for others of equal value. Concerning people, the word denotes a change in the relationship from hostility to friendship. In 2 Corinthians 5:14–21, the change in relationship is between God and people on the basis of the death of Christ. Romans also includes multiple uses of the word reconciled. In just one verse the past and the ongoing benefits of reconciliation come into focus. “For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” (5:10).
His Death Brings Life
If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 2 Corinthians 5:17

During her ministry to men incarcerated in South Africa’s most violent prison, Joanna Flanders-Thomas witnessed the power of Christ to transform hearts. In Vanishing Grace, Philip Yancey describes her experience: “Joanna started visiting prisoners daily, bringing them a simple gospel message of forgiveness and reconciliation. She earned their trust, got them to talk about their abusive childhoods, and showed them a better way of resolving conflicts. The year before her visits began, the prison recorded 279 acts of violence against inmates and guards; the next year there were two.”

The apostle Paul wrote, “If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). While we may not always see that newness expressed as dramatically as Flanders-Thomas did, the gospel’s power to transform is the greatest hope-providing force in the universe. New creations. What an amazing thought! The death of Jesus launches us on a journey of becoming like Him—a journey that will culminate when we see Him face-to-face (see 1 John 3:1–3). 

As believers in Jesus we celebrate our life as new creations. Yet we must never lose sight of what that cost Christ. His death brings us life. “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). By:  Bill Crowder

Reflect & Pray
How has Jesus’ transforming work been evidenced in your life? What areas of your life are still in need of that “new creation” impact?

Loving Father, thank You that, because of what Jesus accomplished on the cross, I am a new creation. Forgive me for the times I return to the old things that need to pass away.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, August 08, 2020
Prayer in the Father’s Honor
…that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God. —Luke 1:35

If the Son of God has been born into my human flesh, then am I allowing His holy innocence, simplicity, and oneness with the Father the opportunity to exhibit itself in me? What was true of the Virgin Mary in the history of the Son of God’s birth on earth is true of every saint. God’s Son is born into me through the direct act of God; then I as His child must exercise the right of a child— the right of always being face to face with my Father through prayer. Do I find myself continually saying in amazement to the commonsense part of my life, “Why did you want me to turn here or to go over there? ‘Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?’ ” (Luke 2:49). Whatever our circumstances may be, that holy, innocent, and eternal Child must be in contact with His Father.

Am I simple enough to identify myself with my Lord in this way? Is He having His wonderful way with me? Is God’s will being fulfilled in that His Son has been formed in me (see Galatians 4:19), or have I carefully pushed Him to one side? Oh, the noisy outcry of today! Why does everyone seem to be crying out so loudly? People today are crying out for the Son of God to be put to death. There is no room here for God’s Son right now— no room for quiet, holy fellowship and oneness with the Father.

Is the Son of God praying in me, bringing honor to the Father, or am I dictating my demands to Him? Is He ministering in me as He did in the time of His manhood here on earth? Is God’s Son in me going through His passion, suffering so that His own purposes might be fulfilled? The more a person knows of the inner life of God’s most mature saints, the more he sees what God’s purpose really is: to “…fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ…” (Colossians 1:24). And when we think of what it takes to “fill up,” there is always something yet to be done.

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

We are not to preach the doing of good things; good deeds are not to be preached, they are to be performed.
So Send I You

Bible in a Year: Psalms 74-76; Romans 9:16-33