Day 238 (Saturday) - Jeremiah 13:1-16:9

It might seem a bit strange that God would forbid Jeremiah to attend funerals or specifically the funeral meal in verse 7. What’s so bad about the Jell-O salads and ham sandwiches with margarine on them? Ok, theirs might have been falafel with chickpea spread, but you get the point. Actually, the funeral meals were times to get drunk and engage in all kinds of inappropriate behavior. The people had gone way off the path God wanted for them and there would be consequences…significant ones.

Day 237 (Friday) - Jeremiah 9-12

Did you notice Jeremiah’s question of God at the beginning of Chapter 12? We have already seen this question come many times in our read through the bible. I think it is the question most people ask who are trying to follow God but see it as a limiting act. The truth is that following God is freeing (if done correctly). We get so tied up in the materialism and fame that the world offers that we quickly forget that this life is not even measurable on the timeline of eternity. We live for something else. Honestly, why do evil people prosper? Who cares, because I’m living for something much more valuable. Think of it as delayed gratification!

Day 236 (Thursday) - Jeremiah 5:20-8:22

I need the council found in 6:16. If I have the discipline to stop long enough to focus, I’m not sure I always consider what it is God wants me to do. God’s path provides rest because I don’t have to go it alone or carry my burden alone. Some people are looking for some new fangled way of connecting with God but the truth is it is an old way. God has always been reaching out to man and is more interested in how we make it through situations than the success we achieve in our endeavors. Take a moment and stop at the crossroads…walk in that old godly way.

Day 235 (Wednesday) - Jeremiah 2:26-5:19

Verses 2:23-24 seem almost comical to our western culture but in the Middle East they would know exactly what is being said here. Even today, a young female camel is extremely unreliable. They wonder around aimlessly. The wild donkey is something very different. They aren’t aimless walkers; they get mad, really mad. They chase down the male donkeys until they get what they want…it’s not a pretty sight! I wonder if we chase these idols like Israel did.

Day 234 (Tuesday) - Isaiah 66; Jeremiah 1:1-2:25

Jeremiah became a prophet during the darkest of days in Judah’s history, leading up to her destruction by Babylon. Because of the difficult situation the people were in and the disobedience to God that was going to result in their destruction, Jeremiah wept a lot. He is called the weeping prophet. Though Jeremiah was a part of the priestly line, he never entered the priesthood. He is another example of God using ordinary and seemingly inferior people to do his great work.

Day 233 (Monday) - Isaiah 60:10-65:25

Chapter 61 is a passage about Christ. Jesus quoted 61:1-2 when he was speaking at the synagogue in Nazareth. Luke 4:18-19 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free,19 and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.” We live in the in-between time. The Good News was born with the coming of Christ but we are still awaiting his second coming for the “day of vengeance will be fulfilled. That is why Christ stopped reading at that point…it is still to come.

Day 232 (Sunday) - Isaiah 55:1-60:9

We are moving to a point in the text where God is affirming and committing to blessings being poured out on the righteous that remain. God fist lays out the hypocrisy of their worship and the fact of their sin. Next he states that they will repent (the remnant) and acknowledge that their troubles have come from their own sin. God then tells about his coming forgiveness and deliverance. The final movement in the text we read today was regarding the appearance of God’s glory. Did you catch the foreshadowing of the Magi in 60:6?

I need to be a person who is committed to God no matter what. My sin always removes God’s blessing and it’s not because God takes it away, it’s because I replace the blessing with the consequences of sin. If I sin by overeating and filling my life with food instead of turning to God in my troubles, I will reap the rewards of that action; high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, joint issues, lack of energy, depression and an overall poor life. God didn’t remove the blessing…I replaced it!