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Oct 23, 2023 06:00am

The Bible Recap: Days 218-224

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(The following are reflections from the writer’s personal journey through The Bible Recap by Tara-Leigh Cobble – a Bible reading plan to read the Bible chronologically in one year. To learn more about The Bible Recap, visit thebiblerecap.com. Find more posts from this series at lifeword.org/thebiblerecap.)

Day 218: Read Zephaniah Chapters 1-3

My Takeaways:

We have been reading and reading about God’s punishment on those who are evil—those who bow down to worship idols or those who defy God and His name.

We can see how God’s wrath would be justified, right? We all might be thinking, “Well, they deserve it!” (At least I do!)

But, today, another group of people will incur God’s punishment: the lukewarm. Those people who live comfortably and say to themselves: “The Lord will do nothing—good or bad.”

These are the people in Revelation that Jesus said because they were lukewarm, He would “spit them out of his mouth”! Over the years, I feel like it’s not that people outright disbelieve there is a God, I feel like many people do believe that…but I think comfortable lives can talk them out of a relationship with that God or, like our Scripture said, they don’t believe He will do anything. It makes me think of that saying, “Believing is seeing.” When we believe that there is a God and follow Him, we will “see” His handprints all over our lives. I would assume the opposite is also true: non belief keeps a veil over one’s eyes to God and His sovereignty. How scary!

Oh friends, I have been lukewarm many a time in my life! I get distracted. I stop talking to God. I lose focus. I give way to worry. Let’s stoke the coals of faith and fire in our hearts and stay connected to God through His Word!

For when we do, He promises:

“The Lord your God is among you, a warrior who saves. He’ll rejoice over you with gladness. He will be quiet in his love. He will delight you with singing.”

Believing and following God opens the door to experiencing Him in ways we crave and need.

Day 219: Read Jeremiah Chapters 1-3

My Takeaways:

It’s a new book of the Bible, and it’s a long one! But, Jeremiah’s reading had a different feel to it…did anyone else think this? My reading seemed to go faster than normal.

I loved the way God called Jeremiah—it was beautiful and full of purpose, promise, and difficulty.

You guys, to be Jeremiah will not be easy at all. It will be a hard road but as we will see, God will meet Him there every step of the way.

God has used marriage before to describe His relationship to His kids, but today, it just resounded. Can’t you feel the sadness when He says, “as a woman may betray her lover, so you have betrayed me.” He keeps reminding them that they have forgotten Him. He says, “Return to me, you faithless children. I will heal your unfaithfulness.”

He’s still after their hearts, even after spiritual adultery. He promises, “I will not look at you with anger, for I am unfailing in my love.”

And this line got me, too: “I will not be angry forever. Only acknowledge your guilt…”

He even tells the heavens to be shocked at His kids’ rebellion.

Because they have done something we all can do: dig their own cisterns, cracked cisterns that can’t hold water. So many times, we turn to other things, people and stuff that will make our hearts happy, instead of God.

Relationships

Friendships

Sports

Social Media

Gaming

Drugs

For the moment, those things can fill our hearts up and make us content….until we become empty and dry again and need more. And more. And more.

And we miss the living water that can fill our hearts up each and every day and give us JOY that endures every hard season of life.

Just like the woman at the well, in the New Testament, who found her identity in men, she dug her own cisterns and always came up dry, searching for more…until the living water came in the form of Jesus Christ and offered her water that would quench her thirst for LIFE.

Only God and His Son can satisfy. The Israelites are about to get a real life lesson on this. We do, too, anytime we turn to others for help in areas, like our hearts, that only God can tend to and heal.

Day 220: Read Jeremiah Chapters 4-6

My Takeaways:

We continue to hear God’s lament and strong words to His rebellious children today, and we hear from Jeremiah as well! God’s message is still the same: they have rejected Him and accepted idolatry and the comforts of life.

And the punishment is the same: They will be taken from this land.

Our God is a God who warns and warns and warns and uses His prophets to speak to His people, saying….

“Circumcise yourselves to the Lord;

Remove the foreskin of your hearts.”

“Return to me.”

“My people are fools, they do not know me.”

“They are skilled in doing what is evil, but they do not know how to do what is good.”

And when God says, “if you find one person who acts justly, who pursues faithfulness, then I will forgive her.”

Doesn’t that sound like Abraham’s plea for Sodom? It was such an evil city, that God promised He would save it if He found any righteous people living there. He didn’t, and it was destroyed. This is a picture of their hearts and their future.

Tara-Leigh said our God is patient and persistent when His kids are in sin, trying to woo them back, changing their hearts from stony cold hearts to fleshy, tender hearts that repent. But, as will find out, He’s patient…until He’s not. And our guy Jeremiah will witness it all.

Day 221: Read Jeremiah Chapters 7-9

My Takeaways:

God laments. God predicts. Jeremiah prophesies. Jeremiah laments.

God broke down into more detail what His people are doing—they have broken the 10 commandments and defiled His temple. They have taught their tongues to speak lies and wear themselves out doing wrong.

And yet. God still promises them that if they repent and correct their actions, He won’t remove them from the land.

Compassion. Mercy. Grace.

He wants their hearts. He wants their obedience. He wants to bless them. But, they still continue to choose evil.

And God says this: “I am about to refine them and test them for what else can I do because of my dear people?”

The NET translation puts it this way: “Therefore the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: “I will now purify them in the fires of affliction and test them. The wickedness of my dear people has left me no choice. What else can I do?” “

That got me thinking. How many times has God allowed us to be purified in the fires of affliction? How many times has our own sin and mistakes sent us running to the mercy seat? How many times have testing times sliced our hearts open to reveal what’s really there?

Oh, friends, I have been immersed in both fires and nothing will ignite your heart more for the Lord than these times in life.

It makes me think of 3 young men who also were put to the test: Worship this statue when you hear the music or face the fire.

And yet.

These 3 young men stood firm in their faith and devotion to God and refused. God allowed them to be thrown into the fire, where He rescued them. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego all experienced God in a miraculous way!

Sometimes, friends, God doesn’t save us from fires. We have to experience them for a heart change to happen…and that is what He plans on doing for His disobedient children.

Extreme measures have to be taken to save His people. He loved them that much, and He loves us that much.

You know what? I also know that’s what will shape my kids’ hearts too. My urge is to protect them, but as they age, I know they need to face the consequences of their actions, and I pray they turn to God for help when those times come.

So that they can have hearts after Him, and not the world.

Day 222: Read Jeremiah Chapters 10-13

My Takeaways:

Today was a meaty reading—trying to wrap my head around all of it. So, instead of recalling all of it, I want to highlight what I heard about God.

I loved Jeremiah’s praise of God:

“Lord, there is no one like you. You are great; your name is power. Who should not fear you, King of the nations? It’s what you deserve.

But, the Lord is the true God; he is the living God and eternal king. He made the earth by his power, establish the world by his wisdom.”

And, Jeremiah’s statements about God’s sovereignty and discipline:

“I know Lord that a person’s way of life is not his own. No one who walks determines his own steps. Discipline me Lord, but with justice, not in your anger or you will reduce me to nothing.”

Our lives were crafted to have purpose—to have a relationship with God and to live out that purpose. It’s all part of God’s plan!

And friends, I would take God’s discipline any day over man’s wrath! With God’s discipline comes mercy and grace and compassion and justice!

And Jeremiah already knows that God, who judges righteously, tests the hearts and minds. Oh friends, may we be people who keep the Lord on our lips and in our hearts and pass these tests! And when we fail (and we will), may we repent and come back to Him in obedience!

There is so much more within these readings! Between God’s object lesson to Jeremiah with his underwear and God threatening to pull off his people’s skirts, we see God’s anger at His people’s sin!

And we see the sadness of God here:

“My innermost being will weep in secret because of your pride. My eyes will overflow with tears for the Lord’s flock has been taken captive.”

Days 223 & 224: Read Jeremiah Chapters 14-17 & 18-22

My Takeaways:

Repurposed.

That’s my thought on today’s reading. We have God, the potter, shaping and molding us, His jars of clay. He has plans for us—plans not to harm but to prosper us. And when we mess up and become flawed, He reshapes us and fortifies us. He takes that flaw and uses it to repurpose us.

The key? We turn to Him amid that flaw. He tells His kids in Judah and Jerusalem, “Turn from your evil way and correct your ways and deeds.”

He wants to reshape them and hold them to be people after His own heart….and yet, they refuse. They rebelled. They went their own way.

So, Jeremiah takes those clay jars and breaks them, showing them a powerful example of their choice to break relationship with God.

Being a prophet of God isn’t easy. You’re probably never invited to the party and most likely the talk of it. We can completely understand why Jeremiah is the “weeping prophet”—he has to announce God’s punishment on His people, call them out for their sin, and basically live adrift from them. Not only that, he gets persecuted and beaten by them.

Because no one likes his message…or answers.

Jeremiah feels all the feelings!! In his prayer to God in chapter 20:7-13, he goes from feeling disgraced and alone for preaching God’s word to praising God by the end of it. Something had happened when he poured out his heart to God. He reminded himself who God is—He rescues the needy from evil people.

Jeremiah is God’s vessel—and he is needy. This life is hard. Yet, God is reshaping and strengthening him, too, every step of this lonely and difficult road. We are never promised an easy life, friends. But, God does promises to do the same with us when we turn to Him amid our sin and mistakes. God doesn’t make junk—He takes the flaws and creates something beautiful from them. And He sustains us while we endure it.

I am thankful for my potter and my lifetime reshaping and repurposing. Nothing is wasted in our lives’, friends. He uses it all for His glory. May we trust our potter and His hands of discipline and love.