Reading:
Jeremiah chapter 25-27
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What it meant to me:
Jeremiah has now spoken the Truth to the people of Israel for twenty three years. And now he says again that the cities and towns of Israel shall be ruined. But that after 70 years God will punish the Babylonians for their evil deeds towards God’s people, and ruin their land as well. Then the Isralites will be set free. I can just imagine that quite a lot of people thought (and probably said it to him as well) “Well, now this Jeremiah has treathened us with destruction for more than twenty years, when is it really going to happen?” I bet they mocked him.
.
There was an other prophet, speaking the words of the living God, Uriah. He was treathened by the king, who wanted him dead. He was frightened and ran away to Egypt. But the kings men chased him and found him and brought him back to Israel, were he was killed. I remember God’s word to Jeremiah when He first called him; Don’t be afraid of them, but trust me, or I will make you afraid of them. To be afraid is to distrust God. Well, in that case I really don’t trust God at all. Perhaps I should?
Peace to you,
åslaug
lørdag 8. november 2008
Eighth Day of the Challenge
Reading:
Jeremiah 22-24
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What it meant to me:
God ask Jeremia to go to the king and again tell him to do right and not wrong. To rescue the robbed from the robber’s hand, to be kind and friendly and true to the people moving in to the country and others that are weak (widows and orphans). If they do they can live in their house, if not, God will tear it down. I guess the same counts for me. I don’t think God ever stopped caring for orphans, widows and foreigners.
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God critisises for building great halls and letting the people work for no wages. The king’s father did also have food and drinks, but at the same time he did what was right. And it served him well. He cared for the rights of people who couldn’t speak for themselves. And God says: Isn’t that to have knowledge to me? Yes, I’d think so.
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Another verse that made me think was about like this, I spoke to you when you were safe, but you told me you didn’t want to listen. It was your habit from youth not to obey me. How easy it is to ignore God when all is well. How easy it is to make it a habit not to obey Him. No wonder God so often uses pain to bring us closer to Him, we don’t really listen when He doesn’t?
.
There is a prophecy of Jesus. A prophecy of a righteous king that will rule with wisdom and save Juda, Israel shall live in safety. His name shall be “The Lord, our righteousness”. No wonder they expected a king…
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There are curses over priests and prophets that does not seek God’s counsel or listen to His words, but instead speak of their own thoughts and make up dreams and tell the people it’s from the Lord. I think we have just a few cases of that today as well…
.
God says to Jeremiah that He have mercy with the captives from Judah in a foreign land and wants to bring them back to the land of their birth. He wants to give them a heart so that they can know Him, and understand that He is the Lord. They shall be His people, and He shall be their God, when they repent and turn to Him with all their heart. Oh how I want to be His people, to be given a heart that can know Him and understand that He is the Lord. I want to repent and turn to Him with all my heart.
.
Peace to you,
åslaug
Jeremiah 22-24
.
What it meant to me:
God ask Jeremia to go to the king and again tell him to do right and not wrong. To rescue the robbed from the robber’s hand, to be kind and friendly and true to the people moving in to the country and others that are weak (widows and orphans). If they do they can live in their house, if not, God will tear it down. I guess the same counts for me. I don’t think God ever stopped caring for orphans, widows and foreigners.
.
God critisises for building great halls and letting the people work for no wages. The king’s father did also have food and drinks, but at the same time he did what was right. And it served him well. He cared for the rights of people who couldn’t speak for themselves. And God says: Isn’t that to have knowledge to me? Yes, I’d think so.
.
Another verse that made me think was about like this, I spoke to you when you were safe, but you told me you didn’t want to listen. It was your habit from youth not to obey me. How easy it is to ignore God when all is well. How easy it is to make it a habit not to obey Him. No wonder God so often uses pain to bring us closer to Him, we don’t really listen when He doesn’t?
.
There is a prophecy of Jesus. A prophecy of a righteous king that will rule with wisdom and save Juda, Israel shall live in safety. His name shall be “The Lord, our righteousness”. No wonder they expected a king…
.
There are curses over priests and prophets that does not seek God’s counsel or listen to His words, but instead speak of their own thoughts and make up dreams and tell the people it’s from the Lord. I think we have just a few cases of that today as well…
.
God says to Jeremiah that He have mercy with the captives from Judah in a foreign land and wants to bring them back to the land of their birth. He wants to give them a heart so that they can know Him, and understand that He is the Lord. They shall be His people, and He shall be their God, when they repent and turn to Him with all their heart. Oh how I want to be His people, to be given a heart that can know Him and understand that He is the Lord. I want to repent and turn to Him with all my heart.
.
Peace to you,
åslaug
Seventh Day of the Challenge
Reading:
Jeremiah 19-21
.
What it meant to me:
Jeremiah buys a jar from the potter, on God’s command and bring some elders and priests out into a valley to prophesy. God says that when they gave their sons and daughters as burnt offerings to heathen gods, that was nothing He had asked them to do, it was never on His mind. Makes me think should we never do anything God didn’t ask us to do, or not what was never on His mind, or should we just not do what He told us not to do. Or all of it?
.
Jeremiah breaks the jar and says to them that God will break this people and this city as the jar; so that it won’t ever be the same again.
.
Jeremiah is punished for saying a prophecy in the temple, and is whipped. The next day, when he is released he tells the priest, who ordered his whipping, that the Lord does not call him by his name anymore, but calls him “The man who lives in terror”. I’m amazed that even if the people of Israel were so many and did so much wrong (like the people of the Earth is so many and and does so much wrong), God still sees all the induviduals. He knows all thoughts and every attitude of heart in EVERY SINGLE PERSON of the people of Israel, even if they’re mostly referred to as “the people”.
.
Jeremiah speaks of how when God called him, he couldn’t refuse, and even when he faced tribulation and wanted to stop knowing God and speak His word, he couldn’t. It was like a fire within Him. I want that fire within me. I want to not be able to spend a single second without focusing on God. Lord I pray.
.
Jeremiah also curse the day he was born, and he praises the Lord and sing songs of worship (recites at least). What an attitude =) Our God is worthy of praise under all circumstances.
Peace to you,
åslaug
Jeremiah 19-21
.
What it meant to me:
Jeremiah buys a jar from the potter, on God’s command and bring some elders and priests out into a valley to prophesy. God says that when they gave their sons and daughters as burnt offerings to heathen gods, that was nothing He had asked them to do, it was never on His mind. Makes me think should we never do anything God didn’t ask us to do, or not what was never on His mind, or should we just not do what He told us not to do. Or all of it?
.
Jeremiah breaks the jar and says to them that God will break this people and this city as the jar; so that it won’t ever be the same again.
.
Jeremiah is punished for saying a prophecy in the temple, and is whipped. The next day, when he is released he tells the priest, who ordered his whipping, that the Lord does not call him by his name anymore, but calls him “The man who lives in terror”. I’m amazed that even if the people of Israel were so many and did so much wrong (like the people of the Earth is so many and and does so much wrong), God still sees all the induviduals. He knows all thoughts and every attitude of heart in EVERY SINGLE PERSON of the people of Israel, even if they’re mostly referred to as “the people”.
.
Jeremiah speaks of how when God called him, he couldn’t refuse, and even when he faced tribulation and wanted to stop knowing God and speak His word, he couldn’t. It was like a fire within Him. I want that fire within me. I want to not be able to spend a single second without focusing on God. Lord I pray.
.
Jeremiah also curse the day he was born, and he praises the Lord and sing songs of worship (recites at least). What an attitude =) Our God is worthy of praise under all circumstances.
Peace to you,
åslaug
Sixth Day of the Challenge
Reading:
Jeremiah 16-18
.
What it meant to me:
The Lord tells Jeremiah not to take a wife or get children in his country, because children born, mothers giving birth to them and fathers raising them in the land of Israel shall have a painful death and none will bury them, their bodies shall lay on the ground and rot. It was a great shame not to be buried.
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Further, the Lord orders him not to go to parties or funerals, cause God have taken His peace away from this people. And Jeremiah shall tell them about it.
.
God asks him to go to the potter’s house. He sees how the potter shapes the clay into jars and mugs. Whenever something didn’t turn out as it should, he did it all over again. And God tells him that it is in the same way He rules over Israel; He treathens a people with ruin, but if they repent from their evil, He change His mind and saves them from the evil He was planning against them. In the same way, if He promises a people to build up and plant, if they do what is evil in the eyes of the Lord, he withdraw His promise and refuse to do the good things He had planned. It reminds me that I am potty in His hands. I have no life of my own, I am what He is shaping me into, according to His good will.
Peace to you,
åslaug
Jeremiah 16-18
.
What it meant to me:
The Lord tells Jeremiah not to take a wife or get children in his country, because children born, mothers giving birth to them and fathers raising them in the land of Israel shall have a painful death and none will bury them, their bodies shall lay on the ground and rot. It was a great shame not to be buried.
.
Further, the Lord orders him not to go to parties or funerals, cause God have taken His peace away from this people. And Jeremiah shall tell them about it.
.
God asks him to go to the potter’s house. He sees how the potter shapes the clay into jars and mugs. Whenever something didn’t turn out as it should, he did it all over again. And God tells him that it is in the same way He rules over Israel; He treathens a people with ruin, but if they repent from their evil, He change His mind and saves them from the evil He was planning against them. In the same way, if He promises a people to build up and plant, if they do what is evil in the eyes of the Lord, he withdraw His promise and refuse to do the good things He had planned. It reminds me that I am potty in His hands. I have no life of my own, I am what He is shaping me into, according to His good will.
Peace to you,
åslaug
Fifth Day of the Challenge
Reading:
Jeremiah 13-15
.
What it meant to me:
Like a belt around the waist of a man, have God drawn the people of Israel and Juda close to Himself, so they (and we) would be His people, His glory, praise and adornment. To be the adornment of the King of Kings, who could ever dream of more? A better compliment?
.
God calls again and again the people to turn back to Him, to listen to Him and let pride go. Before it’s too late. I think I have a lot to learn from that; to listen to God and let pride go. I have a tendency to always think I can do things all by myself. And when I see that I can’t, I struggle hard with letting go of pride and listen to God for what I should do next. Also when His plans contains that I fail to succeed in something important. It’s hard to turn to Him then, and be happy about hurt pride.
.
In the last chapter God speaks through Jeremiah of how the ruin of the land and people of Israel shall be to scare for all the rest of the world. Everything that used to mean something is gone, there shall only be fright and terror.
.
Jeremiah suffers persecution, but God saves Him when he repent.
.
Peace to you,
åslaug
Jeremiah 13-15
.
What it meant to me:
Like a belt around the waist of a man, have God drawn the people of Israel and Juda close to Himself, so they (and we) would be His people, His glory, praise and adornment. To be the adornment of the King of Kings, who could ever dream of more? A better compliment?
.
God calls again and again the people to turn back to Him, to listen to Him and let pride go. Before it’s too late. I think I have a lot to learn from that; to listen to God and let pride go. I have a tendency to always think I can do things all by myself. And when I see that I can’t, I struggle hard with letting go of pride and listen to God for what I should do next. Also when His plans contains that I fail to succeed in something important. It’s hard to turn to Him then, and be happy about hurt pride.
.
In the last chapter God speaks through Jeremiah of how the ruin of the land and people of Israel shall be to scare for all the rest of the world. Everything that used to mean something is gone, there shall only be fright and terror.
.
Jeremiah suffers persecution, but God saves Him when he repent.
.
Peace to you,
åslaug
Fourth Day of the Challenge
Reading:
Jeremiah 10-12
.
What it meant to me:
God tells us to not think or act like the people around us, people of this world that do not belong to Him, we shall not fear what they fear, because we know Him, and that is a totally different reality.
.
He describe in detail how false the heathen gods are and how they make no harm (!), but neither no good. He say that all human beings are stupid and unwise. He also make it clear that the reason He brings them into tribulation, is not His wreath alone, but so that we/the people of Israel shall find Him.
.
He describes His people like a olive tree, and that explains how He created us, placed us where we are, uphold our life, and also how little we are, how easy we can be attacked and disappear from the Earth. He calls us “my beloved”.
.
Jeremiah discuss with God, and even as he does, acknowledge that He is always right. He asks the hard questions, why everything works out for bad people, why people who don’t believe are safe and not in danger of bad things. God is the One who created them and upholds their life.
.
I think Gods answer is in the next paragraphs, where He says that in His time, He will punish the nations whom He today gives victory over Israel. He uses them for punishment and to make the people, His beloved, find Him, and later, He will punish them for their sins against His people. For they will be cruel.
.
I guess that if God was so small and easy to understand, that even I could do it, it wouldn’t be much reason to believe in Him after all.
Peace to you,
åslaug
Jeremiah 10-12
.
What it meant to me:
God tells us to not think or act like the people around us, people of this world that do not belong to Him, we shall not fear what they fear, because we know Him, and that is a totally different reality.
.
He describe in detail how false the heathen gods are and how they make no harm (!), but neither no good. He say that all human beings are stupid and unwise. He also make it clear that the reason He brings them into tribulation, is not His wreath alone, but so that we/the people of Israel shall find Him.
.
He describes His people like a olive tree, and that explains how He created us, placed us where we are, uphold our life, and also how little we are, how easy we can be attacked and disappear from the Earth. He calls us “my beloved”.
.
Jeremiah discuss with God, and even as he does, acknowledge that He is always right. He asks the hard questions, why everything works out for bad people, why people who don’t believe are safe and not in danger of bad things. God is the One who created them and upholds their life.
.
I think Gods answer is in the next paragraphs, where He says that in His time, He will punish the nations whom He today gives victory over Israel. He uses them for punishment and to make the people, His beloved, find Him, and later, He will punish them for their sins against His people. For they will be cruel.
.
I guess that if God was so small and easy to understand, that even I could do it, it wouldn’t be much reason to believe in Him after all.
Peace to you,
åslaug
Third Day of the Challenge
Reading:
Jeremiah 7-9
.
What it meant to me:
These chapter continues to describe how God has seen Israel’s betrayal in the way they live: gossiping about friends, false hearts, harsh words, violence, betrayal, lack of love towards friends and family and communiry and so on (quite like we do/I do), and God is so clearly disgusted about our behaviour. So heartbroken because we/they have left the path He has chosen for us because it is our best.
.
It’s told of a whole family, men, women and children, working together to sacrifice food to the heathen godess Astrarte. Reminds me of School of Astarte and “how to get in contact with your inner angels” and so on. And God’s response to this worship of her, is this: It is not bad because we insult Him, because we do not (7,9!) because we are ashaming ourselves.
.
Quite astonishing that God is this upset, on our behalf, but then again, He did sacrifice His life for us, so it shouldn’t (though still is) so surprizing that He cares for us. So many truths in the Bible is listed again and again, in new circumstances every time, from different angles, seen with different eyes, sometimes seemingly totally out of context. Just the same stuff, over and over again.
.
We should make a slogan: Get it in with a teaspoon: Read the Bible!
.
But to be serious; It’s a thing that is very very important for my understanding of the Word, I know, and it also there are more hidden depths of the Truth in all these new angles and contexts. I think I will learn very much from this, and change even more.
.
There’s a change in the wind.
Peace to you,
åslaug
Jeremiah 7-9
.
What it meant to me:
These chapter continues to describe how God has seen Israel’s betrayal in the way they live: gossiping about friends, false hearts, harsh words, violence, betrayal, lack of love towards friends and family and communiry and so on (quite like we do/I do), and God is so clearly disgusted about our behaviour. So heartbroken because we/they have left the path He has chosen for us because it is our best.
.
It’s told of a whole family, men, women and children, working together to sacrifice food to the heathen godess Astrarte. Reminds me of School of Astarte and “how to get in contact with your inner angels” and so on. And God’s response to this worship of her, is this: It is not bad because we insult Him, because we do not (7,9!) because we are ashaming ourselves.
.
Quite astonishing that God is this upset, on our behalf, but then again, He did sacrifice His life for us, so it shouldn’t (though still is) so surprizing that He cares for us. So many truths in the Bible is listed again and again, in new circumstances every time, from different angles, seen with different eyes, sometimes seemingly totally out of context. Just the same stuff, over and over again.
.
We should make a slogan: Get it in with a teaspoon: Read the Bible!
.
But to be serious; It’s a thing that is very very important for my understanding of the Word, I know, and it also there are more hidden depths of the Truth in all these new angles and contexts. I think I will learn very much from this, and change even more.
.
There’s a change in the wind.
Peace to you,
åslaug
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