Jeremiah 42
August 27, 2013
Bible Passage: Jeremiah 42
“For you were hypocrites in your hearts when you sent me to the LORD your God, saying, ‘Pray for us to the LORD our God, and according to all that the LORD your God says, so declare to us and we will do it.’ ” (Jer 42:20)
Have you ever prayed to God for guidance in making a difficult decision or in solving a problem?
In fact, all of us may have done so at one point or other in our lives; but did you do eventually follow God’s guidance?
When we ask God for guidance, we are actually acknowledging our limitations as human beings. As we turn to God, we are acknowledging that He is the only One who knows everything and who can do all things. Yet when we see that God leads us into a direction that we do not like, we all too often take our own path because we simply don’t have enough faith to accept what God provides for us. The same thing happened to the Israelites whom king Nebuchadnezzar had left in Judah.
They were in a difficult situation, for Gedaliah, whom Nebuchadnezzar had appointed to be governor over the remnant of Israel, had been murdered and the people feared that they would have to be the scapegoat. So they asked Jeremiah to inquire of the LORD for them. But in fact, they already had the preconceived notion that only fleeing to Egypt, which had been Israel’s ally, could save them from trouble.
No wonder that they could not accept God’s instruction to stay in the land of Judah! For this reason, their prayer became hypocritical – maybe they had the good intention to rely on God at first, but eventually, they did not obey God’s words because things did not turn out their way. In other words, they did not hold fast to their faith in God; they did not continue to rely on God.
Today, we often fail to rely on God to the end because we find it hard to see how a certain situation can benefit us. We may think that the situation is completely different from what we expected or that it may be even worse. Yes, sometimes it may be tough to accept God’s will for us but we must learn to have faith in God; we must believe that God sees much farther into the future than we can ever do (cf. Isa 55:9); we must believe that whatever God gives to us is good, even if it is not according to our wishes or even if we have to suffer now (cf. Jer 29:11):
Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise:
“For yet a little while,
And He who is coming will come and will not tarry.Now the just shall live by faith;
But if anyone draws back,
My soul has no pleasure in him.”But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.
(Heb 10:35-39)
If we feel that we really have trouble submitting to God’s guidance, we can always pray and ask the Lord to change our hearts and to strengthen our determination to obey God “[w]hether it is pleasing or displeasing, … that it may be well with us when we obey the voice of the LORD our God” (Jer 42:6).
For more on relying on God, click here: Strength in Reliance
Have a blessed day!