Today’s passage: Jeremiah 15:1-21
Helpful thoughts:
- Chapter 14 ended with the people pleading for God’s forgiveness, though they were not truly repentant. They didn’t really want to change, they simply wanted God to withhold any consequences. Worldly sorrow.
- God was not going to relent from judgment any longer. Verse 2 indicates that what was coming was absolutely just and in truth, what Judah had been moving toward themselves through their actions.
- When we do things that bring about hardship (Natural consequences), we should expect those hardships to come and not be angry with others when they do.
- Jeremiah struggles in his role as a prophet to a people who do not want to listen. In that role, he pities himself. God called him to repent.
Questions to consider:
- How do we generally tend to view hardships? Are hard things simply hard or are they evil? How might we respond differently to hardships that we bring on ourselves as opposed to hardships that others bring upon us?
- What pain do you think Jeremiah wanted out of his life? When he called God a deceitful brook, what was he implying God was supposed to do for him?
- How did God’s answer re-orient Jeremiah’s view? Are we to find rest in the ways that we think God should make our hardships go away or is God the rest we need in the midst of the hardships in this life? Does He build us a fortress with things in this world or is He our fortress?