Nathan Neighbors
Follower of Christ, Husband, Father, & Youth Pastor
Guest Blog written by: Colin Raynor
Today we entered into a new book, Lamentations. To me this book really hits home to us in America when it describes Jerusalem it weirdly enough sounds just like the United States. It says, “How lonely sits the city that was full of people! How like a widow has she become, she who was great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces has become a slave.” – Lamentations 1:1. Later on in verse 8 it says Jerusalem was like that because, “Jerusalem has sinned grievously.” So much of what goes on in our world and especially the United States goes against what God wants us to do. The only hope that any country has in the long run is to keep God first, and it seems as if there is less, and less of that. So our job as Christians is to pray. Pray for our country, world, and leaders so we don’t become what Jerusalem became.
Throughout the book of Jeremiah I am astounded at the boldness with which the prophet Jeremiah spoke. He didn’t care what the people said or did to him. He spoke loud and clear the Words that the Lord told him to speak. In one section of the reading today (chapter 38), the people put him into a cistern (or a deep well) and left him there to die after he proclaimed the words of the Lord. The people didn’t want to hear what the Lord had to say. We may not be put down a well today for proclaiming the Word of God, but we certainly will be mocked and isolated from the world. The world desperatly needs to hear the Good News, but they are not always receptive to it. That’s what we see in this section of scripture. It’s a back and forth between the people being receptive and not receptive to the words that Jeremiah spoke on behalf of the Lord. One time in chapter 42 it appeared as if the people were ready to follow the Lord’s instruction. They said, “Whether it is favorable or unfavorable, we will obey the Lord our God, to whom we are sending you, so it will go well with us, for we will obey the Lord our God.” (Jer 42:6) But then just a few verses later the people disagreed with the Word from the Lord spoken by Jeremiah and they disobeyed Him.
It’s easy to judge the people in these pages of scripture. It’s easy to see them as fools and see their mistakes. But it’s not so easy to see my sin or my mistakes. But they are there. We all have gone astray…we all have sinned…we all have been foolish. May we obey The Word of the Lord…“whether it is favorable or unfavorable”.
Guest Blog written by: Molly Watkins
In Jeremiah 24, the Lord shows Jeremiah two different baskets of figs. One basket contains good, ripe figs while the other basket had figs that were so bad no one would be able to eat them. The Lord said the good figs were the people he loves and wanted to protect. He would give them what they needed so they would know he was their God. The bad figs, though, were the people who rejected him at the time. He was going to make them a curse to the world. He was going to send famines and plagues to them.
While I was in Honduras, I helped lead Bible stories to the children at the medical clinics. One of the things our team did was show the salvation plan through food coloring and water. Black was for sin, red was for Jesus’ blood, clear was for our clean hearts, green was for growth in Christ, and gold was for Heaven. I always did the gold cup so when I told the children about Heaven I always recapped what the other cups meant. I said that Heaven was a perfect place with streets made of gold and we have to accept Christ to get there, we can’t just live good lives. We have to let Jesus’ blood clean us to make us perfect, we have to want a relationship with him. So I relate a lot to what Jeremiah 24 is saying. We have to be good figs and have hearts for the Lord in order to get the awesome reward of Heaven. God despises evil just like we despise rotten fruit; it smells awful and it’s not healthy for us. So, as Christians, we want to eat the good fruit (God) and be healthy so that one day we will have the reward of being in Heaven and walking down those streets of gold with Jesus!
Nathan Neighbors 