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Jeremiah 16 (ESV)

¹⁰ “And when you tell this people all these words, and they say to you, ‘Why has the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us? What is our iniquity? What is the sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?’ ¹¹ then you shall say to them: ‘Because your fathers have forsaken me, declares the Lord, and have gone after other gods and have served and worshiped them, and have forsaken me and have not kept my law, ¹² and because you have done worse than your fathers, for behold, every one of you follows his stubborn, evil will, refusing to listen to me. ¹³ Therefore I will hurl you out of this land into a land that neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.’
 
14 “Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when it shall no longer be said, ‘As the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’ 15 but ‘As the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them.’ For I will bring them back to their own land that I gave to their fathers.

REFLECTION:

In this passage, Jeremiah declared God’s judgment to the people of Judah on behalf of God: because they were stubborn and rebellious, God would drive them out of the Promised Land where they lived for generations. Then God promised that when the day came, He would bring His people back into the land He gave to their ancestors, and they would experience a miracle greater than that of the exodus from Egypt (v15). The Book of Exodus records how God performed a miraculous salvation to save His people from Egypt’s slavery. God’s promise will never fail. We can see that the history of the Israelite’s return from exile is more glorious and memorable than that of Exodus. This history records the Israelite’s stubbornness and abandoning God, but God still treat them with infinite love and compassion. Today, do you also see the wonder of God’s salvation? In your personal growth experience, even though you are sometimes far away from God, have you experienced God’s guidance to you, never abandoning nor forsaking you?

PRAYER:

Come to God with a grateful heart, count the blessings of God, review your life journey, and see how many times you have been far away from God but He has pulled you back again? Pray that God will hold you tight with a cord of compassion, so that you can develop a closer relationship with Him.

HYMN:

Lead Me To The Cross – youtu.be/StW6ZKHRCFo