For a full description of the (Y3) reading plan, see the “About” page.
- What attributes of God’s character does this passage reveal?
- How does the passage point to Jesus?
- How should the truth of this passage change me?
- How do the events of today’s reading help you better understand the grand narrative of Scripture?
Jer. 34
People tend to misunderstand freedom. I have noted before that freedom, like so many other words, cannot stand on its own. It has to be relative to something. As a result, you must be a slave to something in order to be free from something else. To put it a slightly different way, you are a slave to whatever makes you free. We see this concept in God’s declaration to the disobedient Hebrews in this chapter. He said to them, “I hereby proclaim freedom for you…to the sword, to plague, and to famine!” (From Jer. 34:17). Turns out that when we exercise our freedom to disobey God and go our own way, we enslave ourselves to destruction.
Jer. 35
What an honor for the Rechabites to have God use them as an example of faithfulness! It wasn’t about the specific actions they chose to avoid. It was about their commitment to obedience. I have no idea what motivated them to remain faithful to their ancestor’s commands, but it is clear that their devotion to their way of life outweighed their desire to do their own thing. That’s what God wants from us – to care more about being in right relationship with Him than about our own fleshly desires. When we do, like the Rechabites we will stand in God’s presence forever.
Jer. 36
People are constantly trying to negate, undermine, and silence God. They refuse to acknowledge that He, and only He, is God. Jehoiakim burned Jeremiah’s scroll, as if that would destroy the truth of its message. But God’s truth and His word are not contained in a scroll. Nor do they die with any man. Thus, that scroll that Jehoiakim thought he destroyed came back again, with even more added. And that man named Jesus that the Jewish leaders thought they ended – He came back again, too, with His impact multiplied.
Jer. 37-38
It is amazing how committed we become to what we want to believe. Our human nature opposes the truth, because the truth is hard. It can tend to weaken our morale, as the officials complained. Thus, even when the evidence is before us, we cling to our false hope; we cling to the lie. Zedekiah repeatedly called Jeremiah, supposedly seeking a word from the LORD. However, he didn’t really want God’s word. What he wanted was for God’s word to change to what he wanted it to be. Instead of realizing that the prophets who claimed what he wanted to hear had lied while Jeremiah spoke the truth, he continued to reject what he didn’t want to hear. So very human.
The truth of the matter is that we don’t need to bolster our morale. What we need is to let go of false hope, which is rooted in pride, and cling to our only true hope, which is Jesus Christ, God’s Word and His Promise. And instead of seeking for the word we want to hear, we need to humble ourselves to respond to the truth.