I want to tell you a story about Jeremiah. Much of it will come from a Bible commentary called the TOW Project. I’ll add the link below if you want to read it more.
As many of us know, Jeremiah was a prophet of God. He grew up in the small town of Anathoth not to far from Jerusalem.
He was born into the priestly line of Abiathar but had little to no influence with the priests in Jerusalem.
In 1 Kings 2:27, Abiathar was told to basically go back to your little town and tend to your fields. In other words, King Solomon had removed Abiathar from the priesthood centuries earlier, so nobody thought much of young Jeremiah.
Now, here comes the call of God.
Jeremiah to be his prophet in Jerusalem of all places. He finds himself in the middle of priests who didn’t accept his priesthood.
People treated him like an outsider. They were suspicious of him and just didn’t like him because he was not like them, so to speak.
So here he is in his early 20’s, has a call of God on his life, and people are already hating on him.
Not to mention that God gave him, according to Jeremiah 1:10, the job of delivering messages to nations and kingdoms. It was to “pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”
God’s messages given through Jeremiah were not about rainbows and unicorns. Part of his assignment was to oppose the idolatry and evil practices that had become part of worship in Judah.
Yeah! Not a fun, easy task.
Jeremiah didn’t exactly accept God’s call on his life when it was presented.
Here’s Jeremiah’s initial comeback and God’s reaction.
Jeremiah 1:6 NRSV
6 Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.”
In other words, I don’t know what I’m doing; I’m too young.
Jeremiah 1:7 NRSV reads,
7 But the Lord said to me,
“Do not say, ‘I am only a boy’; for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you.
It seems that God doesn’t pay any attention to what he said. He just gave him a prophetic message to deliver in Jeremiah 1:11-16.
If you’ve read or heard about Jeremiah’s ministry, then you know he had a difficult assignment, but he trusted that God would get him through it.
So, where were you born?
What is people’s limited thinking about you?
Has God placed a call on your life?
Do you have a difficult assignment?
How have you responded to the Lord?
ACCEPT THE CALL OF GOD ON YOUR LIFE.
Let’s say, “Yes, Lord!”
Just like He was with Jeremiah in a hard place, He’ll be with each of us.
Accepting the call of God on our lives, now that’s the point of purpose. See you next time.
The TOW Project https://www.theologyofwork.org
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