WRITE IT DOWN

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord:

“This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Write in a book all the words I have spoken to you. The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will bring my people Israel and Judah back from captivity and restore them to the land I gave their ancestors to possess,’ says the Lord.”

Jeremiah 30:1-3

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

I have been teaching and writing from the word of God for a long time and there’s a lesson I learned some time ago:

When the Lord speaks to you, you had better stop and write it down.

Going back in time, I don’t know how many instances there were when I was doing something completely outside of ministry when all of a sudden the Holy Spirit would come and give me a timely word, whether it was an idea for a devotion or insight toward a lesson I was preparing. This spiritual epiphany may have come while I was mowing the yard, in the middle of my work day, or driving down the highway but no matter when it came, my response was usually the same:

I’ll write it down later.

Guess what happened when I would do that?

You guessed it. I would not be able to remember what it was I wanted to remember and I can tell you that this frustrated me to no end. The Lord has given me something important and because I delayed in writing it down, I couldn’t access it anymore. It had become lost in the recesses of my mind.

And so I would feel guilty and disappointed at myself, praying that the Lord might bring what He had given to me back to mind. When I did, He would do it more times than not but the experience was so annoying and maddening to me that I decided to make an important correction to my behavior to prevent it from happening again.

What was that correction?

I vowed to never allow anything the Lord says to me to go unwritten anymore.

If I was mowing the yard and He spoke, I stopped the lawn mower and went to write down what He had given me. Ditto if I was at work or driving the car and I would carry a pad of paper with me which held the express purpose of receiving the words the Lord gave me so I would have them to use later. It was a great spiritual discipline to have and I am glad to inform you that it worked. I no longer have to deal with the quandary of forgetting something important the Lord has chosen to share with me.

So why am I going into all this today?

Because it is at the center of the word of God as we look at the opening verses of Jeremiah, Chapter 30. Look again at these verses here:

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord:

“This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Write in a book all the words I have spoken to you. The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will bring my people Israel and Judah back from captivity and restore them to the land I gave their ancestors to possess,’ says the Lord.”  Jeremiah 30:1-3

As we have seen in this book, God has set apart Jeremiah for special purposes, specifically to be His messenger. Up to this point, we have seen the Lord giving His prophet messages to speak to His people but as we see in the opening three verses of Jeremiah 30, the Lord commands Jeremiah to write in a book all the words He had spoken to Jeremiah. These words would be put in print and thus not have to rely simply on word of mouth for them to be passed on. Part of the reason we are blessed with the Holy Scriptures filled with the inspired word of God is because faithful servants of the Lord wrote down His word to be preserved for all eternity. And indeed, the word of God has ensured through the ages to become the most read book of all time. It has no rival nor will it ever have one.

Note that the Lord added more words for Jeremiah to record, words that were immersed in hope for the Israelites who were experiencing God’s judgment, taken away into a seventy-exile by the Babylonians, led by King Nebuchadnezzar. The message to the people of God was simple:

Better days were ahead for as soon as they had completed God’s period of punishment, He would show them once again that He is a God of mercy and grace and forgiveness, promising to restore His people to the land He had given to their ancestors to possess. Yes, a time was coming when the Israelites would be able to return home to rebuild their home, their lives, and their relationship with God.

We know because Jeremiah did as God commanded and wrote down His words as they were of critical importance and interest to His people then and today as we study this very word more than 2,000 years after they were first recorded.

Friends, the point the Lord is making to us today is crystal clear. When He speaks, it is always something important and given that, we need to make sure we capture His words by writing them down. I had to learn to do this in my life but I can assure you, I have been richly blessed by every word that has come to me from the mouth of the Lord, like this one I share with you today.

I pray you are equally blessed by them.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark
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