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In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
Lord, You understand; remember me
and care for me. Avenge me on my persecutors. You are long-suffering—do not
take me away; think of how I suffer reproach for your sake. When Your words
came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart’s delight, for I bear Your
name, Lord God Almighty. I never sat in the company of revelers, never made
merry with them; I sat alone because Your hand was on me and You had filled me
with indignation.”
“Why is my pain unending and my
wound grievous and incurable? You are to me like a deceptive brook, like a
spring that fails.”
Therefore this is what the Lord
says:
“If you repent, I will restore you
that you may serve Me; if you utter worthy, not worthless, words, you will be My
spokesman. Let this people turn to you, but you must not turn to them.”
Jeremiah 15:15-19
This ends today’s reading from God's holy
word. Thanks be to God.
Have you ever written a résumé?
If you’ve looked for a job within the last decade or so you
have.
It used to be you would only have to apply for a job at one
time but these days, a résumé is standard, sometimes even in addition to an
application.
In its most fundamental sense, the résumé we create is a
synopsis of who we are in relation to the job we are pursuing. Potential
employers will scan over it to see if your skills and work experience make you
the best candidate to fill the opening they have.
Match those requirements and your chances of being hired
are high. Come up short and you’re probably in for rejection.
With this as a backdrop, we look at a conversation between
God and his appointed prophet, Jeremiah. It’s an interesting exchange because
within it, we get a sense of what God is looking for on the résumés of those
who seek to be employed as His servants. Look again at these verses and then we’ll
look at the specific qualities God is looking for as He seeks people to go to
work for Him:
“Lord, You understand; remember me and care for me. Avenge me on my
persecutors. You are long-suffering—do not take me away; think of how I suffer
reproach for your sake. When Your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and
my heart’s delight, for I bear Your name, Lord God Almighty. I never sat in the
company of revelers, never made merry with them; I sat alone because Your hand
was on me and You had filled me with indignation.”
“Why is my pain unending and my wound grievous and incurable? You are
to me like a deceptive brook, like a spring that fails.”
Therefore this is what the Lord says:
“If you repent, I will restore you that you may serve Me; if you utter
worthy, not worthless, words, you will be My spokesman. Let this people turn to
you, but you must not turn to them.” Jeremiah 15:15-19
Looking at Jeremiah’s ways and the Lord’s expectations for
him, we can see the following qualifications required of any servant of the
Lord:
1. They have to be willing to suffer for His name and for
His sake.
“Lord, You understand; remember me and care
for me. Avenge me on my persecutors. You are long-suffering—do not take me
away; think of how I suffer reproach for your sake.”
Being a prophet wasn’t an easy job.
You were required to bring God’s message to His people even
if it was bad news, and unfortunately it often was.
When that bad news was delivered, the people of God had two
choices: receive it, repent, and turn from their ways or reject it and
persecute the messenger (maybe this is where the saying, “Don’t shoot the
messenger”, first came into play). In Jeremiah’s case, it was obvious that the
Israelites turned on him and, as a result and by his own confession, he
suffered reproach and rebuke for God’s sake.
Today, believers are still suffering persecution, even death,
for going forth boldly in the name of the Lord, following not only in the steps
of Jeremiah, but Jesus Himself. And we shouldn’t be surprised because Jesus
told us to expect it even going as far to say that Christian disciples would be
hated because He was despised during His ministry years on earth.
Perhaps we’ll know best that we are properly carrying out
the Lord’s work when we experience the persecution that will rise up in
opposition to it.
2. They have to delight in the Lord’s words, all of them, even
if they convey bad news instead of good.
When Your words came, I ate them; they were
my joy and my heart’s delight, for I bear Your name, Lord God Almighty.
Note here that the prophet didn’t say that he liked some of
God’s words conveyed to him more than others. No. Jeremiah’s heart delighted in
receiving all of the words God gave him. He rejoiced in digesting them as he
tried to grow in the righteousness of the Lord, never afraid to bear His
precious and holy name as a banner for his life and his work.
We should do likewise today. For Jesus, our Savior, quoted
scriptures from the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy (chapter 8, verse 3) when
He stated:
“Man shall not
live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
Matthew 4:4
Any true servant of God needs to heed these words that were
spoken and lived out by the only perfect servant who ever lived.
3. They have to avoid being adversely influenced into sin.
“I never sat in the company of revelers, never
made merry with them; I sat alone because Your hand was on me and You had
filled me with indignation.”
It would have been easy for Jeremiah to hang out with the
Israelites. After all, he was one of them. But there were many ways that the
prophet was different from the masses. While he was fiercely devoted and
dedicated to God, completely loyal to Him, the people of Israel were blatantly
sinning against God with seemingly no worry of it. They had adopted false gods
and idols that they were worshipping, ignoring and rejecting God’s most primary
command to not have any gods before Him. Through their behavior, they were the
anti-Jeremiahs and so the prophet chose to not be in their company and sided
with the Lord instead. Smart move.
We need to learn from this trait found in Jeremiah. Too
often, we fail to discriminate who we connect ourselves to and become
disempowered in our faith and guilty by association more often or not when we
are in the company of people who do not share our same Christian values and
principles. If we hope to work for the Lord in servitude, we need to be able to
divorce ourselves from partnering with the wicked and maintain a standard that
asks people to become more like we are rather than the other way around.
It’s important enough that God reinforced it as He gave
guidance to Jeremiah saying:
“Let this people turn to you, but you must
not turn to them.”
4. They never fail to repent.
“If you repent, I will restore you that you
may serve Me.”
Note here that the Lord is now adding qualities that He
desired His servant to have and perhaps none were more important than
repentance.
No servant of God could expect to be taken seriously if
they were sinning just like everyone else. That’s why anyone who decides to be
unrepentant has no place going forward for the Lord to accomplish anything. God
expects His workers to go forth in righteousness and a pure spirit and by
confessing our sins, we show God we are sorry for our errors and acknowledge He
is our only source of true pardon and exoneration.
5. They speak worthy words.
“If you utter worthy, not worthless, words,
you will be My spokesman.”
The only way to speak worthy words is to tap into someone
who can provide them to you and that someone will always be the Lord God
Almighty. For when we offer ourselves up to Him and ask Him to speak through
us, then His words become our words because we are just am instrument through
which He is doing all His work, in action and in word. A true spokesman of the
Lord is never speaking of his own accord but rather the very words of God
Himself, words that are always the most treasured and richest, words that are
always worthy and never worthless.
And there you have it, five key necessities that any
potential laborer for the Lord needs to have.
How well would your spiritual résumé qualify you to become God’s
servant?
Amen.
In
Christ,
Mark
PS: Please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com
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