Scripture

Our verse for today comes from Jeremiah 52:6, “By the fourth month, on the ninth day of the month, the famine had become so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land.”

Background

Many years ago, I was recounting to a couple of my buddies an incident that happened to me while I was driving. I made painstaking efforts to precisely describe for them where I was, down to the exact curve on the particular road. And after several minutes of attempting to set the scene for them, I finally made clear what I was trying to explain – the exact moment when I felt a cold coming on. Even today, over thirty years later, they can still get a laugh out of the efforts I made to tell them when I noticed that I was getting sick. What seemed interesting and informative to me at the time turned out to be trivial and meaningless but still became a piece of the enduring friendship that has lasted more than three decades. God certainly inspired His Word to be written in several different styles. Some parts are amazingly detailed, while others omit information and pass over generations almost like they didn’t exist. In today’s passage, Jeremiah tells us the exact day of the exact month when the people of Jerusalem ran out of food. Other sections describe similar peculiar events, while certain portions of scripture go to great lengths to predict the future.

Application

But what do we do with this information? My story about my cold endured as a joke. But what if it had been a tale about knowing precisely when I might catch a cold? What if God, say, pointed out to you specific temptations that were coming your way? What if He created movie ratings that warned of the immoral behavior in the film? What if commercials played on television showing what was coming up next? What if He gave you an opportunity to talk about someone, or just keep it to yourself? What if your spouse was doing that thing again that drives you crazy, that thing that always makes you lose your patience? If you knew things like this, would it change the way you reacted? Would you handle them differently, if you only knew? If you knew you had the power of God within you, would it make a difference? Would it, on the fourteenth day of the tenth month?

Charge

As we seek Him today, remember some of the things that you already know about your Heavenly Father. Remember some of the things about yourself, too, and then make a choice.

Salvation – Eternal Life in Less Than 150 Words