August 11, 2018 Bible Study — Influence the World, But Do Not Allow the World To Influence You

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Jeremiah 13-15.

    Every day since I began reading Jeremiah this year I have struggled while reading the passage to see what I would write about. And every day as I was reading I saw an isolated verse or phrase which spoke to me. The same thing has happened again today. Having found that one passage (some days there were two or three, but not today) I went back and read the passage again and found something else I wanted to comment on.

    Jeremiah’s story about the loincloth and its message is as relevant today as it was when he first told it. We, every last one of us, was made to cling to God, to obey and serve Him. Our pride leads us to reject our role with God, seeking instead a role of greater prominence with other gods. However, rather than gaining greater value, we become something which must be discarded. We cannot change ourselves. Only by humbly accepting the role which God created us for can we attain any value. We must allow Him to change us into what He desires us to be.

    Now I come to the phrase which struck me and I see that it connects, to a degree, with what I just wrote. If we return to God, He will restore us. As rotten and worthless as our sin and pride have made us, God is capable of restoring us to being a garment which serves Him. We must speak the words which God will give us, not the worthless words which those around us want to hear. We live among people who refuse to listen to God, our calling is to influence them, but we must be careful to not allow that to go the other direction. We must not allow them to influence us.