August 8, 2020 Bible Study Plow Up the Hard Ground of Your Heart

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 4-6.

Years ago I heard a sermon preached around verse three of chapter four, “Plow up the hard ground of your hearts.”  I do not really remember what the preacher had to say, but I remember he emphasized, as Jeremiah does here, that we must give up our pride and power.  We must come before the Lord in humility.  His lesson applies even more today.  Look around at what is going on.  Our own actions have brought this on, we have failed to serve the Lord as we ought.  But even so, everyone is blaming someone else:
“They encouraged the rioters.” “They won’t wear masks.”  It is not someone else’s fault.  It is our fault.

We are standing with many roads ahead of us.  Jeremiah tells us that we should ask for the old, godly way and follow that path.  But how many people want to do that?  No, that way is “boring”, or, perhaps some of those who followed that path previously were flawed human beings.  We want to go a different way, a new way.  We can hear the sound of alarm from up ahead on those roads, but we do not turn back.  I like to believe that I am one of those sounding the alarms and heading for the old, godly path, but I fear I have allowed myself to be carried along with the crowd done the path to destruction.  I will pray to God that He shows me how I should go.