A message to Baruch(to you?)

I wanted to post yesterday, but time got away from me. As I sat down this morning to take in God’s words, I was reminded again of what I read yesterday. Jeremiah had a hard “calling from God”. In these chapters of  Jeremiah, it seemed like not many would listen to this “mouth piece from God”. How discouraging is that? Of course there are some famous verses in this book like Jeremiah 33:3 “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.” There are the Recabites in chpt.35 who were an obedient group and I am sure that was encouraging to Jeremiah.  Right after they are talked about comes the challenge for Baruch, he wrote everything down for Jeremiah. God directed them to write down everything concerning Israel, Judah and all the other nations for many years. I can imagine that took many hours (no laptops).  Do you know this story?  When they were finished He had to take (big huge scroll) to the Lord’s temple and read it to everyone there. Well it ended up in the kings hands and he had it burned. He sent men after Jeremiah and Baruch to be put in prison.  As they were hiding from the king, Baruch was writing all the words from Jeremiah down again( v. 32 of chpt.36).                                                                                          I am sure there is a lot going thru Baruch’s mind at this time. He was a servant and willing do to what he was told but I am sure redoing everything was time-consuming and disappointing. His buddy Jeremiah is taken later and thrown into a cistern (yuck). Many more things happen thru the chapters and no mention of Baruch until a whole chapter(45).  Jeremiah looks at him and says God wants to say something to you.  God heard what Baruch had said ,vs.3″Woe to me! the Lord has added sorrow to my pain; I am worn out with groaning and find no rest”. Baruch was very discouraged. Can you imagine all of your “work” shown no respect and burned up?  I am sure he lived in fear and torment because of who he was and the stand he took along side Jeremiah. 

Our Awesome Lord that we serve, says to this discouraged, worn out man, vs. 4&5 “I will overthrow what I have built and uproot what I have planted throughout the land.Should you then seek great things for yourself? Seek them not………….but wherever you go I will let you escape with your life.”      That must have been just what he needed to hear from the Lord. I was thinking about this promise the Lord made to him, He has given us this promise also thru His Son Jesus. We are free from the enemies in our lives and we have eternal freedom.  Some of you today may be feeling you have no message from the Lord and you can’t feel Him today.  He did more for us, He put into action His words by sending Jesus.  Don’t seek great things for yourself, if you have received Christ, you have received the greatest thing!!!  God sees us and our human focus at times can get down and fear and disappointment with failure feelings can flood in. You are an individual in God’s eyes and He made his promise clear. Hear it today and be encouraged!!!!!!

Thirsty?

John 7:37, 38 “Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink, Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.”

                                  This morning I read these verses and my thoughts went back to our time at these falls. Not the biggest ones but still powerful and beautiful. It never runs out of water because there is a source.  We have a great source to draw from too.  If we all come to Jesus like He asks and believe and drink, we have a promise of “streams of living water will flow” from us.  What is it that will flow out of us?  It is defiantly not things from our flesh or the world! It will be the substance of what Christ is. Can Humility, Joy, peace, wisdom, forgiveness, love, compassion, holiness, generosity and many more great things of Christ flow out of us?  Have you been getting your thirst filled by Christ or is the Worlds false drinks been what you have been filling up on?  Can you imagine if we the Body of Christ really obeyed and all came to Him and drank fully? I can see gatherings of Christ’s Body more powerful because we are joining together to go over the edge of just the norm. All who are walking up to observe would see how real Christ really is thru our daily living and how powerful Christ’s Church really is!! So are you thirsty today?  Get yourself to Christ and drink of Him!! I want to see your streams of living water flowing out of youJ. We need each other drawing closer to Jesus!!!  Don’t settle for false quenching! Come on Brothers and Sisters get thirsty!!!