My Strength

Jeremiah 16:19 (MSG) 19 God, my strength, my stronghold, my safe retreat when trouble descends:

The enormity of what I am about to undertake overwhelms me, I go to the Lord, 'You sure you want me to do this?' I ask.

Jeremiah was chosen by God to give a message to a people who would not listen to him, yet a people he cared for. He was thrown into a well and left for dead but God sent help. He was threatened with death constantly.

There were sooth-sayers who gave a message that was not Gods, the people believed these well speakers yet God was telling Jeremiah a different message.

I wonder what preachers would do if every word they speak was governed by legislation, how would they handle submitting their sermons to authorities to be vetted before they gave them? How would they go having to justify every $ they receive.

I know that there are preachers in some communist countries that would face such a rigorous, debilitating, soul destroying process. The threat of jail would be constant, yet for the sake of Christ and the message of freedom it would be worthwhile.

I am living in a free country, free for the sake of the gospel, yet in my occupation, financial planning, I am constrained, tied in chains, mile of legislation which grows by the minute and for what? My only reason would be obedience none other.

Who in their right mind would choose to be subject to legislation willingly? I think I know. There was a man who was a king in his own kingdom who chose the come and become an ordinary man and submit himself to the narrowness of humankind so that He could set His people free.

Christ came and submitted himself to the laws of the land, knowing that those very laws and the lawgivers would kill him, but He had a plan that was greater than the law. Freedom for all who were under the law. He came to seek and save the lost.

It would help me to keep this focus. amen!