If you’re joining us in reading through Isaiah and Jeremiah today’s reading is Jeremiah chapter 23:9-40 and the devotion is taken from 23:16-17. This is what the LORD Almighty says: “Do not listen to what the prophets are prophesying to you; they fill you with false hopes. They speak visions from their own minds, not from the mouth of the LORD. They keep saying to those who despise me, ‘The LORD says: You will have peace.’ And to all who follow the stubbornness of their hearts they say, ‘No harm will come to you.’ Back in the late 70s there was a Southern Baptist pastor who made some strange predictions. He was part of a very vocal charismatic movement and was eager to share those things which he believed God placed on his heart. Shortly after he reached the pinnacle of his popularity he was diagnosed with a terminal illness. One Sunday he announced to his congregation that God had told him that even though he was going to die he was going to be raised up in three days by Christ. To my knowledge he is still in the ground. We need to be very careful to whom we listen concerning God’s word. We need to be constantly evaluating what our leaders teach and then hold them responsible if those things are not consistent with God’s word. Here in the United States we are in a very critical time in our Christian history. Never before has there been such a redefinition of what the Bible teaches about sin, salvation, and your spiritual walk. While there have always been those who have taught things outside of the historical Christian realm, the popularity of these teachings has never been greater. The idea that you can do anything in your life and still maintain an active walk with God is being taught, if not actively then passively, in each of our mainline Protestant denominations. It has become popular to teach that there is more than one way to achieve a saving relationship with God. We are being told that it is too narrow to believe that Christ is the only way and that we are bigots if we believe that. In John 14:6 Jesus says, “I am the way the truth and the life and no one comes under the father but through me.” That leaves very little room to say that there are others who can lead us to the path of a relationship with God. You must either believe that Jesus was either a liar, deranged, or truthful when he said this. Who is your Jesus?
Posted on: Tue, 03 Jun 2014 10:00:01 +0000