Today, I am reading and commenting on  Jeremiah 7-9.

In today’s passage Jeremiah addresses “church-goers”, those who regularly take part in official worship of God.  God sent him to stand in front of the temple gate and speak to those who went through the gate to worship God, which was more or less the equivalent of going to church services on Sunday.  Jeremiah told them that the temple would not protect them from God’s judgement and in the same way going to church services every Sunday, or even including weekday services, will not save us from God’s judgement.  In order to be saved from God’s judgement we must allow God’s Spirit to change our actions.  We must deal with others justly, we must not oppress those weaker than ourselves, and we must not follow other gods.  I want to expand on that last one a little bit.  Through Jeremiah, God tells us not to follow other gods, because doing so harms us.  The other things in that list of things bring harm to others, but following other gods brings harm to ourselves.

This passage highlights the danger of thinking that “faith” in Christ is all that you need.  We cannot earn our way into heaven by doing good deeds; none of us are good enough for that to work.  However, if our faith in Christ does not cause us to do good deeds, we do not really believe Him.  If we think we will get into heaven because we were wise enough to avoid the mistakes which others made that are leading them to Hell, we are mistaken.  We must seek to obey God and provide assistance to those in need.  Do not boast about your wisdom, nor about your strength, nor about your wealth.  None of those things will do you any good.  Instead, boast about the fact that God has chosen you to take part in the sufferings of Christ, boast about the fact that you serve a God who will accept any who humbly turn to Him.  I serve a great God, and so can anyone who chooses to do so, no matter how many mistakes they have made, no matter how bad the mistakes they made.

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