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Today's Reading: Jeremiah 18
Please read Jeremiah 18 and listen to what the Lord Jesus Christ would like to tell you before reading my Spiritual Journal below. If you would like to learn a simple and good way of Daily Devotion method please read my “Count Down 5” from this blog. You may click this link directly for the method: Subject Shifting Devotion.pdf. (You may begin with a song to praise the Lord and complete you devotion by singing another praise song.)
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Please click the links below to Jeremiah 18:
"Go down to the potter's house, and there I will give you my message."
"O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?" declares the Lord. "Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel."
"If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it."
"But they will reply, 'It's no use. We will continue with our own plans; each of us will follow the stubbornness of his evil heart.'"
Jeremiah 18: 2, 6-10, 12
Then the Lord reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, “Now, I have put my words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.”
Jeremiah 1: 9-10
Bible Study
Jeremiah was directed by God to a potter's house where God showed him how the potter formed a container from clay. God used this scene to show Jeremiah to tell us that His original creation became flawed and would not be suitable for what God intended. So He has to remold it into something that would better serve His purpose.
The appointment of God to Jeremiah in chapter one as "to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant " (Jer. 1: 10) reappear here in this chapter but without the fourth step "to overthrow". It's a clear message that the Israelites still had time to repent so the "overthrow" won't happen. But because of their "stubbornness" they were not "teachable" for God to mold them for His purpose like the potter mold a container from clay. If they repent and be teachable then they will be built and planted according to God's Kingdom plan.
How stubborn are you that you are obstructing God's Kingdom plan but to insist on your own plan(v. 12)
How teachable are you that you are doing God's Kingdom plan?
My Spiritual Journal
What I receive from Jesus is: Be teachable, not stubborn!
Today Jesus got me to focus first on verse 1. There is a place Jesus calls us to so that we can receive His message. It's the first step of our spiritual life to be built and planted by Him so that we won't be "uproot, tear down, destroy and overthrow".
But, as human beings usually we are not so teachable and so stubborn not to go there where ever it is but to stick on our plan.
Today's it the hooding ceremony for my Doctoral of Ministry degree at Fuller and tomorrow is the Commencement. I just got my gown(regalia), the hat and the hood this morning and Michelle is ironing them now. Jesus reminds me of a scene 40 years ago when I was waiting for the result of whether I could get into the Chinese University of Hong Kong for my B.A. degree. I was in a three days choir members' retreat in an orphanage in Hong Kong. I was so worried and I was waken up by the Lord early in the morning around 6p.m.. I went outside and I saw the chapel. I was so worried of my future and so I went in the chapel to pray. I saw a bright light shining on the large size bible on the altar and I went in to take a look at the Bible. It was turned to Jeremiah 18. You know what I want to say now. I read and I was in tears and a "holy shock"! What I got from Jesus that time is exactly what I got today but 40 years later: Be teachable, not stubborn! I am just a clay and if I am willing for the Lord to shape me then I will be built and plant as in His plan. Don't stick to my own plan but to be teachable to be transformed into His plan.
It's been 40 years since I experienced many times of His calling to a place to receive His message. Six years ago He called me to Fuller for my D. Min. and I did. I have been totally transformed through these six years of re-molding stage. What I got from the Lord now is like I am somewhat like Moses to be shaped by the Lord in a place for 40 years before God called him to lead the Israelites to experience their journey of Exodus into the Promised Land. It's just that I will not have another 40 years as Moses had wandering in the desert before they entered the Promised Land(in fact Moses could not enter!) I do hope and pray that because of how I have been trained to be more and more teachable and not so "stubborn" I can help more people to be built and planted by God. I know that it has to start with me! It has to start with you!
Are you ready to have a New Start today?!
Remember: be teachable, not stubborn!
Dear Lord Jesus,
Help us to be as teachable as we can so that we can live out your Kingdom plan. In Jesus Name we pray. Amen.
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Pray for our AMiA bishops:
The Rt. Rev. Sandy Greene (Gigi)
The Rt. Rev. TJ Johnston, Jr. (Rees)