Day One: Jeremiah

Day one is completed! If you’re just tuning into this blog, my goal for the next 66 days is to read a full book of the Bible each day. I compiled a list of all the books, rotating between long books and shorter books. After looking at the list I decided to start with the book of Jeremiah. While Psalms has the most chapters, the book of Jeremiah has the largest word count, and I wanted the biggest book out of the way first!

So throughout today I made a point to sit and read the 54 chapters and frankly it was harder than I expected. Jeremiah was a tough read for several reasons:

First, the book jumps around a lot. It goes from conversations between Jeremiah and God, to a historical account of what happened, to prophecies, and then to how the people responded. It was a constant back and forth.

Second, it mentions quite a few people. Kings, priests and even other prophets. I REALLY wanted to skip over to Kings and Chronicles to get some more details, but kept reminding myself that this study will take me there in time. I did make several notes on specific people to check out later or look at closer when I get to those books, just so I don’t forget.

Finally, the hardest part was the content. This whole book is full of God pleading, demanding and accusing His people. Begging them to truly repent- not just act like it so He will intervene. Demanding they give an account for their actions. Accusing them of being unfaithful at every turn. And poor Jeremiah is threatened, beaten and imprisoned simply for telling the people what God says.

But if you look at the book as a whole, the big thing I started to see is how merciful God is with his people. From the beginning he warns them that judgement is coming- over and over and over. Up until the armies are at the gates of Jerusalem God is giving them the chance to repent. And when they don’t He uses Jeremiah to tell them that this is not the end– there will be a remnant that will return to rebuild in 70 years.

Sprinkled in with all of that were clear references to Jesus’s coming- a promise that God was going to set up a Kingdom that would never end. So while I totally see why they call Jeremiah the Weeping Prophet, overall this book shows a beautiful picture of God’s mercy!

Thanks for following along with me- check back tomorrow as I tackle the book of Obadiah!

In Christ,

Karen