Thought for February 9, 2024

• 1555: Bishop John Hooper and Dr. Rowland Taylor burned at the stake as Protestant heretics
• 1825: John Quincy Adams elected President by the House of representatives after no candidate got a majority of the electoral votes
• 1861: Jefferson Davis elected President of the Confederate States
• 1870: National Weather Service established
• 1895: Volleyball invented
• 1900: Davis Cup established 
• 1909: U.S. outlaws opium
• 1942: Daylight Savings Time goes into effect
• 1943: Alexander Solzhenitsyn arrested and charged with conspiracy to overthrow Stalin's government. Sent to a Gulag where he will find faith in Jesus.
• 1958: Dave Wilkerson sells his TV and decides to pray 2 hours each night--results--he ministers among the gangs of NYC
• 1964: Beatles appear on Ed Sullivan Show
• 1969: First Boeing 747 flight
• 1974: Dorothy Hamill wins US Figure Skating Championship
• 1995: "Riverdance" premiers in Dublin
• Born: William Henry Harrison [President for 1 month], Wilhelm Maybach [designed the first Mercedes], Carmen Miranda, Dean Rusk, Ernest Tubb, Garner Ted Armstrong, Clete Boyer, Joe Pesci, Alice Walker ["The Color Purple"], Mia Farrow, Sandy Lyle, Travis Tritt, Michael Jordan ["Black Panther"]
• Died: Dostoyevsky, Percy Faith, Bill Haley, James Cleveland [gopel singer], Bud Wilkinson, Hank Bauer

Thought:

Reading chapter 2 of Jeremiah this morning, a passage that contains some familiar words. I am looking specifically at 2:11-13, but want to consider 2:5-8 first: Look at what the Lord asks--what injustice did you find in Me that you went far from Me and walked after emptiness? When I chase after the things of the earth--things that are temporary that do not satisfy---I am like the people in Judah. We talk about a God shaped hole in the heart that only Jesus can fill--that is the question God is asking--why do you keep trying to replace Me with things that will not endure, cannot satisfy and cannot save? All you will find is emptiness.

The Lord gives an example of His faithfulness in verses 6-7. He brought Israel from Egypt, through the wilderness and into the Promised land. What a picture! Jesus brings us from slavery to sin and death, through this wilderness we call earth, and into the Promised Land. If He does that, why would we seek after things that cannot save, preserve, endure. 

God then asks a second question--has a nation ever changed gods to things that were not gods? The people had a relationship with the true and living God--but swapped that for things that are not gods at all--works of their hands, the creation and not the Creator. Perhaps God looks at America with the same question--have you swapped the true God for things that are not God? 

Finally God gives a picture--you have a fountain of living water yet you swapped it for a cistern, not only a cistern but one that is broken. Think about that picture. Jesus told th woman at the well that He was the source of living water that would flow ceaselessly within. A fountain that never runs dry. But we swap the fountain of abundant and everlasting flow for a cistern. A cistern could only hold water, not flow with water. Water in the cistern would give out, get stale, stagnate. Some of us may be like that---Jesus flows water into us, but we don't allow the water to flow through us so it gets stale, stagnant. Our spiritual lives shrivel. But here God says you didn't even swap for a good cistern that can hold water, you swapped for a broken cistern that is useless to hold water. Our bucket has a hole in it. We swapped a hose for a bucket with a hole in it. 

Today, I need to look at my water supply. Am I firmly connected to the source that never runs dry and always supplies an abundance? Am I a conduit for that flow? 

Blessings

Larry