Sat.’s Devo - Obedience to Our Father

Read: Jeremiah 35:1-36:32; 1 Timothy 5:1-25; Psalm 89:14-37; Proverbs 25:25-27
You can not read the prophets without feeling the love of God toward his people. He is patient and slow to get angry and surely slow to bring his judgment. He gave them countless times to repent. I see the picture in my mind of a mother counting to one hundred and fifty waiting for her child to do what she said. That is how I see God’s patience toward Jerusalem.
Today, God told Jeremiah to invite the Recabite family over and offer them wine to drink. They had been instructed by a relative that had lived years before that they were never to drink wine or live in houses. So for years and years they had never drank wine and had lived in tents. Jeremiah used their obedience to their ancestors as a example of what obedience to a father was suppose to look like. Israel had heard the commandments of their father but had failed to listen or follow them.
Then, God told Jeremiah to write down all the words that the prophets had said during the years against Jerusalem. Maybe this would get through to them and they would repent. Jeremiah knew that they would not let him through the gates to the court so he sent Barach, his scribe. Ironically it was the day of atonement and the people were fasting to ask God to forgive the sins of their nation. When Barach read the words to the people, Shaphan knew the king needed to hear them. (Shaphan was the scribe under Josiah that read the words of the law to Josiah and the whole nation repented.)
Sadly, when Barach read the words to the king, the king arrogantly cut them off section by section and had them thrown into the fire. God was relentless and told Jeremiah to write the same words on another scroll and even added some more words to it.
In Timothy, Paul tells the people to treat older people like their own parents and younger men and women as their own brothers and sisters. They were to recognize the needs of widows that had no family of their own. They were to take care of their own parents repaying them for what they had done for them. To neglect ones own family was to deny the faith they confessed.
Paul even gave a description of the widow that they were to help. She had to be over sixty, she had to have been a faithful wife and done good deeds for others. Paul councelled them from becoming idle gossips.
Paul also told them to honor their elders and pay them well for their service. If they were accused of anything, there must be at least two witnesses. He ended by saying that everything, good or bad would be exposed in the end.
Lord, help us to live our lives bearing good fruit that will remain.