Wed.’s Devo - The Ruined Belt

Read: Jeremiah 12:1-14:10; 1 Thessalonians 1:1-2:9; Psalm 79:1-13; Proverbs 24:30:34
I love how Jeremiah questions God. He told him how just God was with everything he had brought to his courts but was wondering why he wasn’t that just with the wicked. According to what Jeremiah was seeing they were living without consequences and thriving. Jeremiah’s very thoughts were tested by God which didn’t seem very fair to Jeremiah.
It is true, we as God’s ambassadors are held to a higher standard than the world. They don’t represent him on the earth and we do. He is conforming us to the image of Christ and Christ learned obedience through the things he suffered.
But, God did have plans to bring justice and they would pay for their sins, God had to orchestrate nations to do it, which takes time.
God’s vengeance would also fall on the nations that volunteered to punish Israel and Judah. They would have the same thing happen to them. They would be uprooted from their land for a while and then they would all return to their land, hopefully more humble and with a fear of God.
God told Jeremiah to go and buy a leather belt and wear it for a few days so everyone would notice it. Then he was to take it off and bury it in the dirt at Perath. After many days, he was to dig it back up and show it to the people. It was ruined and worthless and he was to tell the people that in the same way, he would ruin the pride of Judah. They were the belt that God had bound around his own waist to be his people but they chose to rebel.
In Ephesians, God tells us to put on the belt of truth. Israel was to represent God’s truths but instead they were acting like their idolatrous neighbors. He had not choice but to destroy them and raise up a new seed.
God still cried out to them to repent before he brought destruction because it would be better for them to go though it with God than without him. He pled with the king and queen to repent because their crowns were about to fall. All Judah would be taken captive and dispersed. In their pride and arrogance, they refused to believe it.
Paul’s visit to Thessalonica came on the heel of his beatings in Philippi. His pain did not deter him from going straight to the synagogue every Sabbath for three weeks to proclaim the gospel. He ended up having to flee for his life during the night. He wrote two letters to the Thessalonians and the first one begins by commending them for their steadfast walk with the Lord during tribulation. Their reputation of faith had been spread abroad. They had turned from worshipping idols to worshipping the living God.
Lord, may we learn from the past and stay humble to you in times of prosperity and lack.