Author: nickjones2011
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Lamenting loss (Lamentations 1-5; Ps 137; 1 Pet 4)
CS Lewis wrote of his wife’s death – “her absence is like the sky, spread over everything.” Maybe you know a similar all encompassing loss. What do you do when you’re facing such hard times? God in his mercy has given us not only Psalms of lament to sing and pray, but a whole book…
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Light in the darkness (2 Kin 24-25; 2 Chr 36; Ps 126; 1 Pet 3)
If you’ve been following the 5 day Bible reading plan you will have just finished Jeremiah, Kings and Chronicles. Each one ends in a fairly dark place, but with a glimmer of hope. God’s people have disobeyed God and by now both the northern and the southern kingdoms have been destroyed. The people from the…
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What do you do when someone hurts you? (Jer 38, 39, 52; 1 Pet 2)
If you live long enough, someone will hurt you. You have probably already discovered that. There are degrees of hurt, from the careless word, to the deliberate insult, to the physical threat and even harm, such as that faced by Jeremiah. What do you do with the hurt? Do you have to forgive? There is…
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How precious to belong to Jesus (Jer 30-33; 1 Peter 1)
What could be better?! In our reading from Jeremiah 31 God promises His people forgiveness and new hearts. In 1 Peter 1 we learn that Jeremiah and the other prophets were serving us by writing these things for us. Peter tells us how this forgiveness and new heart comes about – those who trust Jesus…
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The blessing of suffering (Jer 37, 21, 34; Psalm 79; James 5)
James began his letter by telling his readers to “consider it pure joy when you face trials” and he ends it by pointing out blessings that come from trials. The particular blessing James has in mind is “steadfastness” – that is keeping going. Remember the danger in the book of James? God has been of…
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Life is a mist (Jeremiah 27, 28, 29, 24; James 4
We live near a beautiful valley, and a beautiful lake. Sometimes in the morning there is a beautiful mist that hangs over the valley. The lake can completely disappear under it. But within an hour of the sun coming up and it’s normally gone. God says, your life is like that (James 4:14). It’s so…
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Cup of wrath (Jer 25, 35, 36, 45; Ps 133; James 3)
Refusing to listen to God’s Word is nothing new! It started in the garden of Eden and has continued to this day. In Jeremiah 25 we see that the refusal of God’s people will lead to exile. God’s people will lose their land. We are told that by not listening to God, they have provoked…
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A faith that works (Jer 22, 23, 26; Psalm 77; James 2)
The fact that we are justified by faith alone has been a hallmark of the reformation. Errors crept into the church so that people believed they had to earn their salvation. Such teaching puts a terrible burden on people, for they never know if they have done enough to be saved. The glorious truths that…
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The blessing of dependence! (Jer 17-20; James 1)
We tend to think independence is a good thing. We train our children to do things for themselves and be independent. But in our striving for independence, we often forget that we are all totally dependent on God! Without His sustaining, we could not take our next breath. The problem stems back to Adam and…
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Who can stand? (Jer 14-16; Psalm 76; 2 Cor 13)
God warns His people of terrible judgment for their sin. The shock in Jeremiah 14 is that false prophets are directly contradicting God’s Word and saying “everything is going to be ok.” They give the people what they want to hear, they deny the need for repentance, they promise peace, cheap grace. You can imagine…
Light and Momentary Troubles 