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16:1-21
‘O Lord, my Strength and my Stronghold, my Refuge in the day of trouble, to You the nations will come from the ends of the earth... They will know that My Name is the Lord’(19,21). Faith is to be personal- The Lord is my Strength, my Stronghold, my Refuge. Faith must not be private. It is not to be kept to ourselves. There is to be no ‘us and them’ attitude. We are not to have a ‘we are the people’ attitude. The Gospel is for the nations. We’re not to say, ‘I’m okay. That’s all that matters’. The Gospel is to be taken to the ends of the earth. We are to reach out to others. We must share the Gospel with the people we meet. Tell the people what the Lord has done for you. Tell them what He can do for them. Let them know how much the Lord loves them. Let them know that our God can be their God too.

17:1-27
‘The Lord’ is ‘the Fountain of living water’(13). He says to us, ‘With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation’(Isaiah 12:3). We can be ‘like a tree planted by water’, a tree that ‘does not cease to bear fruit’(8; Psalm 1:3). God speaks His Word to us: ‘“Where is the Word of the Lord?”Let it come!’(15; Psalm 1:2) He brings His salvation to us: ‘Save me, and I will saved’(14; Psalm 1:6). He gives His blessing to us: ‘Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord’(7: Psalm 1:1). We rejoice in God’s ‘eternal love’, drinking from ‘the streams of living waters’ and discovering that ‘grace,... like the Lord the Giver, never fails from age to age’(Church Hymnary, 421). Let us press on to our heavenly and eternal glory: ‘In Your presence is fullness of joy. At Your right hand are pleasures for evermore’(Psalm 16:11).

18:1-23
‘The pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands, so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him’(4). This is what the Lord is doing in our lives. He is ‘the Potter’. We are no more than ‘jars of clay’(6; Isaiah 64:8; 2 Corinthians 4:7). Our lives are ‘marred’ by sin. It would be very easy to give up on ourselves. God hasn’t given up on us. He looks beyond what we are now. He sees what we will become. He is preparing us for ‘eternal glory’. ‘We are being renewed day by day’. ‘We are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory’(2 Corinthians 4:16-17:3:18). ‘Jesus, You are changing me. By Your Spirit, You’re making me like You... You are the Potter and I am the clay. Help me to be willing to let You have Your way...’(Mission Praise, 389).

19:1-20:6
‘Listen! I am going to bring on this city and the villages around it every disaster I pronounced against them, because they were stubborn and would not listen to My Word’(15). God is warning the people. He is calling them back from the way of sin and disobedience. He is calling them to return to Him. He is looking for people who will take Him seriously. He calls us to live in obedience to His Word. He calls us to worship Him with the dedication of our lives and not only the words of our lips. Sometimes, we wonder, ‘Will God’s blessing be lost forever? Is there a way of rediscovering His blessing in our lives?’. ‘There’s a way back to God from the dark paths of sin. There’s a door that is open and you may go in. At Calvary’s Cross is where you begin, when you come as a sinner to Jesus’(Mission Praise. 682).

20:7-18
Jeremiah is deeply depressed - ‘Cursed be the day I was born!... Why did I ever come out of the womb to see trouble and sorrow and to end my days in shame?’(14-18). He has been preaching God’s Word. He’s getting nothing but abuse in return: ‘The Word of the Lord has brought me insult and reproach all day long’(8). Does he stop preaching ? No! He keeps on going. He feels like giving up: ‘If I say, “I will not mention Him or speak any more in His Name”’. There is, however, a greater Power which drives him on - ‘His Word is in my heart like a fire’. No matter how much Jeremiah tries to keep silent, he ‘cannot’ do it (9). He moves forward in triumphant faith: ‘The Lord is with me like a mighty warrior’(11). He calls on the people to worship the Lord: ‘Sing to the Lord! Give praise to the Lord!’(13).