Free And Short Daily Devotions for our Daily Study

WEDNESDAY, 15 MARCH 2023

TEXT: Jeremiah 7:16-27

16. As for you, do not pray for this people, do not raise a cry or prayer on their behalf, and do not intercede with me, for I will not hear you.

17. Do you not see what they are doing in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?

18. The children gather wood, the fathers kindle fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes for the queen of heaven; and they pour out drink offerings to other gods, to provoke me to anger.

19. Is it I whom they provoke? Says the Lord. Is it not themselves, to their own hurt?

20. Therefore thus says the Lord God: My anger and my wrath shall be poured out on this place, on human beings and animals, on the trees of the field and the fruit of the ground; it will burn and not be quenched.

21. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh.

22. For in the day that I brought your ancestors out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to them or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices.

23. But this command I gave them, “Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk only in the way that I command you, so that it may be well with you.”

24. Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but, in the stubbornness of their evil will, they walked in their own counsels, and looked backward rather than forward.

25. From the day that your ancestors came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have persistently sent all my servants the prophets to them, day after day;

26. yet they did not listen to me, or pay attention, but they stiffened their necks. They did worse than their ancestors did.

27. So you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you. You shall call to them, but they will not answer you.

(New Revised Standard Version Holy Bible)

TOPIC: WHEN PRAYER IS NOT THE SOLUTION

This passage opens on a very sad note when God commands Jeremiah thus: “So do not pray for these people nor offer any plea or petition for them; do not plead with me, for I will not listen to you” (verse 16).

These words are strong indications that Jerusalem had reached the point of no return because God said “when you tell them all this, they will not listen to you; when you call to them, they will not answer” (verse 27).

Their rejection of God peaked when they offered burned offerings to the “Queen of Heaven” and worshipped many other idols.

Unfortunately, they were behaving like their forefathers did in the Promised Land following their release from captivity in Egypt. How often have we found ourselves in the same position as Jeremiah; crying out to God in prayers either for our deliverance or that of others but we are told that the solution is to return to God.

We must be sensitive to know when action is required rather than prayer. Our response to His Word will determine the result we get from Him. Jerusalem turned her back on Jesus and His Word and worshipped other gods which blocked their ability to receive grace and mercy from God.

QUESTION: Do you know that sometimes you don’t need to pray but do something else instead?

PRAYER: Lord Jesus Christ, please show me when to pray and when to just

go ahead and do something else. Amen.