Called By His Name

“… Yet you, O Lord, are in the midst of us, and we are called by your name; do not leave us.” Jeremiah 14:9

We are all called by His name. We are called to walk in the world, but not be of it. But what happens when we take our eyes off Jesus. Today we are going to dive into the story of Jeremiah. He was called to be the light to the rebellious Israelites, but he took his eyes off God. Today, we are going to look at a heartfelt conversation between God and Jeremiah and see what God’s response is to Jeremiah and we are going to look at ways we can keep our focus on Jesus today. Come with me and let’s dive into Jeremiah 14 and 15.

Background

Jeremiah was a prophet of the Lord. Like the other prophets, the people of Israel did not like what Jeremiah said. Jeremiah spoke of repenting and returning to God, following God’s laws.  The people would much rather have kept having their “merry feasts” (Jeremiah 15:17) rather than come to God.

Even when God sent a drought in chapter 14, the Israelites cried out for relief for the sake of their reputation, because they were God’s people, (Jeremiah 14:19) not because they were repentant.

In the second half of chapter 15 Jeremiah and God have a heart-to-heart conversation. Jeremiah accuses God of not helping him in his time of need (V. 10). God reminds Jeremiah that He will take care of him (V.11), that Jeremiah had taken his eyes off God, and that he needs to put his eyes back on God if he was going to serve God (V. 19).

Jeremiah had fallen into the trap of complaining that the Israelites, and us today, fall into too often. He was looking at the problem and not the solution to the problem, God. When he stopped focusing on God and what He called him, he began to let the people influence him with bad attitudes, instead of influencing them for God. (V.19)

Staying focused, on Jesus, in a sea of negativity.

I am so prone to the same issue Jeremiah was dealing with in this chapter. Someone once told me I could “have sympathy for a door mouse.” It is a special heart God put in me, but it also means that I often let people’s emotions affect me more than I should. When people in my life struggle with a negative attitude it tends to rub off on me easily. It is something I know about myself and work on with Jesus to fix daily.

This is what I imagine Jeremiah was dealing with. The people had worn Him down and he was no longer being useful to the Lord. He was mumbling, grumbling, and complaining. But God did not get angry He just redirected Jeremiah’s focus.

The Lord told Jeremiah that the people would come against him, but despite their attempt to knock him off balance, God would make Jeremiah secure like a wall (v.20) Earlier in verse 12 God asks Jeremiah if a bronze bar can be broken. Then in verse 20 he tells Jeremiah that He will make him secure like a bronze wall. The use of bronze wall is used to be a metaphor for being strong and unbreakable in contrast to the metaphor of the pots that are broken and remolded.

When God was breaking and remaking the nation of Israel for their disobedience; God was fortifying and protecting Jeremiah. Jeremiah needed to be reminded that he could trust God to protect him and that he was here to influence, not to be influenced.

God has the same mission for His church today. We are here to praise God, trust Him, and to enact His will, that all men should be saved (2 Peter 3:9). To do this, we must keep our focus on God and what He is doing in, around, and through our lives. If we take our eyes from God, we will begin to be affected by others instead of affecting them and that is when God cannot use us.

Steps Toward God and away from the world.

When I notice that the world is beginning to affect me, instead of the other way around I know that it is time for a spiritual detox. I have talked about this on my Instagram live and YouTube channel, but I want to talk about the actual steps we can take in our everyday lives.

Memorize scripture. I say it all the time, but it’s because it truly has been something that has changed my thinking, heart, and speech. It has brought comfort and peace. The more I know of scripture the more I know of God. The more I know of God the less worried I am about anything else because I know how big and great my God is and how much He cares for me everything else just fades into the background after that.

Fasting- I have touched on the topic of fasting a couple times and I am still learning and growing in this area but one thing I have learned is that when I remove anything and replace it with God. My heart and focus can’t help but be on God. If you have things that are taking attention away from God, I encourage adding a fast to your personal prayer time and it will align your thinking with His.

Reducing social media Nothing is quite as distracting as scrolling through endless feeds of other people’s lives. I have nothing against social media, but like all things, it must be done in moderation.

We get so focused on what other people are doing and comparing our lives with theirs that we sometimes forget what is important, God and His plans for us.

Reconsider friendships the scriptures tell us the importance of Godly friendships. Psalms 1 tells us that blessed is the person who does not follow the advice of the wicked, stand around with the wicked, or join in with mockers. In Ecclesiastes, we see that friends help each other when they fall and in Proverbs, we see that friends sharpen each other. If the people closest to you are not encouraging you to follow God or to grow in your faith, but instead encouraging you to sin and follow your own desires then maybe it is time to get new friends.

Jeremiah took his eyes off God and the actions of the rebellious Israelites began to affect him. We too can take our eyes off God and let the things of this world affect us. It is our job to affect the world for Christ, not the other way around. To keep our eyes on God we should hide His words in our hearts (Psalms), fast to help us refocus on what matters, instead of distractions, limit things like social media, which encourage us to compare ourselves to others, and we should keep Godly company. Even the simplest of changes can help reorient our minds on Christ and His cause, affecting the world for Him.