Passage Read: Jeremiah 9-12
Meditation Verses: 12:14-17
Thought
Here is the Gospel! Both those who were given the Law but rebelled against it and those who did not know God and followed their own evil instincts will be objects of wrath. God will bring trouble and distress on all of them, but then He will have compassion on them and restore them to their lands. If they then learn well the ways He originally gave to His people, to walk in His righteousness; if they learn to worship and live by the Lord's commands, then they will be established forever. But if they will not learn the ways God revealed to the Jews, they will be destroyed for eternity. They once taught God's people to swear by their gods and serve them; now they must learn of Israel's God and swear by Him and serve Him.
Application
The Gospel didn't come to set us free from all consequence so we could live however we wish without fear of condemnation. The Gospel came to save us from sin that we would no longer walk in it, but turn to God and learn His holy and righteous ways, to live by them. Through the Gospel, God strikes down the barrier and power that kept us in bondage to sin, so that we might finally and truly walk in righteousness, as His true people. No one is truly a Christian who does not experience that transformation and live in it and work at it. But my job is not to cut off people who falsely claim to belong to Christ, but to urge all who claim Him to walk as He walks, to "prove their repentance by their deeds."