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September 15, 2019

Returning to God

HiRho Park   |   Read Jeremiah 4:22-28

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Lectionary Week
September 9–15, 2019
Scripture Overview

Jeremiah’s warning of coming judgment continues. The children of Israel have become foolish, have ignored God, and have become good mainly at doing evil. God is going to respond to this situation. The psalmist describes the state of all who are foolish: they deny God and follow their own corrupt desires, including the oppression of the poor. The author of First Timothy, traditionally Paul, says that this was also his former way of life. He has been foolish and ignorant, a persecutor of the followers of Christ. In fact, he had been the worst of all sinners; yet Christ has shown him mercy, not judgment. Jesus tells two parables to reveal God’s heart. Rather than neglecting the ignorant, the foolish, and the lost, God searches to find each one of us.

Questions and Suggestions for Reflection

Read Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28. How do your actions show others that you know God?
Read Psalm 14. When have you, like the psalmist, felt that no one knows God? How did you have faith that God would restore God’s people?
Read 1 Timothy 1:12-17. Recall a time when you felt unworthy of Christ Jesus’ full acceptance. How has that experience made you more grateful for Christ’s mercy?
Read Luke 15:1-10. In a world full of death and violence, how do you rejoice when God finds one lost person?

Respond by posting a prayer .

Jeremiah 4:22-28

22 My people are foolish. They don’t even know me! They are thoughtless children without understanding; they are skilled at doing wrong, inept at doing right. 23 I looked at the earth, and it was without shape or form; at the heavens and there was no light. 24 I looked at the mountains and they were quaking; all the hills were rocking back and forth. 25 I looked and there was no one left; every bird in the sky had taken flight. 26 I looked and the fertile land was a desert; all its towns were in ruins before the LORD, before his fury. 27 The LORD proclaims: The whole earth will become a desolation, but I will not destroy it completely. 28 Therefore, the earth will grieve and the heavens grow dark because I have declared my plan and will neither change my mind nor cancel the plan.

Unless otherwise indicated, scripture quotations are from the Common English Bible. Copyright © 2011 Common English Bible. Used by permission.

Recently, I visited Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, Florida. It is one of the United Methodist Church’s historically black universities. There, in the middle of campus, I found this epigraph written on the tombstone of the school’s founder, Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune: “She has given her best, that others may...

O God of eternal presence, help me to know you better so that others may see my good works and give you glory. Amen.


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