What God Likes Best!

The Holy Bible   (The Contemporary English Version – Jeremiah 9:23-24): ²³ The Lord says: Don't brag about your wisdom or strength or wealth. ²⁴ If you feel you must brag, then have enough sense to brag about worshiping me, the Lord. What I like best is showing kindness, justice, and mercy to everyone on earth.

Thoughts:   From a very young age, I believe that we have a desire to please, especially when we know there are rewards when such behavior is recognized! I was pleasantly surprised to find these two verses smack in the middle of a discourse between God and Jeremiah, where God was warning Jeremiah about the destruction that will be poured out on his people, because of their sin and disregard. Fortunately, I believe that this is the same attitude God has towards you and I today, friend. Because of our sin, and our disregard for Him and His precious Word, we deserve death, destruction and total disregard by God, for we are doing much like God accused Jeremiah's people of. We are all about self-success, self-riches, self-pride, self-smarts. I believe that way too often we feel like we have this thing called 'life' all figured out, so why would we need God. This is most unfortunate, because there are also times where we feel so out of control and helpless. Don't you know that those are the times that God is shaking our conscience and trying to wake us up from the awful sleep/disregard/disrespect that we have fallen into? I was most humbled by what God told Jeremiah, when He indicated that He would really prefer not having to punish us (ever heard your parents say that!!!), if only we would worship Him, accept Him, love Him and honor Him, then He would instead show kindness, justice and mercy towards everyone on earth! We serve such an awesome God friend! He loves us enough to forgive us and bless us instead of destroying us, which is probably what we deserve. So pleasing God replaces the destruction that could be brought upon us, with blessings beyond our imagination! But can you imagine how happy that would also make God? I believe that just as we have a spirit of goodness in us, rather than a will to destroy, harm or hate, so does God. So I would encourage you to make every effort to accept Jesus and your Savior; love on Him and show the respect, regard and worship that He deserves, and then relax in His goodness and mercy all the days of your life, yes even throughout eternity! Praise the name of Jesus, our Savior and Lord for loving me enough to forgive me and put up with me through my weaknesses!! He is such an awesome God!
 
Prayer:   Jesus, friend of sinners, author and finisher of our faith, provider of life eternal for all who believes, thank You for Your undying love. Throughout scripture we discern that You would much prefer to love on us and provide for us, rather than the total opposite that will destroy us. Thank You for all You have done for me, I love You Lord and I lift my voice, to worship You, oh my soul, rejoice! Take joy my King, in all of Your children today. May our worship be a sweet, sweet sound in Your ear. Although thankful for all Your blessings on me, I pray that You might still shower Your blessings on us yet again today. Please give us boldness and determination to be Your witness today and represent You well to those that need to accept You as King of their lives. I ask these things in the wonderful, loving and precious name of Jesus, AMEN!



 
FOOTNOTE:   If you have been challenged to make a decision today after reading this devotional, please speak with a local Bible Teaching pastor, or contact me at NuggetsFromGodsWord@outlook.com so that we can pray with you and give you help and or encouragement as you begin, or continue your walk with Jesus. Any words underlined above will indicate a link to a song that came to mind as I wrote the devotional. Feel free to click on the link and listen as you continue to read or pray. If this devotional was forwarded to you and you would like to see more, please go to blogger.nuggetsfromgodsword.org and read more, or you may freely subscribe for a daily email conveniently containing each day's devotional. If you are anywhere near the Highlands County, Florida area and do not have a church home, I would be thrilled to welcome you at Bible Fellowship Church, Sebring, FL! Click the link to check out service times and/or other special activities. God is at work among us! Please consider coming to worship with us!