Wisdom From the Lord
Introduction
Welcome to “The Edge Worship Centre” Bible Scripture Reading. The doors of TEWC are open to all spreading God’s Living Word beyond the Church doors.
God’s Living Word – Jeremiah 17:5-10, NLT
Wisdom from the Lord
5 This is what the Lord says:
“Cursed are those who put their trust in mere humans, who rely on human strength and turn their hearts away from the Lord.
6 They are like stunted shrubs in the desert, with no hope for the future. They will live in the barren wilderness, in an uninhabited salty land.
7 “But blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence.
8 They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit.
9 “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?
10 But I, the Lord, search all hearts and examine secret motives. I give all people their due rewards, according to what their actions deserve.”
Food for thought – Dependence on God
Jeremiah draws a sharp contrast between those who depend on human strength and those who depend on the living God. He makes it clear that we cannot look to both as our supreme basis of trust; we will either put our hope in the promises and power of people, or we will look beyond human capability to the person and promises of God. When we make people the basis of our confidence we experience rejection and disappointment again and again. But when God becomes the ultimate source of our confidence, we are never let down.
Habakkuk learned that “the righteous will live by his faith” (Habakkuk 2:4), and he was not talking about faith in men. “Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe” (Proverbs 29:25).
The Lord declares, “…Those who honor me I will honor but those despise me will be disdained” (1 Samuel 2:30). (Notes from The Leadership Bible, NIV © 1998)
May the reading of God’s Living Word touch your heart in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen