What kind of prophet profits?

Every day we're reading or listening to part of the Bible together and sharing thoughts with you. Today it’s Bern Leckie:

What did I like about today’s passage?

If I thought it was hard reading this, today's reading has drawn me into how hard it was for Jeremiah to speak it out. He did so faithfully, and there was a real offer of hope to God's people to change their ways and keep the land God gave them, but Jeremiah was competing with threats to his life, the physical discomforts of drought and hunger, the spiritual discomfort of wanting God to fix things more quickly, and the voices of false prophets who found a ready audience for things people wanted to hear.

What I love about God’s response to Jeremiah is the enrichment of ways God used to show his heart and intentions. Beyond words, even poetry, God supplied Jeremiah with physical demonstrations of his word in action, moving beyond verbal warnings to shows of power.

This got me wondering why people continued to oppose God and threaten Jeremiah, and why false prophets were such a big thing. Were they actively plotting against God? Or did they think they were prophesying faithfully and fail because they were attaching God's name to their own feelings, opinions and desires fed by pursuits of other ‘gods’?

The scripture calls their false prophecy "divinations, idolatries and the delusions of their own minds." This sounds to me like the "rubbish in, rubbish out" principle at work - people looked for the wrong guidance in the wrong ways, and this gave them heads full of nonsense to share. If we are seeking the truth from God, we have to be a lot more careful, real, honest and vulnerable, as Jeremiah was.

What did it show me about Father God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit?

God continually wants to guide his people and has an unimaginable array of ways to do this, many of which are very uncomfortable for us. However, when someone faithful is willing to be disciplined and seeks God's truth, God reveals it. Far better things come from seeking truth from God than pursuing only our own desires for everything to be OK as it is.

What am I going to do differently as a result?

I love it when we receive prophetic pictures and life-affirming, even life-changing, words from God. The structure he has given us to do this faithfully involves a body of believers, not trying to do everything in our own strength. So I will get better at asking to seek prophecy together with others, and to become more ready to deal with any personal idols getting in the way of doing this faithfully, such as empty desires for recognition and acceptance.

Who am I going to share this with?

People I follow Jesus with regularly, and some people I’ve come to know mostly through shared desire to grow in the prophetic.