Reading your Bible for today January 16

January 16: Jeremiah 3:1-5

KJV Key Verse: Jeremiah 3:1
1 They say, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man's, shall he return unto her again? shall not that land be greatly polluted? but thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me, saith the LORD.

Devotion:
It is often good to look at how different people handle the same situation in order to get a deeper understanding of a situation; but doing this may well get you into deeper water than you first thought. We are just people and each one of us has our own choices we make and have made in the past. Each one of has been moulded by the choices we have made so far and by the choices of those around us. It is always a very sobering and fruitful thing to go back to God’s Word and see what God would have us to do. Just picking up God’s Word and reading a random passage may well not answer anything for you, but by keeping God’s Word constantly in your mind, He will be able to guide you through it.

We can look at this first verse from Jeremiah 3 and compare it with the law as laid down in Deuteronomy to get an understanding on the law at the time. We can also compare the situation with normal civil behaviour (as we see it) and draw another conclusion. What we really need to do though is to compare it with our relationship with Christ. Everything in our bibles is there for a reason and it is only going to be through constant reading and learning we will find out just how much guidance God has given us already – guidance we may be ignoring every day because we don’t read it enough...

If you had a partner who left you and went off being with one or many other partners, how willing would you be to allow them back into your life knowing just how they have behaved? You may answer that they have broken your trust relationship forever and you can’t take them back knowing that they may do it again. You may turn to Deuteronomy and see there are laws which will allow you to never have to mix with them again. Or you may be willing to give them another chance – but how many chances do you give them? If we have run from God and played the fool with other gods, should we expect Him to take us back? In our minds, No! But His mercy extends forever – something we find hard to believe...

Points to Ponder:
Do you push others until they break?

Are you still pushing God out?