Old Testament – Jeremiah 15:15-21
This week we leave our friend, Isaiah, and visit Jeremiah. We have met Jeremiah
before. He is the “Weeping Prophet.” He lived through sad and hard times in
Israel and his messages from God to Israel were sad and hard. In today’s lesson
Jeremiah reminds God that he has always spoken God’s messages no matter how
difficult. As a result, Jeremiah is experiencing bad treatment and bullying from
everybody. Jeremiah wonders where God is and why He isn’t helping Jeremiah.
God reminds Jeremiah that He hasn’t abandoned Jeremiah but is right there in
the middle of Jeremiah’s struggles. God tells Jeremiah He will make Jeremiah
strong enough to withstand any and all challenges.
This is God’s message to us as well. Sometimes when we are going through
struggles, God seems nowhere to be found. God tells us that He is there with us
in the middle of all our troubles and He will give us strength to get through our
tough times.
Old Testament – Psalm 26
Psalm 26 is about the joy of being able to worship God in his temple. Today we
focus on verse 8. Verse 8 says what happiness we have when we tell stories
about God and sing songs about Him. Verse 8 asks that we can always remain in
God’s temple worshipping him. Verse 8 is the “Ma Tovu” in the Jewish Sabbath
worship service. “Ma Tovu” means to love God and worship Him. We should
always do this.
We can join with our Jewish brothers and sisters as we listen to the “Ma Tovu” sung below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNvTOiJcvfE
New Testament – Romans 12:9-21
Paul tells us in this lesson that God wants us to be real. We are not to be fake.
When someone is mean to us, God wants us to be kind to them. We are not to
take revenge because God is everyone’s judge. We are not to be anyone’s
judge. These verses tell us never to quit and to never burn out. We are to be
cheerful servants of God.
Below is The Servant Song which is the message of this passage of Romans.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdmgpMfnjdU
New Testament – Matthew 16:21-28
Today’s lesson is immediately after last week’s lesson where Peter proclaims Jesus as
Savior of the World. Here Jesus tells his disciples that He must go to Jerusalem where
He will be tortured and die a terrible death on a cross. How shocking these words must
have been to His disciples. Imagine how you would react if someone you loved said
they were going to suffer and die! So it is not surprising that Peter told Jesus this would
never happen to Jesus. What is surprising is Jesus’ response. He says Peter is “Satan
and to get behind Him.” Wow! Next Jesus tells his disciples that those who would
belong to Him must deny themselves and that they will suffer for belonging to Jesus.
We also want Jesus to agree with all our plans and when we don’t listen to what
He wants we are getting in the way. We need to get behind Jesus and realize His
plans are above ours. We, too, must remember that following Jesus comes with a
cost.
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