The Book of Lamentations...is exactly as it sounds...a collection of "sad poems", the root word itself "lament" meaning: to have a passionate expression of grief and sorrow. In this Book of Lamentations, there are a collection of 5 basic poems written by the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah, and the subject matter in all these poems is...Jerusalem.
In the heart of these poems of lament, there appears a desire from the Lord Himself to have a healthy, caring, and loving friendship with His people, the people within the walls of Jerusalem, through their various acts of worship...at the Temple...where the Lord God had promised to reside.....yet, His people had no interest of having a friendship...with Him....
In chapter 3, beginning around verse 22, the prophet Jeremiah attaches his heart once more to this hope: that the people of Israel would return to the Lord and enjoy a friendship with Him. Why did Jeremiah begin to sense this?....because the advancing enemy coming directly to Jerusalem...had not yet overtaken them.
There is no way we can get around this fact...there are times in life we face tragedies...we hear of horrors others face, and we see graphic devastation in lives around us.
Some even give up, reciting from their lips time and time again the Great God of the Heavens no longer cares for us, that He has given up and forgotten us, or that God has died...He is now no more than a figment of our own imaginations.
This train of thought is not something new...it has been passed down the corridors of time....for centuries, and will be passed on...to the next generation.
The problem with this train of thought?...It's a flat lie.
How do I know that?
Because along with this historical lie that has tried to convince multitudes of mankind throughout history, there is a remnant...a body of believers who even though it may have cost them their very lives...have also announced through the corridors of time, "This is not true...my very life attests to this fact: all life begins...in putting your trust...in Him!"
A key to life that helps us through...even the toughest scenarios of life we may experience or has been "tragic beyond what any words could adequately describe" is this: To not allow our hearts to totally surrender to our enemies...Hopelessness, Bitterness, or the "great king" who has announced "God no longer cares about us...or what happens to us."
Instead, we must turn our hearts and thoughts (forcibly if necessary) to saying the Truth about this Great God of ours. It is true...there are times in life we lose things...we even lose people we have come to love and cherish, yet what we cannot afford to lose...we can not allow ourselves to the thought..."we have lost Him.!" We are...forever His!
Where do we start?
We begin by making this statement...to both our own hearts and minds: "The Lord is absolute...and He is an absolute Reliability! Our inheritance of putting all of our trust in Him...is as valid today as it was in the days of Moses...who spoke and wrote of these Promises...directly given to him by the Great God of the Heavens...Himself!"
If you really think about it, if His Mercies weren't around even now...mankind would no longer be here...as well.
Give yourself to a time of remembrance, when someone came to your aid...when all seemed lost, or someone forgave you... when you deserved punishment, or even a greater thought, someone stepping in and taking punishment...that was a punishment you deserved.
A Gleaning from Lamentations 3: 22-24
" It's good for you to get a secure grip on this: no matter what you have faced...or about to face, the Kindness of the Lord will never fail you. His compassion for us simply has no end, God is so given to being loyal to us, it is impossible for Him to diminish this Promise in any way... that being His great promise to love us...to the very end!
In fact, it is a foundation in the hearts of our very belief...that allows us to go on and move forward...with life itself. Otherwise, Destruction would have overtaken us long ago, life as we know it...would have simply vanished.
Here then lies another foundational truth concerning life itself: this belief comes by the way of faith, our personal faith in Him...that has not yet been corrupted by the situations our eyes have seen, our minds have attempted to rationalize, or our emotions becoming "dictator"...overriding any decision that would allow us to...ever trust Him again!
Here then is this very Truth!
The Lord can always...always...be trusted! The Lord Himself is the very stability that allows us to advance in this life...and He stands alone in being faithful...to each one of us.
And here is a thought that is hard comprehend with our human minds...yet is needful to be embraced with our hearts:
Each morning we awake, there is an entire new and abundant set of mercies that He has made for each one of us, personally designed for the situations in life we find ourselves in, mercies that are given and readily available of us to have...throughout the day.
These newly acquired mercies are made fresh for us...daily, and they all come...directly from Him! He made His mercies available for us to use...while we yet were sleeping... and are now ready for us, the second we awake!
The depth of His faithfulness to us...has no boundaries. The depth of His faithfulness for us...has no end. In fact, it is the opposite...it's only the beginning...when we begin to trust Him...once more!
And as these mercies for us are given new and alive each day, from the depths of my own heart...there is a new message coming forth and seems to be a ruling thought in my life: " The Lord is all I will ever need, and all my hope will be...in Him! I will wait for Him, and I will expect Him to always be there for me...for what other choice would I want to choose?"
In the heart of these poems of lament, there appears a desire from the Lord Himself to have a healthy, caring, and loving friendship with His people, the people within the walls of Jerusalem, through their various acts of worship...at the Temple...where the Lord God had promised to reside.....yet, His people had no interest of having a friendship...with Him....
In chapter 3, beginning around verse 22, the prophet Jeremiah attaches his heart once more to this hope: that the people of Israel would return to the Lord and enjoy a friendship with Him. Why did Jeremiah begin to sense this?....because the advancing enemy coming directly to Jerusalem...had not yet overtaken them.
There is no way we can get around this fact...there are times in life we face tragedies...we hear of horrors others face, and we see graphic devastation in lives around us.
Some even give up, reciting from their lips time and time again the Great God of the Heavens no longer cares for us, that He has given up and forgotten us, or that God has died...He is now no more than a figment of our own imaginations.
This train of thought is not something new...it has been passed down the corridors of time....for centuries, and will be passed on...to the next generation.
The problem with this train of thought?...It's a flat lie.
How do I know that?
Because along with this historical lie that has tried to convince multitudes of mankind throughout history, there is a remnant...a body of believers who even though it may have cost them their very lives...have also announced through the corridors of time, "This is not true...my very life attests to this fact: all life begins...in putting your trust...in Him!"
A key to life that helps us through...even the toughest scenarios of life we may experience or has been "tragic beyond what any words could adequately describe" is this: To not allow our hearts to totally surrender to our enemies...Hopelessness, Bitterness, or the "great king" who has announced "God no longer cares about us...or what happens to us."
Instead, we must turn our hearts and thoughts (forcibly if necessary) to saying the Truth about this Great God of ours. It is true...there are times in life we lose things...we even lose people we have come to love and cherish, yet what we cannot afford to lose...we can not allow ourselves to the thought..."we have lost Him.!" We are...forever His!
Where do we start?
We begin by making this statement...to both our own hearts and minds: "The Lord is absolute...and He is an absolute Reliability! Our inheritance of putting all of our trust in Him...is as valid today as it was in the days of Moses...who spoke and wrote of these Promises...directly given to him by the Great God of the Heavens...Himself!"
If you really think about it, if His Mercies weren't around even now...mankind would no longer be here...as well.
Give yourself to a time of remembrance, when someone came to your aid...when all seemed lost, or someone forgave you... when you deserved punishment, or even a greater thought, someone stepping in and taking punishment...that was a punishment you deserved.
A Gleaning from Lamentations 3: 22-24
" It's good for you to get a secure grip on this: no matter what you have faced...or about to face, the Kindness of the Lord will never fail you. His compassion for us simply has no end, God is so given to being loyal to us, it is impossible for Him to diminish this Promise in any way... that being His great promise to love us...to the very end!
In fact, it is a foundation in the hearts of our very belief...that allows us to go on and move forward...with life itself. Otherwise, Destruction would have overtaken us long ago, life as we know it...would have simply vanished.
Here then lies another foundational truth concerning life itself: this belief comes by the way of faith, our personal faith in Him...that has not yet been corrupted by the situations our eyes have seen, our minds have attempted to rationalize, or our emotions becoming "dictator"...overriding any decision that would allow us to...ever trust Him again!
Here then is this very Truth!
The Lord can always...always...be trusted! The Lord Himself is the very stability that allows us to advance in this life...and He stands alone in being faithful...to each one of us.
And here is a thought that is hard comprehend with our human minds...yet is needful to be embraced with our hearts:
Each morning we awake, there is an entire new and abundant set of mercies that He has made for each one of us, personally designed for the situations in life we find ourselves in, mercies that are given and readily available of us to have...throughout the day.
These newly acquired mercies are made fresh for us...daily, and they all come...directly from Him! He made His mercies available for us to use...while we yet were sleeping... and are now ready for us, the second we awake!
The depth of His faithfulness to us...has no boundaries. The depth of His faithfulness for us...has no end. In fact, it is the opposite...it's only the beginning...when we begin to trust Him...once more!
And as these mercies for us are given new and alive each day, from the depths of my own heart...there is a new message coming forth and seems to be a ruling thought in my life: " The Lord is all I will ever need, and all my hope will be...in Him! I will wait for Him, and I will expect Him to always be there for me...for what other choice would I want to choose?"
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