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Topic: Off Limits
[DCLM Daily Manna 19 January 2019 Daily Devotional by Pastor William Folorunso Kumuyi]
Text: Jeremiah 13:1-14 (KJV)
Key Verse: “The evil people, which refuse to hear my words, which walk in the imagination of their heart, and walk after other gods, to serve them, and to worship them, shall even be as this girdle, which is good for nothing” (Jeremiah 13:10).
MESSAGE:
John the Baptist went about in raiment of camels hair and a leathern girdle about his loins eating locust and wild honey to rebuke the unbridled affluence of the professors of religion in his day. Isaiah walked naked and barefooted for three years (Isaiah 20:3,4) as a message to Israel of the shame in depending on Egypt and Ethiopia. When man closes his ears to hearing God’s warning, He often demonstrates same with signs he cannot but see.
The Lord was speaking to Israel and Judah that had been dull of hearing through the parable of the linen girdle. Prophet Jeremiah was to put the linen girdle on his loins without washing it. After many days of going around with this, he was to go and hide same in the Euphrates (250 miles away). His absence was to send a message as he hid the girdle and came back without it. After a while, God asked him to go and bring it back. What he brought back for Israel to see was a girdle marred and good for nothing.
Israel and Judah were like a girdle to the Lord; as a girdle cleaves to a man, they were to cleave to the Lord to be a people for a name, purpose and glory but they would not hear; they walked in the imagination of their hearts and served other gods. They became like a girdle good for nothing but judgment without mercy.
This parable has many applications to believers. To presume that one can be marred with sin and still retain the closeness, favour and power of the Almighty will be delusionary. Proverbs 30:12 states that “there is a generation that are pure in their filthiness”. Our prayer today must be, “keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me” (Psalm 19:13).
Thought For The Day: Sinful life, Marred life.
Bible Reading In One Year: Exodus 8-11
