Appointed Times

The birds and the turtles know and obey what God commanded them, but it is God's people that seem to have the problem! The Bible tells us that the waves know where to stop, but in these last days, many of God's people seem to be pushing the limits. I continue to hear disheartening accounts of Christians not walking in the love of God and how they mistreat others. Jesus, referring to the time before His return, so precisely prophesied in Matthew 24, because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.

The New Century Version reads this way for the last part Jeremiah 8:7, But my people don't know what the Lord wants them to do. We know that the prophet Jeremiah was sent by God to call God's people to repentance so that they could be spared from the judgment that awaited them just around the corner. Sadly enough, they refused God's warning and suffered greatly under God's hand of judgment.

It is my prayer that we as God's people will know the judgment of God as our verse states. Not in the way that the people of God in Jeremiah's time came to know it, but that we will know God's judgments as taught in His Word and correct ourselves accordingly. In 1 Corinthians 11:31-32, we are told to judge ourselves that we should not be condemned with the world.

After studying the book of Jeremiah, the account of probably the worst judgment in the history of Israel, it becomes clear that judgment was not what God wanted for the people of God. In chapter 29 verse 11, we find one of the most popular verses on the plan of God for our lives:

For I know the plans I have for you," says the Lord. "They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. (NLT)

We must discern the times and know what God wants us to do now! I am sure that we would all agree that we want the good and peaceful plans that God has for us, but in order to avoid the judgment of God we must fulfill the law by walking in the love of God.