What God Does

is done

Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 17:14-18

Interspersed within the preaching and prophetic sayings of Jeremiah are snippets of personal prayer and reflection. Jeremiah doesn’t academically approach his ministry. He isn’t a mere observer and commentator on his contemporary world. Judah is his nation, and the Jews are his people. Their suffering is his suffering. Their needs are his needs. He speaks to them, not as one divorced from their experience, sitting in the stands and yelling criticisms down upon the people on the field; but as one who is on the field and in the fight.

And so he prays for his people and himself. He prays for the healing/saving work of God. These are two words describing the same problem. The problem is sin. Sinners need healing as well as saving. Jeremiah has in mind, not physical healing, but spiritual healing. He needs the sickness of the soul that sin creates to be healed. This sickness is as real and devastating as any physical malady man knows. And just as deadly.

Jeremiah needs to be saved. He doesn’t mean he isn’t a believer. He isn’t talking about “saving” the way we might normally think of that idea as evangelical Christians. He is thinking about saving in the sense of being delivered from the throes of temptation and sin in his daily life. This is akin to what Jesus taught us to pray in the “Lord’s Prayer,” when he said we should pray, “Deliver us from temptation.” Some versions say, “Deliver us from evil,” or “Deliver us from the evil one.” All of them point to the same problem and the same need. We need God to save us from temptation, from the devil, and from the evil that permeates this world and becomes like the atmosphere that always envelopes us.

There is faith in Jeremiah’s praying. He has faith in God. He knows if God heals him, he shall be healed. If God saves him, he shall be saved. In reading this I am reminded of one of the early miracles of Jesus.  A leper approached Him and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” Jesus responded to this man’s faith, reached out and touched him, and said, “I am willing. Be clean.”

I believe this is the way Jesus always responds to praying like this. This kind of praying is humble and not presumptuous. But it is full of faith as well. It knows what Jesus does is done. When Jesus heals, we are healed. When Jesus saves, we are saved.

So, pray with Jeremiah and the leper. Pray, “Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed. Save me, and I shall be saved.”