Bible Studies

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The Scriptures
Jeremiah 2:4-13 - Turning Away
Key Verses: (NLT)

• 5: "This is what the Lord says: 'I was fair to your ancestors, so why did they turn away from me? Your ancestors worshiped useless idols and became useless themselves.'" - Prolonged denial of God's blessings and love results in lives filled with sin and impoverishment.
  
  
• 7: "I brought you into a fertile land so you could eat its fruit and produce. But you came and made my land unclean; you made it a hateful place." - That God provides abundantly is not in question. Instead, it is our faithfulness that bears scrutiny.
  
  
• 8: "The priests didn't ask, 'Where is the Lord?'" - As leaders within the priesthood of believers we are to constantly be focused on God and where He is leading us in our lives.
  
  
• 13: "My people have done two evils: They have turned away from me, the spring of living water. And they have dug their own wells, which are broken wells that cannot hold water." - When we turn our focus from God we attempt to handle what the world imparts by our own devices - devices that inadequately provide the nourishment and sustenance necessary for life.
  

Points to Contemplate:

• Have you turned away from God? Have you come to know and experience the living waters of Christ and then have turned back to a pathway far from His guidance? Have you accepted Christ as your Savior but continue to walk in directions of your own choosing? Have you been saved from the sinfulness of your life and yet, continue to overlook Christ's personal sacrifice for you? Why do you stray from a worthwhile God to go after worthless things? Don't you know better? Have you simply forgotten what God has done for you?
  
  
• What fertile land has God led you to? What abundance and bounty has He put at your feet? What blessings like water from a mountain spring, endlessly available and forever clear, has He poured into your life? What have you done with these blessings? Have you honored His love through unrelenting faithfulness? Has your life been producing sweet fruit, abundant and plentiful for all who come? Or have you made His land - your life - an unclean and hateful place?
  
  
• Do you ask 'Where is the Lord?' Are you constantly seeking His presence in every aspect of your life? Do you turn to Him for guidance and support? Do you whisper His name with your every breath? If not, what fills your life instead? What are the broken cisterns that you have created? Where in life have you placed your faith only to find it doesn't hold water? Will you once again turn to the living waters that provide eternal hope and life ever-lasting?
  

Promises of the Gospel:

God has provided and yet, we turn and follow our own paths. His bounty of love and grace far exceeds any expectation and yet, we seek fulfillment in every trend and fad that passes our way. He has poured out His living water into our lives in unending streams and yet, we forget and begin digging cisterns of our own design. He has erased our sins and given us a clear path to His glory, and yet, we cease looking for Him in our lives. God provides and then watches as we turn and walk away. God loves and experiences our cold forgetfulness. God leads and observes while we wander. All that He is and all that He has done for each of us and yet, He wonders: Why do they turn away?

FUMC Devotionals

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