Jeremiah 14:20
“We acknowledge, O LORD, our wickedness and the iniquity of our fathers, for we have sinned against You.”
Tenderhearted Jeremiah is known as the weeping prophet for good reason. God spoke to His people through Moses, promising blessing upon blessing if they carefully obeyed His statutes. “The LORD your God will set you high above all nations of the earth” (Deuteronomy 28:1). But in Jeremiah’s day, Judah had turned from the good hand of God, and curses now came instead of blessings.
God’s discipline of His people brought decimating droughts, making plowing and planting impossible. Yet Judah’s lack of food and water was only a reflection of their moral state. The real famine was within. Jeremiah understood what the people did not, and it drove him to his knees.
Notice how the sorrowful prophet begins his prayer. It is not with an accusatory they but a humble we. Calling out another’s sin is easy when our vision is horizontal, but not before a holy God, to whom we must plead, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”
Jeremiah wasn’t the only one to include his sins when praying for his nation. Isaiah lamented, “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.” (Isaiah 6:5)
Today, our country is in grave peril. The need for intercessory prayer grows daily, but may we first judge ourselves. Let us confess, “We have sinned against You,” and may God grant us mercy and forgiveness.
Awaiting His Return,
– Pastor Jack
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