Author: THERESA JACOBSON

Listening for the Promise
Sola Publishing – Weekly Devotions
Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany – February 2, 2025
SOWeR Site — Weekly Devotional © Sola Publishing: www.solapublishing.com, 2016, written by Julie A. Smith. Scripture taken from ESV Bible® (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright ©2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
(permission granted to active subscribers to reproduce this sheet for local congregational use)

“Do not say, ‘I am only a youth’; for to all to whom I send you, you shall go, 
and whatever I command you, you shall speak.”
- Jeremiah 1:7 -
The prophet Jeremiah was not sure he was the right man for the job of bringing God’s word to his wayward people.  He was young and inexperienced, and not sure he wanted the job of bringing a call to repentance, a word of judgment, upon his own people.  And who can blame him?  If you’ve ever pointed out to someone that they are doing something wrong you know that’s not something people love to hear.  We do not receive correction well.  And Jeremiah was a young man.  Why would anyone listen to what he had to say anyway? But Jeremiah wasn’t being sent out to offer his opinions to God’s people.  He wasn’t being sent out to make some suggestions on how they might live a happier, more productive life.  He was being sent to deliver God’s word, not his own.  He was being sent as a spokesman for the Living God.  It would not be his power or his persuasiveness or his credibility that gave his words authority.  Their authority would come from God himself, who would be with Jeremiah in his preaching.
Jeremiah had a particular call to be a prophet among God’s people during a time of crisis.  But all Christians share in the calling of delivering God’s word to the world.  We all share in the calling of being bearers of the Good News of Jesus Christ.  That calling does not depend on our age, our education, our economic status, our intelligence, or anything else we can imagine to stop us from speaking.
That calling is yours.  You are God’s messenger to your friends, your family, your neighbors, maybe to a congregation, maybe to people in far off lands.  You have a Word to speak.  And God has promised to be present with those he sends out to proclaim.  He has promised to send his Holy Spirit through the proclamation of the Gospel, so that the Word you speak becomes God’s own Word.
Fear not.  This calling to share God’s Word is nothing to run from.  It is nothing to be ashamed or fearful about.  Chosen ones of God, God’s words are in your mouth.  Don’t be afraid to speak them when you have the opportunity.  God will be there to take your fumbling words and make them the Word of eternal life for those who hear.