Just before the Prophet Jeremiah was called by the Lord God to become His Prophet to the nations, he had been waiting in His presence for a while. This was a common practice for the young men of his time to be doing, so as to be corrected, disciplined and instructed by the Lord God.
However, we should never forget that Jeremiah had been raised up in a priestly family. His priestly background had a profound effect on his desire to seek the face of the Lord God. He was not seeking for something in particular from the Lord. He was just doing what was common among his peers, who were also like him of the same priestly background.
Many of the young people from his neighborhood district of Anathoth in Jerusalem, were only interested in positioning themselves in the perfect will of God. They just wanted to be established in the perfect will of God for their lives.
The nation of Israel as at the time was already suffering because of the idolatry within her, which had plagued the whole nation. Many of the young men from the district of Anathoth didn’t want to partake, in the idolatry that was going on in the nation. They could observe from the history of the nation of Israel, that there are terrible consequences from the Lord God for those who are partaking in such things.
Many of Jeremiah’s peers were looking up to the examples of the young men before them in Israel, who had sought after the Lord God of Israel early in life. They could see the godly examples in the lives of the young men like David, Gideon, Samson and many others who had pleased God with their lifestyle of faith. They wanted to follow such godly examples by seeking the face of the Lord early in life, so as to be emulating them.
It was during this moment of seeking to know the will of God for his life, that Jeremiah had personally encountered the Lord God of Israel.
He later on in life wrote to summarize his personal encounter with the Lord at that time with these words:
“It is good for a man that he should bear The yoke [of godly discipline] in his youth. Let him sit alone [in hope] and keep quiet, Because God has laid it on him [for his benefit].”
Lamentations 3:27-28 AMP
The yoke of godly discipline in quietness during the time of his youth had brought out the very best in his life. Jeremiah had gained a lot of wisdom and understanding in the way of the Lord, by waiting on Him quietly while he was young.
It’s a good thing for young people to be disciplined by the Lord early in life. Every young man and woman can take a cue from the life of young Jeremiah, who had submitted himself to be corrected, disciplined, and instructed by the Lord God of Israel; before he could fully launch out into his ministry to the nations as God’s Prophet.
If you want the Lord God to directly teach you and prepare you for your calling in life, you must be prepared to come under His discipline. If you won’t allow God to discipline you, then He can’t teach and instruct you for His purpose.
There are a lot of young Christian people in the ministry these days, who are jumping around from one thing into another, because they won’t submit to the spiritual authorities within their local congregations. And they can’t settle down in submission to godly discipline directly from the Lord also, because God uses the spiritual authorities that He has established in their local congregations to correct, discipline and instruct them for the ministry.
Apparently, anyone who can’t submit to earthly spiritual authorities, will find it difficult to submit to godly discipline directly from the Lord as well. Samuel was very young when his mother took him to the high priest Eli. It was as a result of his willingness to submit to the spiritual authority of Eli by serving under him, that the Lord God saw in him the heart that pleases Him (1 Samuel 3):
“So, Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground”.
1 Samuel 3:19 NKJV
At a time in Israel when no one was hearing the voice of the Lord God, the Lord God raised up young Samuel to be His voice to the nation. But if Samuel had not learnt to submit to God by submitting to the discipline of the high priest Eli, the Lord God would not have found him worthy to becoming His voice to the nation of Israel.
The lack of submission to the spiritual authorities that God has established over the lives of many young people in ministry these days, is the primary reason for their failures. That’s why they can’t stand strong in their individual callings. They can’t be corrected, disciplined, taught and instructed by the Lord God into their real callings in life. The Lord God cannot teach and instruct those who will not submit to His discipline.
There’s a waiting time for godly discipline.
The scripture says:
“And have you [completely] forgotten the divine word of appeal and encouragement in which you are reasoned with and addressed as sons? My son, do not think lightly or scorn to submit to the correction and discipline of the Lord, nor lose courage and give up and faint when you are reproved or corrected by Him;”
Hebrews 12:5 AMPC
The discipline of the Lord God didn’t come to Jeremiah overnight. There was a long time of waiting in the Lord’s presence before God’s word finally came to him. It was a difficult moment for him as a young man. He was however resolute to find out what the Lord God had in store for his life.
He had decided to wait for godly discipline to come to him. Jeremiah was submissive to the discipline of the Lord to the very end as he waited quietly. He knew that the hand of the Lord was upon him, but he could not understand why and for what purpose?
In the process of waiting on the Lord, Jeremiah had learnt how to be quiet before the Lord. He had learnt that it’s only a fool who could never be silent before the Lord God. Jeremiah would not say anything without a reason before the Lord.
That was how he was disciplined by the Lord. He only responded whenever the Lord God spoke to him. All that he wanted was to just enjoy the presence of the Lord. But for him to get into the Lord’s presence was not easy. He had to learn how to wait for a long period of time.
For young Jeremiah this was painful; but he was ready to make the necessary sacrifice to get the desired result. It took him some amount of self-discipline to get there (Proverbs 25:28).
Finally, the word of the Lord God came to him:
“Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you; Before you were born, I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.”
Jeremiah 1:5 NKJV
Such a powerful statement from the Lord God to a young man must had surprised Jeremiah. He never saw himself as the Lord God saw him.
It’s interesting to note that Jeremiah was in the Lord’s presence for a while before the Lord spoke those words to him. The Spirit of the Lord was searching through his heart during those moments, as Jeremiah silently waited before the Lord.
It’s as Samuel had also been silently submitting to the discipline of the Lord through Eli. Young Samuel was waiting before the Lord God, and he never even knew that he had been waiting in God’s presence, until the Lord God called out to him.
Even when the Lord God called out to him, he could not recognize His voice. He had to really and trust in the leadership of the spiritual authority over him for spiritual guidance (1 Samuel 3:1-14).
For Jeremiah, being a Prophet of God to the nations seemed too high of a calling. He was not expecting such a statement from the Lord God. He struggled to accept this calling of the Lord God, as was evident in his response to the Lord’s voice.
He immediately offered an excuse due to his lack of experience into this high calling of God:
“Then said I: “Ah, Lord God! Behold, I cannot speak, for I am a youth.” But the Lord said to me: “Do not say, ‘I am a youth,’ For you shall go to all to whom I send you, And whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of their faces, For I am with you to deliver you,” says the Lord.”
Jeremiah 1:6-8 NKJV
We don’t ever give any excuse for not obeying God at any time or for any reason. You can be sure of regretting it. You can be sure that it will backfire. God will always back up His word, until it comes to pass for those who are called by Him.
It’s impossible to struggle in obeying God and win either. You will only end up finding yourself in between the rock in a hard place. The examples of Jonah, Moses and others from the scriptures are enough for any smart Christian today:
“For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence.”
I Corinthians 1:26-29 NKJV
It’s those who are seeing themselves as being debased and weak, that God will seek to glorify Himself through. When you recognize that you are not fit for something, that’s the time when God will pick you up in order to make something out of you.
But as long as you’re depending on your own abilities and skills, He will leave you alone and allow you to mess yourself up; before coming along to fix your mess for you.
Jeremiah was not waiting on the Lord to be called as a Prophet into the nations. He was simply waiting on the Lord, as all the other young men of his age at the time were doing at Jerusalem.
Even though he had a priestly family background; he never saw himself as being the one who was fit for God’s purpose. But the word of the Lord came to him anyway, as he positioned himself before Him by seeking His face.
If you are resolute in seeking His face, you can be sure that He will respond to your faith and help you. As long as you are not struggling to fix your problem on your own; God will show up in helping you.
The above dialogue between Jeremiah and the Lord, highlights how the Lord finally disciplined him in accepting the call to the nations.
Jeremiah was corrected by the Lord concerning his young age, as being the excuse for not obeying His calling. He was directed and instructed to go and say, whatever he had been commanded by the Lord God to declare to the nations.
God is not interested in the age of those who are being called by Him. He is the One Who justifies those who are called by Him. And He is able to prolong their lives on the earth, until the fulfillment of His promises to them.
So therefore, it’s never over in the calling of the Lord, until He agrees with those who are called by Him that it’s over.
There was no need therefore for an excuse in the presence of the Lord God by Jeremiah. He had to respond to the call of the Lord in the affirmative. There was nowhere to hide in that calling of the Lord to him either.
The hand of the Lord was already upon him. And throughout his writings, we can easily observe that he persistently made references to the hand of the Lord being on him, before he said or did anything.
Godly discipline molds us to be like Jesus.
As the scripture says:
“The Lord corrects the people he loves and disciplines those he calls his own.”
Hebrews 12:6 CEV
Our loving Father in Heaven will always correct and discipline His Own children, to be walking in obedience to His calling for their lives. He corrects and disciplines everyone who are favored by Him. It’s for our own good that He disciplines and corrects us all. If you will not yield to His correction and discipline, then it is impossible for Him to teach and instruct you for the calling that He has over your life.
He corrects and disciplines those who are loved by Him. It’s His correction and discipline that brings out the image of Christ in our lives. We were created to be like Christ Jesus on the earth – speaking as He spoke and acting as He had acted in the scriptures, concerning every circumstance of life that we may be encountering; in order to manifest the glory of the Father on the earth.
That’s why it’s important to always be patient as we are waiting on Him, to bring His word to come to pass for us. God is never late about anything that He has promised us. He is always on time.
If you have decided to wait on Him, you will eventually become a partaker of His glory. You will become a partaker of His presence; just as Moses waited in His presence until the glory of the Lord God had consumed his face.
The scriptures say:
“Now it was so, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai (and the two tablets of the Testimony were in Moses’ hand when he came down from the mountain), that Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone while he talked with Him. So, when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him.”
Exodus 34:29-30 NKJV
Moses became a partaker not only of God’s presence and glory, but he also became a partaker of His strength. God’s strength became the strength that was upon Moses. It takes God’s strength to be able to sit down and judge thousands of cases every day (Exodus 18:13).
It’s just as it takes God’s strength to be laying hands on thousands of people on a daily basis, so as to minister the grace of the Lord upon them. No one can do it in his own strength. And such strength can only come from the presence of the Lord, as we are partaking of His glory.
The people could see the reflection of God’s glory on the face of Moses. They were terrified by His presence on the face of Moses. They couldn’t look at him in the face. The reflection of God’s glory on his face made him look like God to the people.
While Aaron carried the anointing oil of the Lord God before the people, Moses had the strength of the Lord God within him. No one could stand before Moses all the days of his life and prevail. The strength of the Lord God was with him at all times.
No man could stand up against him without invoking the wrath of the Lord God. Any man who stood up against Moses was standing up against God. We saw this during the rebellion of Korah (Numbers 16), and that of Miriam and Aaron who stood up against him (Numbers 12).
That’s what our ability to wait on the Lord God does for us. We will become the partakers of His strength. And with His strength, nothing shall be impossible for you to do.
This was how the Lord God corrected and disciplined the children of Israel in the wilderness. He corrected and disciplined them with His strength.
It’s the toughest way to be corrected and disciplined in God’s presence. Even though His love is manifested with His strength; but His strength can be heavy on us, as it requires a very high sense of responsibility.
That’s why it often seems to the Israelites that God has been too strict with them as a nation. He had to be strict, because they were His perfect example on the earth for other nations to be following.
Moses told them as they were leaving Egypt:
“So it shall be, when your son asks you in time to come, saying, ‘What is this?’ that you shall say to him, ‘By strength of hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.”
Exodus 13:14 NKJV
The strength of God’s hand is His might. It was His might that brought them out of Egypt. He did it by Himself. In other words, God used His strength to force them out of Egypt, even when Pharaoh never wanted them to go away. He out twisted them out of Pharaoh’s hand.
Why would He harden the heart of Pharaoh in letting Israel to leave Egypt? He did it to show His strength and His might upon Pharaoh and his people. He wanted the Egyptians to know Him, and to also send the message to the other nations around them, not to mess around with His special people.
And the result was catastrophic for the Egyptians. All the first born of Egypt died, including the first born of their animals.
That’s what the strength of the Lord is able to do. It’s tough for anyone to be hardened against the Lord and be successful with it. But there are Christians who are doing so these days. Such a form of rebellion to the Holy Spirit is very costly for those who are resisting His correction and discipline.
For:
“The Lord is a Man of war; The Lord is His name.”
Exodus 15:3 NKJV
That was why many of the Israelites died also in the wilderness, because of the disobedience of their hearts. It’s impossible to have His strength carrying you, and not walk uprightly before Him. His strength will straighten you up, if your ways has not been upright before Him.
There are consequences for not yielding to His strength. But it is a different thing when you’re a carrier of His anointing. We become God’s vessel of honor with His anointing flowing through us.
As the Apostle Paul said:
“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed— always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.”
II Corinthians 4:7-10 NKJV
God is the One who molds us in doing His will on the earth. We are all His vessels through which the anointing of His Spirit flows to bring salvation, healing and deliverance to the nations.
Paul said again:
“Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor? What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?”
Romans 9:21-24 NKJV
God is the Potter. We are the clay. The Potter molds the “clay” to become whosoever He wants us to be. The Potter molds the vessel that He has chosen to use for His glory, in the way that best fits into His purpose for the earth.
As the vessels of God’s glory, we don’t have the choice of deciding who we want to be in life. We live on the earth to do His will within it.
The Holy Spirit with His anointing is gentle. He will not struggle with anyone, even if you are resisting Him. He will not force anyone to do the will of the Father.
But the discipline of the Lord is with those who are walking in His strength. They cannot faint or get tired, because God’s strength is always there to renew and refresh them. They have no excuse for not walking uprightly before Him.
Will you allow Him to discipline you?
While the Lord God was carrying the nation of Israel through the wilderness with His strength, Moses reminded them about how they had first encountered Him.
He had told them:
“Out of heaven He made you hear His voice, that He might correct, discipline, and admonish you; and on earth He made you see His great fire, and you heard His words out of the midst of the fire.”
Deuteronomy 4:36 AMPC
Israel is a nation of priests to the Lord. Of all the nations of the earth, God had chosen the Jewish people as priests to minister to Him. They were the first people on the earth that He spoke directly with from Heaven. They have occupied this unique position in the heart of God, because of His relationship with their fathers.
But oftentimes they had been disobedient to Him. But in their rebellion the Lord God had always been correcting them. He said concerning them:
“And they have turned to Me the back, and not the face; though I taught them, rising up early and teaching them, yet they have not listened to receive instruction.”
Jeremiah 32:33 NKJV
They had often forsaken the Lord, so as to worship the dumb and dead gods of their neighbors. They wanted to be like the people who were living around them, instead of being the example that the Lord God wanted them to be, for all the other nations of the earth to be emulating.
Israel as a nation is God’s sample nation for all other nations on the earth to follow. In the same way Jesus is the perfect example for all of God’s people to be following.
This is God’s purpose for choosing Israel as His Own, so that through the nation of Israel He might display His glory, for all the other nations of the earth to see.
Unlike during the time of the Prophet Jeremiah majority of the Israelites don’t practice the presence of the Lord today. They are living literally as their forefathers had lived before the Lord. Israel is ascribing to the western way of life today, instead of following in the teachings and discipline of the Lord for her as a nation.
It’s just as many contemporary Christians don’t practice the presence of the Lord today also, because they see it as being too much for them to be doing. They want God to answer them quickly when they pray.
The changes that are going on in Israel and among the people of God points directly to the prophecy of Jesus about the end times.
He said:
“And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.”
Matthew 24:12-14 NKJV
The love of many is growing cold, but those who are being disciplined by the Lord will be saved, because they will receive the power to endure to the end. They are the ones who will preach the gospel of the Kingdom as a witness to all nations.
The Lord God is not like the pagan gods of this world. No, not in anyway. Those who can’t wait on the Lord for answered prayers, will often end up seeking for their answers from the world.
In fulfilling the call of the Lord God over your life, there is a preparation time specifically designed for you in that calling.
Don’t ever try to compare your waiting period with others, because God’s purpose for you is unique and has nothing to do with others. That’s why many are growing weary. They are comparing themselves with other Christians.
Jesus is our perfect example and not our fellow Christians. When you choose to follow the living examples of Jesus from the holy scriptures, it will transform your life.
And the only way you can learn from Him is by allowing the Holy Spirit to guide and lead you through the process. Those who are yielding to the Holy Spirit are experiencing the Lord.
Moses had waited before the Lord God for forty days and forty nights on the mountain without food or water. Only God could had given him the strength to sustain him during those waiting days.
The result of this in the life of Moses was the strength of the Lord God consuming him.
Jonah waited for three days in the belly of the fish to be corrected and disciplined by the Lord, so that he could be obedient to the calling of the Lord over his life.
Jeremiah waited for months until the Lord God finally spoke to him.
And Jesus had to be led by the Spirit of the Lord into the wilderness also, to be prepared for His Ministry on the earth for six weeks. He didn’t eat or drink for six weeks, but the presence of the Lord sustained Him. He was with the wild animals and beasts; but the angels ministered the strength of His Heavenly Father to Him.
That was how Jesus was able to make it through those six weeks in the wilderness. He came out of the wilderness with great power and strength to fulfill His calling on the earth.
Your own waiting time and process is specifically for you. Don’t compare your process with any of these men in the scriptures.
The Lord God Who has called you will take you through the process. Wait for it and wait until the very end. You will be glad that you did.
And remember this always:
“Now all discipline seems to be painful at the time, yet later it will produce a transformation of character, bringing a harvest of righteousness and peace to those who yield to it.”
Hebrews 12:11 TPT
