They have not humbled themselves even to this day, nor have they feared nor walked in My law and My statutes that I set before you and before your fathers.
– Jeremiah 44:10
These chapters in Jeremiah are so sobering as over and over again, we see divine indictment for the sin of God’s people, and it’s described here in three ways that I really want us to just meditate on briefly and then pray that these things would not be true in our lives.
Jeremiah 44:10 teaches us God disciplines our ungodliness.
First thing God says is, “They’ve not humbled themselves even to this day.” After all of the discipline and judgment they had already seen for their sin, they still did not humble themselves. They still continued in pride before God. So they didn’t humble themselves.
Second, nor have they feared. They didn’t fear God. Nor did they stand in awe of God, worship in awe of God. They didn’t fear God, his holiness, his greatness, his glory, and in his love for them. Nor did they humble themselves. They didn’t fear God, and they didn’t walk in his law and his statutes. They didn’t obey him. When you think about it, these three things go together. Humility, fear of God, and obedience to God’s Word. So I just want us to pray that those three things would be in us and to lead us to examine in each of our lives any semblance of pride, lack of fear of God, or lack of obedience to walking in the law and the statutes of God.
Jeremiah 44:10 challenges us to humble ourselves before God.
So, God, we pray, open our eyes, our hearts to any pride in us. We pray. God, we ask you to cleanse us of our pride. We pray for humility before you. God, we pray that you would grant us humility. You would help us to grow in humility before You. Whatever that means to bring that about, oh God, we pray for humility. Please remove pride from us and help us, God, especially when we see the consequences of our sin, to hate sin all the more and to humble ourselves before you, not to grow hard in our hearts towards you. God, we pray for humility. We pray for reverent fear of you, for awe-filled fear of you, for right fear of you and your glory and your holiness, and your power, and your love, and your justice, and your righteousness.
God, we pray that we would walk in the fear of you, that we would worship in the fear of you. Unite our hearts to fear your name, we pray, and help us as the overflow of humility before you and fear of you, to walk in your law and your statutes today. Please, oh God, keep our steps in step with your Spirit and your Word in every way.
Help us to walk in obedience to you today in every moment, in our thoughts and our desires, in our motives, in our words, in our actions, in our decisions, in everything we do. God, help us to walk in your law and your statutes that you’ve set before us. God, we praise you for setting them before us. We praise you as the God who is worthy of our fear and our worship, and the God before humility is the only right response because you are glorious beyond comprehension.
Prayer for the Talysh People
God, we humbly pray today for the Talysh people of Azerbaijan, Russia, and Kazakhstan, 750 plus thousand of them, hardly any known followers of Jesus. God, we pray for the spread of your glory, of your Word, of your law, and your grace, the gospel. We pray, oh God, please cause the gospel to spread, cause laborers to go and take the gospel to the Talysh people of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Russia, that they might be reached with the good news of your grace, that they might be brought to life through humility before you, fear of you and obedience to you in the power of Jesus’ name. We pray all of this in his name, according to your Word in Jeremiah 44:10, amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
