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TODAY’S SCRIPTURE

Sing to the LORD! Give praise to the LORD! He rescues the life of the needy from the hands of the wicked. Jeremiah 20:13

Read: Jeremiah 20:13
Listen: Jeremiah 20

TODAY’S MESSAGE

Jeremiah obeyed the Lord and shared his message with the nation of Israel. Because it was a hard message, he receives harsh punishment and reaches a low point. Here, at his breaking point, his response is one to learn from. He was honest, obedient, clung to the promises of God and released his right for revenge. Then, he does something surprising—he turns to God in worship. It almost feels out of place because Jeremiah moves to despair after worship. However, this moment of worship is important. God DESERVES Jeremiah’s praise, but Jeremiah NEEDS it. Jeremiah needs to lift his eyes to change his focus from his circumstances, and he does this through worship.

Worship isn’t just something that happens in a weekend service. We can worship by taking in the beauty of God’s creation, using the gifts God has given us, focusing on attributes of God, and many other things. However, the most common way we worship is through song. For instance, this weekend, we sang the song, Morning by Morning. We sang, “Morning by morning, great is your faithfulness to me,” and “I will trust where you lead. I will trust when I can’t see.” These lyrics point to the faithfulness of God all around us and remind us that we can trust God even when the outcome is unclear. Music is one of the gifts God has given us to draw our hearts to him. Much like Jeremiah, sometimes we need the act of worship to re-center, reorient and restore us in our breaking points.

IN YOUR CHAIR TIME TODAY

Listen to the song “Morning by Morning” from this past weekend. May the words in this song lift your heart and eyes to focus on the one who is worthy of praise. Pick a lyric or two to repeat back to God over and over today.

2023 SPIRITUAL PRACTICES

Join us all of 2023 developing a different spiritual practice each month. SPIRITUAL PRACTICES are intentional regular activities to deepen our relationship with God and mold us to be more like Jesus.

September is COMMUNITY. Keep track of our spiritual practices at beyondtheweekend.org/spiritualpractices.

Download a printable PDF of the BTW week here.