God called Jeremiah to be His prophet

God called Jeremiah to be His prophet before he was born.  He gave Jeremiah his commission while he was still a child through visions and by speaking directly to him.  (Jeremiah 1:5-17)  God never assigns a job without supplying the necessary resources to get the job done.  Faced with the call to prophecy, Jeremiah needed two things:  God supplied both.  God supplied the timid prophet with perspective and courage and God put His own words in Jeremiah’s mouth. 

There is a parallel between the commission God gave to Jeremiah and the commission given to us in Matthew 28:18-20 and Acts 1:8.  God has called us to be His witnesses, and He has promised us the same resources that He made available through His Holy Spirit to Jeremiah.  

God commissioned Jeremiah to call His people to repentance before it was too late. God promised a new covenant that would do what the law through the old covenant could not do.  God tells us in Jeremiah 31:33, “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.  I will be their God, and they will be my people.” 

Under this new covenant, people would obey God out of a God-given desire and capacity to do so, not out of fear or duty, but through personal faith.  All would be able to know God in an intimate personal relationship through His Son Jesus Christ. “But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and Prophets testify.  This righteousness from God comes from faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.  There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  Romans 3:21-23

We are born with the same sinful nature as the people of Jeremiah’s time and we have the same need for repentance and forgiveness.  Praise God that He has made a way for that to happen through His Son Jesus.  We must boldly take this message to the people in the world around us—our friends, family, neighbors, others with whom we come in contact, etc.  We who have been blessed with the gift of God’s grace should do no less, recognizing that we have been called and commissioned by our Lord Jesus himself.