Thread by @glprater

#GeraldsDevotional
The Power that Truly Saves and Keeps Us

In these devotionals from recent weeks, we have looked several times at how the Lord used Moses and the symbol of the rod and serpent to communicate to His people. In each and every case, the Lord used this symbol to demonstrate the vitally important message that He alone has

power over Satan (who is represented by that serpent). During these times the people were deeply involved in worshiping idols and false gods that were made by man. When they had needs, they ran to these idols, offered sacrifices to them, and placed their trust in them (the false

gods) to save them. They ignored the LORD who actually had saved them.

When the children of Israel were still in Egyptian captivity under the Pharaoh, God used the rod that Moses held in his hand as one of the ways to demonstrate His power to save. After telling Moses to throw

it down to the ground, the LORD changed the rod into a serpent and then told Moses to grab it by the tail when it was changed back into a rod (see Exodus 4:1-5). This was the first of several times where these symbols of the rod and the serpent were used to remind the people that

it was only the power of God that saved and kept them.

Many years later after God allowed the Assyrians and the Babylonians to take all of the people into captivity again, they were still struggling with this very same sin of worshiping man-made idols and false gods. Even though

they claimed with their words to be the seed of Abraham and the people of God, with their actions they trusted in false gods.

We still have this very serious problem at work all around us today brothers and sisters. And that rod and serpent are still very much present (directly

in our faces) as images and reminders of just where we place our trust. In our world today as self-proclaimed Christians, who do we really think has the power to save and to keep us? Whose power do we really believe lives in and flows through us? In spite of what we say, what do

our actions demonstrate? Do we ultimately trust in systems at many levels of this world that are represented by serpents wrapped around a rod or on a cross? Is this what we think saves and to keeps us? Is it the worldly systems of man or governments that are going to keep us and

preserve what the LORD has created? There are many questions that we all need to seriously ponder today.

But for today’s devotional scripture, let’s go back to that time of captivity and see more words that the LORD spoke about all of this to His people through one of His

prophets. It is found in chapter 17 of the book of Jeremiah beginning in verse 5.

5 Thus says the Lord:

“Cursed is the man who trusts in man
And makes flesh his strength,
Whose heart departs from the Lord.
6 For he shall be like a shrub in the desert,
And shall not see when

good comes,
But shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness,
In a salt land which is not inhabited.

7 “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
And whose hope is the Lord.
8 For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters,
Which spreads out its roots by the river,

And will not fear when heat comes;
But its leaf will be green,
And will not be anxious in the year of drought,
Nor will cease from yielding fruit.

9 “The heart is deceitful above all things,
And desperately wicked;
Who can know it?
10 I, the Lord, search the heart,

I test the mind,
Even to give every man according to his ways,
According to the fruit of his doings. - Jeremiah 17:5-10

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