Verse 3

‘Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’

 Verse 1 records that “the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah”, and this promise in verse 3 was given to Jeremiah while he was suffering in prison.  Those “mighty things” included the promise of the Messiah in vs 15-16.

The key phrase for me was “which you do not know”; these visions were not forecasts by Jeremiah, they did not originate from him, but were given to him by God to be proclaimed to Judah and recorded for us.

 Our almighty God did the greatest thing of all when Jesus came to live amongst us, to save us.  And God continues to do great things in our world; but just like in the time of Jeremiah, most people choose to not see His active presence; they limit what they see to what comes from within their own knowledge.

When a baby is born, he cannot make sense of what his eyes see from within his existing knowledge, he needs to take in those sights and learn to structure them to make sense of the world.

And when we turn to God to hear His word, we also need to learn to receive what His Spirit gives; it is not about our knowledge, but as we look to God we learn to receive what is given by the Holy Spirit.

 Just like Jeremiah, we also have “the word of the Lord” come to us, speaking through the Holy Spirit as He did to Jeremiah.  He brings to life all that was given to people like Jeremiah, and recorded for us by in the Bible, in a way that is personally relevant for our circumstances, and where God is calling us.

 Application

How do we respond to what God reveals to us?  Jeremiah endured the worst of physical punishments for obediently following what he had been commanded.  Our obedient response may not result in that, but it likely involves foregoing self-concerned choices to do the much greater things He has prepared for us, to “lay down our lives” by ignoring our personal plans for his wiser plans.