Better is one day in your courts Lord....

than thousands elsewhere! Today has been much smoother than yesterday, and I did well on my phonetics quiz, so that was nice. This is not a blog for me to bore everyone endlessly with my personal ups and downs (lest they be relevant), so I'll continue on with Jeremiah, of which I read chapters 27-

27:11 Things will go better for the nation that submits to the yoke of servitude to 31 the king of Babylon and is subject to him. I will leave that nation 32 in its native land. Its people can continue to farm it and live in it. I, the Lord, affirm it!”’” 33

God tells us he rains on the just and unjust, but it is still quite surprising when I think about how He will use the wicked who clearly are at enmity with God to decimate and humiliate. I will try to keep this verse, and really much of Jeremiah in general, in mind when I reflect on how the wicked manage to make others subservient to them. Just as Babylon's power faded after 70 years, so to is the victory of the wicked short lived. As much as it is painful to see sometimes, his common grace is a glorious thing.

28:9 So if a prophet prophesied 10 peace and prosperity, it was only known that the Lord truly sent him when what he prophesied came true.”

This is a quite interesting verse that really makes me question many end-time prophetic words that religious men and women speak. Of course we are told many times in the new testament, like in I John 4:2 " By this you know the spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God." Every prophet written about in the bible is after the fact, giving them the benefit of posterity. So how should we act accordingly today? It reminds me of men like Todd Bentley, who claim to have seen Jesus, does that mean we should acknowledge his words as God-breathed? Why is it that people are so desperate for prophets that have seen Christ in the flesh and are now converted? Shouldn't we instead long for those who have seen him only in faith and are now living for his name? I for one am praying that I do not become deceived, but instead continue to look to God's word for the answers.