“HEAL ME, O LORD!”

 Jeremiah 17:14-18                            (ESV)

Jeremiah Prays for Deliverance

    [14] “HEAL ME, O LORD”, and I shall be healed;

        SAVE ME, and I SHALL BE SAVED,

        for YOU are my praise. 

    [15] Behold, THEY SAY TO ME,

        “Where is the word of the LORD?

        Let it come!” 

    [16] I HAVE NOT RUN AWAY FROM BEING YOUR SHEPHERD,

        nor have I desired the day of sickness.

    YOU know what came out of my lips;

        it was before YOUR face. 

    [17] Be not a terror to me;

        YOU ARE MY REFUGE in the day of disaster. 

    [18] Let those be put to shame who persecute me,

        but let me not be put to shame;

    let them be dismayed,

        but let me not be dismayed;

    bring upon them the day of disaster;

        destroy them with double destruction!”

I’ve always thought of the Prophet Jeremiah as a Old Testament stalwart, Spiritually mature beyond anything I can hope to become. In reading Jeremiah 5:30-31 a person can easily Believe that Jeremiah was above what he was preaching about.  “An appalling and horrible thing has happened in the land: the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule at their direction; my people love to have it so, but what will you do when the end comes?” doesn’t appear to be a message for the faint of heart???

But we SEE later on in the book entitled with his name, like in the Scripture above, that Jeremiah desired AND NEEDED GOD’S PRESENCE in his life!  Even though he might have been thought of as a Spiritually strong man, he desired AND NEEDED GOD to “HEAL ME, O LORD” from the affects of the evil one!  “The enemy” is extremely adept at sneaking into our lives and infecting us with his poisonous spirit without us even recognizing he is anywhere near.  

Jeremiah could SEE that “the enemy” was “against” him, mainly because GOD was using him for HIS GLORY!  We need to BE AWARE that “the enemy” is still “against” anything that the SPIRIT OF GOD is trying to accomplish.  We are NOT strong enough, nor mature enough, to be able to reject the attacks from “the great deceiver”!  We HAVE to beg our MASTER to “HEAL ME, O LORD” so HE can be Glorified with everything we are assigned!!!