Jeremiah 32:27—“Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh: is there any thing too hard for Me?”
DON’T LIMIT ME!
A short time ago, in a Sunday morning service at Family Worship Center, I felt the Holy Spirit speak a word directly to my heart. All He said was, “Don’t limit Me!” What He said was both an exhortation as well as a rebuke. It did not come to me in the sense of a harsh tone, but rather almost a pleading from the Lord.
At that moment, if you had asked me whether or not I was limiting the Lord, I would have replied with a resounding no. But the fact that God spoke this to my heart and told me not to limit Him is a sure indication that I had been. I immediately began to ask the Lord to show me where I was limiting Him, and I believe He has begun to reveal these to me. I am learning to depend upon Him in ways I never have before. I trust that this simple article will help you to do the same.
The God we serve is not limited as we human beings are. That means that in every circumstance of our lives God could manage it in a great number of ways, by strategies that we can’t even imagine. To be limitless means that God is inexhaustible, boundless, immeasurable, infinite, endless, bottomless, unrestricted, unconstrained, unrestrained, unchecked, unbridled, uncurbed, supreme, fathomless, extensive, vast, immense, great, and has endless ways to deal with every situation that pertains to me. My God can do anything! Somebody ought to shout!
JEREMIAH’S DAY
Jeremiah’s ministry life covered a time span of more than 40 years. Although Jeremiah was a faithful minister of God’s Word, the people refused to heed what God said to them through him. At the time of our text in Jeremiah 32, Jerusalem was very close to being destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar’s third attack against the city. Israel would be taken captive, the temple destroyed, Jerusalem decimated, and many would lose their lives.
After 40 years of faithfulness, you can imagine the mixed feelings that Jeremiah had. What God was about to do was the very thing Jeremiah had warned the Jews about. He didn’t want His people destroyed. He wanted them to repent and get right with God. With Jerusalem’s downfall eminent, God spoke a word to Jeremiah and promised him that even though Jerusalem and the Jews we’re slated for captivity and destruction, He, the Lord, would bring them back to the city of Jerusalem and that there would be a remnant that would serve him faithfully and forever.
Time and space does not permit me to recite all that God told Jeremiah would happen. But to Jeremiah, this promise that came just about the same time the city and the people of God were destroyed would have been hard to accept and believe. So God started off the announcement of this good news in Jeremiah 32:27 and said, “Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh: is there any thing too hard for Me?”
THE GOD OF COVENANT
God starts by saying, “Behold!” This term is a command to Jeremiah to observe and to consider carefully what was about to be said. God then spoke and said, “I Am The LORD.” This statement declared God as Jehovah, which speaks of God’s covenant with Israel. He is saying, “Jeremiah, Behold, I am Israel’s covenant God.”
God revealed Himself to Israel by His covenant names all of which reflect His abilities to meet their needs. He was Jehovah-Jireh, their provider. He was Jehovah-Shalom, their peace. He was Jehovah-Raah, their shepherd. He was Jehovah-Rapha, their healer. And much more! Whatever Israel needed, that’s what God had promised to be toward them. So, in asking Jeremiah to behold Him as Jehovah, God was simply saying that He had bound Himself by covenant and that He would be faithful to perform whatever was needed on behalf of Israel.
Today, believers have a new and better covenant than Israel had, even at that time. This covenant was established by Jesus Christ on Calvary. When He gave His life as a sacrifice for our sins, He established a new covenant that was accompanied by even better promises than the one that Israel had at the time of Jeremiah. So the same covenant God who carried out His promise to return Israel to Jerusalem is now in an even “better covenant” than the one He faithfully kept with Israel.
My faith in Jesus Christ and what He did for me on Calvary has attached me to an “everlasting covenant” with a God that cannot fail. This God has resources that I’ve never heard about or even imagined. If I need something and it doesn’t exist, my God can speak the word and create it! Because of the Cross and what Jesus has accomplished for us there, every believer has an inheritance in heaven that can’t be defiled or exhausted and is protected and overseen by God Himself! He only asks in return that I continually trust in His Son and what He did for me at Calvary.
IS THERE ANYTHING HARD FOR ME?
The bottom line to this simple exhortation is that there is nothing too hard for God. To be honest, there isn’t anything that is even difficult for our God. Far too often we place a limitation on His abilities simply because we see Him in the light of our own limitations. We must not walk in selfish presumption and ask of God things that are not His will. Neither are we to limit His ability to use His people in any way that He sees fit, or to bless His people by any action that He deems appropriate. I am beginning to learn to believe that there is nothing too hard for my God!
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