OCTOBER 15 "SHOULD I SPEAK MY MIND?"

    I'm feeling for Jeremiah, this morning! Are you? If you're not, than you're pretty cold.  The statements that God is having Jeremiah speak to these people is likely to leave him without any friends at best, and get him beat up or killed, at worse. If I spoke my mind, I would have a very hard life too. At work, at school functions, family get togethers, If we spoke our minds we would find ourselves the most hated in the neighborhood. People would talk about us. When they saw us coming they all would scatter or block us out of the conversation. We would be deemed as "haters", "insensitive", religious fanatics. My heart goes out to Jeremiah, it always has. If ever I feel sorry for myself or feel bad for any persecution I may face, I think of Jeremiah. Let me ask, does God still  ask us to speak our minds? Are we withholding more than we should? Should we be speaking out more? My guess is, the answer is yes to some of those questions. We should speak out more and we do withhold to often. However, should we speak our minds? I would say the answer to that is NO. Jeremiah did not speak his mind, he spoke God's mind. Listening to a conversation about a teenager that died in a car accident, partying one night, I might think, "and as tragic as that is, what's worse is he is probably in Hell".  Imagine voicing those thoughts, even if true, to a crowd of mourners and those mourners may even be saying, "at least he's in peace right now".  Do I speak my mind? When do we speak our minds, when do we speak truth? Is there ever a right time or a right place? You will find that often the answer to that is also "no". There never seems to be a right time or a right place. I have in the past tried waiting and waiting for the perfect time to speak and it never seems to come. Just when I think, "here is the right time" some kind of interruption comes. Some Christians are bold and insensitive and say whatever comes to their mind. Other Christians don't say anything they know is true for fear of the people. Could there be some place in the middle we can meet? Those that are bold and speak out "the truth" no matter what the situation, will claim "Jeremiah" as their defense. And who can argue with that? Jeremiah did speak some crazy judgments and pronouncements in his day and was not one bit, politically correct. Jeremiah offended and spoke doom and gloom to the people. We cannot deny Jeremiah, a man of God did this and so did John the Baptist and many other Prophets. The question to ask ourselves is...."are we prophets?".  We know God will raise up Prophets in the end times and the book of Revelations makes mention of two prophets at the Wailing Wall. The Bible refers to us as Priests, not necessarily prophets. Priests intercede for others, help others, encourage and yes, speak God's Word too. The Priest incorporates all methods, he exhorts and he corrects. The Priest is neither silent, nor is he a constant voice of Judgment. The Prophet Jeremiah, had a clear calling which he was told from very early on in his life, that he would boldly speak the truth and the judgment to come upon Israel. The 21st Century Christian, you can say, is all, he/she is the Prophet, Priest, Shepherd and Evangelist. Somehow, with the help of the Holy Spirit and a sensitivity to the Holy Spirit we have to discern what role we are to play on any given day or time. I can deem myself to be the Prophet one day and show up at a funeral of someone who everybody knew was a hard core sinner and begin preaching about the judgment of the wicked and see myself being bold for God as Jeremiah; and walk away feeling tremendously used by God, but was I? I think we can all agree that it is difficult to discern what to say and what not to say and at what time. As Christians we do have a lot of knowledge, insight and revelation that many people in the world are completely ignorant to. The question is, "should I speak my mind, should I speak out, should I really say this?"  the answer to that question is what we are going to say, where we are going to say it and at what time never matters, what really matters would be, is God asking you to speak that at that time?" Not should I speak my mind right now, but should you speak God's mind at that moment. We will never go wrong speaking what God has asked us to speak, no matter what it is or no matter what time or place. However, the question now is, "is God asking me to speak this or is it me?"  And that, is where you have to learn to discern God's still small voice and it will only be learned, unfortunately, through trial and error.  Jeremiah was rough, Jeremiah spoke rough words, but it's important to remember, Jeremiah was always clear on who was asking him to say these things & why. Jeremiah always knew, he was not speaking his mind, but God's and that is the same place we need to be as Christians, Prophets, Priests & Evangelists, in the 21st Century.