“So the word of the LORD has brought me insult and reproach all day long.  But if I say, ‘I will not mention him or speak any more in his name,’ his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones.  I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.” (Jer. 20:8, 9).

            Jeremiah could not hold in the Lord’s word.  There was a life in him, a life that made the universe from nothing, that cleaved a path through the sea, that slew a giant with a stone (Heb. 11:3; Exodus 14:21; 1 Sam. 17:49).  It made the sun stand still, the shadow go back, the walls of a city crumble (Joshua 6:20; 10:13; 2 Kings 20:9, 10).  It killed an army with a bone and soothed Satan with a song (Judges 15:15; 1 Sam. 16:23).  The grave could not hold it.  Shaking the earth and tossing a massive stone, it burst from its tomb with the declaration, “He is not here, but is risen” (Luke 24:6).  It broke the apostles out of jail and defied the priests of death with a mandate: “Go, stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life” (Acts 5:19, 20).  “This life” isn’t fettered by doubts, intimidated by men, or subject to limitation from any source (Jer. 1:7, 8).

It is the Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last (Rev. 1:11).  It is before all things, and in it all things hold together (Col. 1:17).  In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, it can blaze from our very marrow, consuming to the right and to the left, making the dead live (2 Kings 13:21).  “Stand up and say to them whatever I command you.  Do not be terrified by them….  They will fight against you but will not overcome you, for I am with you” (Jer. 1:17-19).  Nothing—in heaven or in earth—can stop the life!

–Excerpted from my booklet, Jeremiah: Fire Shut up in My Bones