12A23.    Jeremiah 20:10-13.   Jeremiah’s inner self trembles at the recognition that everything he has fought for is in danger of completely falling apart.  Babylon would come to obliterate Jerusalem, since the people there did not remain faithful to the Lord. However, Jeremiah puts his trust in the Lord because the final result remains in his hands.

Matthew 10:26-33.  “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.”  Fear is a person’s necessary reaction to danger.  It requires of us to fight with the power that the Lord gives us or to take flight into the safety of the hands of the Lord.  Those who live in God’s hands rest and live in his strength and not in their own natural weakness.  We must seek to let God be the life we live and not our natural human reactions.  We can stand up to our natural fears within and the dangers outside of ourselves, confident that all will be well, no matter what.

Romans 5:12-15. “For if by the transgression of the one the many died, how much more did the grace of God and the gracious gift of the one man Jesus Christ overflow for the many.” In God’s creation there was no death.  Man, in the person of Adam, created death when he sinned.  Man, in the person of Jesus, reinstated eternal life in place of Adam’s sin.  By his death on the cross, death died and eternal life arose.