The commentary in today's reading includes this.  "The Sabbath has been honored mostly in the breach for many years and God now wants it to be observed".  They acknowledged that the Sabbath was there but they did nothing about it.  They didn't follow the requirement of the law.  Observing the Sabbath includes the Feast and Festival Days as well as the seventh day of the week.  One way of honoring and observing the Sabbath day today is to take time to stop, slow down, and remember what Jesus has done for us.  For one thing, “The sorrows for the appointed feasts I will remove from you; they are a burden and a reproach to you.  Zephaniah 3:18.  We no longer have the need for sacrifices.  Jesus took care of that.  This is what we need to remember and observe during the God-ordained Holy Days (feast and festivals).


Jer 18:2-4
"Go down to the potter's house, and there I will give you my message." So I went down to the potter's house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.

Jeremiah’s message from the potter was a bit different from Phil’s message. The message Phil received was; No matter how marred you are, how useless and inadequate you may feel- or even how blind you are – God shapes what you are into a shape that is pleasing to Him.

As we read Jeremiah 18 - Lesson of the Potter - we thought how the lesson applied to us today in the U.S. There are consequences for our actions as a country. There are consequences for our actions as a church, the body of Christ. But there are also consequences for us as individuals within that country and church. "So turn from your evil ways, each ONE of you, and reform your ways and your actions."

This goes right along with 2 Chronicles 7:14 and the many lessons we have learned from that verse.  God continually reminds the people if they will repent, then He will listen and not inflict the disaster He had planned. If the people then and now would only do what God asked them to do they would be blessed and not cursed.

Jer 20:9
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.
If God’s Word is in our heart like a fire, we should not be able to hold it in. 

Jeremiah again in today’s reading feels self pity and betrayal, even curses the day he was born, and yet he praises God. The people of Jeremiah's day conspired against him saying, "...let's attack him with our tongues and pay no attention to anything he says."

Jeremiah obeyed God no matter what the people were doing to him or saying about him. He continued to warn the people of what was about to happen. Good example for us wouldn’t you say?