Session 28
Are you suffering from information overload?
From Jeremiah: A 33-Day Devotional
Today’s technology gives us instant access to unlimited information about everyone and everything. But how do we know what is fact and what is opinion? What is truth and what is not?
The people in Jeremiah’s day faced a similar feeling of information overload. Jeremiah was one of many prophets at that time. Some prophets were faithful to say what God wanted them to, but others tried to gain popularity and attention by claiming to speak for God when they actually weren’t.
Hananiah was one of these false prophets. He told people that in two years God was going to free them from Babylon’s tyranny. Jeremiah, who heard from God and repeated what He said, warned the people not to put their hope in Hananiah’s words because they didn’t line up with what God had said through prophets in the past.
Jeremiah couldn’t Google Hananiah’s predictions to see if they lined up with what God said. Jeremiah knew Hananiah’s words weren’t true, because he had a relationship with God that was formed by spending time with God every day. We can experience that same closeness with God by reading the Bible and speaking to Him in prayer.
The more we read Scripture, the more in touch we will be with God and His truth. We also have something Jeremiah didn’t have: the Holy Spirit. Jesus gave us the Holy Spirit to guide us through life. Jesus called the Holy Spirit the Spirit of Truth and promised that the Holy Spirit would guide us in all truth (John 16:13).
We don’t have to be overwhelmed by the huge amounts of information at our fingertips. We can separate truth from lies by comparing what we hear to what we read in the Bible and hear from the Holy Spirit. We don’t have to live in a prison of false information; we can be set free by the power of truth.
Reflect:
- Do you struggle with knowing what is true and what is not?
- Do you spend time with God through reading the Bible every day?
- Do you trust the information you read and hear to be true or do you compare it with what is written in the Bible?