Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

Today's reading titled Help from the Holy Spirit was written by Leslie Coe.

While my classmates and I used to skip the occasional lecture in university,

everyone made sure to attend Professor Chris's lecture the week before the occasional lecture in university. Everyone made sure to attend Professor

Chris's lecture the week before the year-end exams. That was when he would unfailingly drop big

hints about the exam questions he'd said. I always wondered why he did that, until I realized that

Prof. Chris genuinely wanted us to do well. He had high standards, but he would help us meet them.

All we had to do was show up and listen so we could prepare properly.

It struck me that God is like that too. God can't compromise his standards, but because he deeply

desires us to be like he is, he's given us the Holy Spirit to help

us meet those standards. In Jeremiah chapter 3, verses 11 through 14, God urged unfaithful Israel

to acknowledge their guilt and return to him. But knowing how stubborn and weak they were,

he would help them. He promised to cure their

backsliding ways, and he sent shepherds to teach and guide them. How comforting it is to know that

no matter how big the sin we're trapped in, or how far we've turned from God, he's ready to

heal us of our faithlessness. All we need to do is acknowledge

our wrong ways and allow His Holy Spirit to begin changing our hearts.

Today's Our Daily Bread Devotional Scripture reading is from Jeremiah chapter 3, verses 11 through 15,

and verse 22.

The Lord said to me, Faithless Israel is more righteous than unfaithful Judah.

Go, proclaim this message toward the north.

Return Faithless Israel, declares the Lord. I will frown on you no longer,

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