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In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
This is the text of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah
sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders among the exiles and to the
priests, the prophets and all the other people Nebuchadnezzar had carried into
exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. (This was after King Jehoiachin and the queen
mother, the court officials and the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the skilled
workers and the artisans had gone into exile from Jerusalem.) He entrusted the
letter to Elasah son of Shaphan and to Gemariah son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah
king of Judah sent to King Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon. It said:
This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to
all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses and
settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and
daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so
that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not
decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have
carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you
too will prosper.” Yes, this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel,
says: “Do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you. Do not
listen to the dreams you encourage them to have. They are prophesying lies to
you in My name. I have not sent them,” declares the Lord.
This is what the Lord says: “When seventy years are
completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring
you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord,
“plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You
will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found
by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity. I will
gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares
the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into
exile.”
Jeremiah 29:1-14
This ends today’s reading
from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
Have you ever found yourself in a pace of hardship?
I know I have and if you live life long enough, it’s
inevitable that you will find yourself in the midst of trouble or adversity at
least once or twice.
These times are not pleasant ones and no one desires to be in
misfortune and under tough circumstances, circumstances that often leave us off
balance and wondering what our future might hold. Difficulties in finances
place us in a position of mere survival sometimes as we try and make ends meet,
sustaining the most basic needs such as shelter, utilities, transportation, and
food. Relationship problems leave us hurt and heart-broken, feeling alone and
forsaken. Sudden health afflictions turn our worlds upside down and change our immediate
and sometimes long term outlooks.
Indeed, it’s never easy when we find ourselves caught up in
the storms of life but as we will see in today’s scriptures, there is still
reason to hope, no matter what life brings our way. Look again at today’s
scripture passage:
This is the text of
the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the surviving
elders among the exiles and to the priests, the prophets and all the other
people Nebuchadnezzar had carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. (This
was after King Jehoiachin and the queen mother, the court officials and the
leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the skilled workers and the artisans had gone
into exile from Jerusalem.) He entrusted the letter to Elasah son of Shaphan
and to Gemariah son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to King
Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon. It said:
This is what the Lord
Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from
Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what
they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and
give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters.
Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity
of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it,
because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” Yes, this is what the Lord
Almighty, the God of Israel, says: “Do not let the prophets and diviners among
you deceive you. Do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to have. They are
prophesying lies to you in My name. I have not sent them,” declares the Lord.
This is what the Lord
says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and
fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I
have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you,
plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray
to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me
with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will
bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and
places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back
to the place from which I carried you into exile.” Jeremiah 29:1-14
The people of Israel were in the midst of God’s judgment,
one they had brought on themselves after choosing to worship false gods and
idols while ignoring God’s commands to stop doing so. The actions of the
Israelites had angered God to the point where He imposed punishment upon them,
sending the marauding Babylonian forces under the leadership of King
Nebuchadnezzar to attack Judah and Jerusalem, leave both in ruins, and haul off
the surviving Israelites into a seventy year exile.
Think about that for a moment. Seventy years of exile,
banished from their homeland and under the oppression of foreigners. It would
be enough to depress even the most faithful of believers and leave them in
despair.
Yet in the midst of all this, did you catch the words of
hope that God offered His people? Yes, they were going to be in the midst of
difficulty for a long time as they paid the price for disrespecting,
dishonoring, and disregarding God but they still had life and God called on
them to continue to live it. In a letter sent to the exiles in Babylon from the
prophet Jeremiah who was in Jerusalem, God sent the following direction to His
people:
1. Build houses and settle down.
2. Plant gardens and eat what they produce.
3. Marry and have sons and daughters.
4. Find wives for your sons and give your daughters in
marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters.
5. Increase in number there; do not decrease.
6. Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have
carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you
too will prosper.
7. Do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you.
Do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to have. They are prophesying
lies to you in My name.
In essence, the Lord was telling His people to settle in and
settle down. To produce food for themselves. To continue to grow as a people of
Israel. To seek peace and avoid false prophets.
In other words, He was saying, “You may be in a foreign
place and things might not be perfect as you suffer the consequences for your
sinfulness but continue to carry on living because the hard times aren’t going
to last forever.”
Yes, better days were coming. We know because the Lord told
His people so.
After the seventy years of exile were completed, God would
fulfill His promise to bring His people home from Babylon so they could rebuild
their homeland and their homes as well as their relationship with Him. The Lord
knew the plans He had for His people, plans that were not intended to harm them
but rather help them prosper. After His punishment was over, the Israelites
would be able to pray to and call on God again and He would listen to them. They
would seek and find Him again and it would be just like old times except that
the Lord would expect that His people had learned a lesson from His judgment
and would not repeat their sins of the past. If you look at the Books of Ezra
and Nehemiah which detail the return of the Israelites from Babylon to Judah
and Jerusalem, you will find that God’s people spent a lot of time and effort
rededicating themselves to Him.
Friends, the word of God is speaking to us loudly today and
giving us encouragement that we need to hold onto when we go through times of misfortune.
For even though we might be in the midst of life’s challenges, God knows the
plans He has for us, plans not to harm us but rather plans for us to prosper.
His plans could include any of the following:
1. Plans to rescue us from our difficulty, whatever it might
be.
2. Plans to help us grow in our faith and trust in Him as we
wait for Him to do His work within our circumstances.
3. Plans to teach us perseverance and patience in the midst
of affliction.
4. Plans to heal us from illness or injury
5. Plans to take make a life better for us than it was
before, even when we can’t see the way clear for how that could ever happen.
I could go on and on but you get the point. No matter what
we are going through, we serve a God who can do all things, a God who loves us
and wants the best for us, His children, a God who is our only source of
certainty in an uncertain world, a God who is our only real source of hope,
even in times of difficulty.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com
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