Jeremiah 29:10-14 Amplified Bible
10 “For thus says the Lord, ‘When seventy years [of exile] have been completed for Babylon, I will visit (inspect) you and keep My good promise to you, to bring you back to this place. 11 For I know the plans and thoughts that I have for you,’ says the Lord, ‘plans for peace and well-being and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call on Me and you will come and pray to Me, and I will hear [your voice] and I will listen to you. 13 Then [with a deep longing] you will seek Me and require Me [as a vital necessity] and [you will] find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you,’ says the Lord, ‘and I will restore your fortunes and I will [free you and] gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you,’ says the Lord, ‘and I will bring you back to the place from where I sent you into exile.’
The Word of God for the Children of God.
Adeste Fidelis! Venite Adoremus! Dominum.
Gloria! In Excelsis Deo! Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Amen.
Some years ago the well-known author James Michener wrote a book called The Drifters.
It’s a story about young students traveling aimlessly through Asia and Europe, drifting from one day into the next, without either a plan or even any purpose.
Lots of people today are drifters too.
Even if you have everything life has to offer, you can feel unfulfilled and without purpose, drifting from one day to the next.
Or maybe you feel as if you’ve been cut adrift.
For example, maybe you’ve lost your job and you don’t see much of a future.
Or maybe you’ve lost your spouse through death, separation or divorce, and you feel as if you’ve reached the end of the road.
Perhaps you are in that place in life where you are feeling unfulfilled, at an age where perhaps you are considering a career change but you are unsure what the next career might be or you are struggling with how you are going to finance it.
Or maybe you just retired and you feel as if you’ve been put on a shelf.
Or perhaps you’re permanently disabled and you’re not sure how you can go on.
If you’re feeling adrift for one reason or another, take heart from God’s words to us through His Prophet Jeremiah: “I know the plans I have for you … plans to prosper you and … to give you hope and a future.”
God does not want us to drift through life.
He assuredly, definitely has a purpose and plan for each one of us.
Whoever you are reading this, ask yourself, “What does God have in mind for me? And how does God want to use me today so I can have hope and a future?”
God’s Presence in Our Plans
Jeremiah 29:10-11 The Message
10-11 This is God’s Word on the subject: “As soon as Babylon’s seventy years are up and not a day before, I’ll show up and take care of you as I promised and bring you back home. I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for.
This quote was part of a letter God had Jeremiah write to the Jews whom King Nebuchadnezzar had been forcibly taken captive to Babylon from Jerusalem.
They had been ripped from their homeland, marched, walked, taken to a land where they were aliens and strangers.
I cannot imagine how hopeless they felt. (Psalm 137)
But God had already told them what to do when they arrived there.
What we do not know is how receptive this first generation of exiles were to the message of God, through Jeremiah, of a hope not manifesting itself for 70 years.
Jeremiah 29:4-8 Amplified Bible
4 “So says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the captives whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon, 5 ‘Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their fruit. 6 Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there and do not decrease [in number]. 7 Seek peace and well-being for the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf; for in its peace (well-being) you will have peace.’ 8 For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, ‘Do not let your [false] prophets who are among you and your diviners deceive you; pay no attention and attach no significance to the dreams which they dream or to yours,
He told them to build houses and live in them, plant gardens and eat their produce.
To get married and have children, then give their children in marriage to have more children, to multiply there, to not decrease in their population numbers.
And incredibly, God told them to seek the peace and well-being of Babylon where ultimately he had sent them into exile.
God even told them to pray for Babylon’s welfare.
For in Babylon’s peace and well-being, the Israelite’s would have their peace.
Then God promised that after 70 years he would bring them back to Jerusalem.
He essentially told them to take heart, a measure of solace, He had plans for them, plans for their good, plans for their future, plans to give them hope.
This is a good reminder for us.
We need to regularly remember that this world is not our home.
As the Apostle Peter would later remind his congregations of readers;
1 Peter 2:9-12 Amplified Bible
9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a consecrated nation, a [special] people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies [the wonderful deeds and virtues and perfections] of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people [at all], but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
11 Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers [in this world] to abstain from the sensual urges [those dishonorable desires] that wage war against the soul. 12 Keep your behavior excellent among the [unsaved] Gentiles [conduct yourself honorably, with graciousness and integrity], so that [a]for whatever reason they may slander you as evildoers, yet by observing your good deeds they may [instead come to] glorify God [b]in the day of visitation [when He looks upon them with mercy].
Just as Babylon was not the Jews’ final home, neither is this our final home.
Our home is heaven.
But like the ancient Israelite’s, we are to build our lives here for now.
We’re to seek the good of our nation, our churches, our friends and neighbors.
John 14:1-6 Amplified Bible
Jesus Comforts His Disciples
14 “Do not let your heart be troubled (afraid, cowardly). Believe [confidently] in God and trust in Him, [have faith, hold on to it, rely on it, keep going and] believe also in Me. 2 In My Father’s house are many dwelling places. If it were not so, I would have told you, because I am going there to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and I will take you to Myself, so that where I am you may be also. 4 And [to the place] where I am going, you know the way.” 5 Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going; so how can we know the way?” 6 Jesus said to him, “[a]I am the [only] Way [to God] and the [real] Truth and the [real] Life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.
We are to settle in, have generations of family, and build homes – temporarily.
We are to pray for the welfare, the well-being of where God will settle us down.
But we mustn’t forget that after “70 years” – sooner or later – God will come back, His Son, our Savior Jesus will take us unto our ultimate home – heaven.
Those are God’s plans for us.
But he has plans for us now too.
More on this tomorrow ….
In the name of God, the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,
Let us Pray,
Psalm 8 The Message
8 God, brilliant Lord,
yours is a household name.
2 Nursing infants gurgle choruses about you;
toddlers shout the songs
That drown out enemy talk,
and silence atheist babble.
3-4 I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous,
your handmade sky-jewelry,
Moon and stars mounted in their settings.
Then I look at my micro-self and wonder,
Why do you bother with us?
Why take a second look our way?
5-8 Yet we’ve so narrowly missed being gods,
bright with Eden’s dawn light.
You put us in charge of your handcrafted world,
repeated to us your Genesis-charge,
Made us stewards of sheep and cattle,
even animals out in the wild,
Birds flying and fish swimming,
whales singing in the ocean deeps.
9 God, brilliant Lord,
your name echoes around the world.
Adeste Fidelis! Venite Adoremus! Dominum.
Gloria! In Excelsis Deo! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Amen.
Loving God, Living God, Loving Hope, Living Hope, Loving Living Life His Way! "Many things are possible for the person who has hope. Even more is possible for the person who has faith. And still more is possible for the person who knows how to love. But everything is possible for the person who practices all three virtues." - Brother Lawrence (1605-1691), Practicing the Presence of God (1692). 