Good Morning Friends,
“The LORD says: ‘When seventy years are
completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious 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 upon 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 29:10-14)
God decreed seventy years for captivity in
Babylon. God set that time before the people were defeated by Nebuchadnezer. After
70 years, God promised to bring them back home to Israel.
Captivity would be a difficult time for the
people. They would be living as an oppressed people in the service of
foreigners. But God’s plans did not end with their oppression. God’s plans
never end with His children in pain and suffering. God’s plans always contain a
future and hope. God’s plans are never designed to hurt, always designed for
the ultimate good of His purposes and of His children.
That’s easy to forget in the midst of the pain.
That’s why God had Jeremiah speak these words. These words should have been
memorized by every Jew in Babylon and repeated daily. God would bring them home
to Him and home to their own land.
This world often brings pain. In the midst of
the pain, don’t forget the future and the hope. There is a promise from Jesus that
we should memorize and repeat daily: “In my Father’s house are many rooms; if
it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for
you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to
be with me that you also may be where I am.” (John 14:3)
His, by Grace, Steve
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