“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.” Jeremiah 29:10-14
Many Christians can quote verses from God’s Word at will. They can pluck His beautiful Words from the tree of memory and then use them to color the world with their wisdom, resulting in a palette that changes those that encounter its artwork. But what happens after you’ve quoted a verse 15, 20 or a 100 times? Or better yet, how did you come to memorize that verse? Was it through a personal study or did you “pick it up” at church? Or maybe it’s even been hanging around in your gray matter since you were a wee tot in Sunday school eons ago. But do you really know what book the verse is from and its full context of just how exactly God used it in His Word?
As I continue to study through God’s Word one chapter a day, it amazes me at just exactly where some of the most famous verses are found and in what context they are used. As I’m working through the prophetic book of Jeremiah, one can quickly conclude that it’s not what you would consider an exceptionally uplifting or motivational book. The Israelites, through their continued and unabashed sin nature, find themselves practicing sexual immorality, idolatry, worshipping false gods, and well, they are doing just about everything God commanded them not to do. So God sends the good prophet Jeremiah to deliver a message. Repent from your wicked behavior and return to the Godly ways in which you have been instructed. But after 23 years of hearing this message of repentance and simply continuing in their path of selfish and sinful fulfillment, God delivers His sentence of righteous judgement and allows the Babylonians to conquer Jerusalem, carrying off the offending Israelites into captivity for 70 years. But it is here in the midst of this seemingly hopeless situation that we see God deliver a written message, a letter, to His rebellious people through the hand of Jeremiah. And so, buried within chapter 29 of Jeremiah resides a verse that almost all Christians know by heart. But do they fully know the context?
One of the biggest problems in quoting stand-alone verses is using it without full and proper context. We pull out memory verses yet without knowing where and why they came about, we could be doing more harm than good as we possibly misuse it. (hello Phil. 4:13) One good rule of thumb to adhere to is always carefully look at a few verses before and a few verses after the stand alone verse. This will allow you more context into its intended meaning. So, let’s look a little deeper at the famous Jeremiah 29:11 in it’s full and glorious context.
First, ponder the fact that this beautiful promise would have not come about without rebellion. If the Israelites had been in perfect obedience to the commands of the Lord, they would not have found themselves in chains in Babylon. You see, without bondage the promise of future freedom holds little value.
“For I know the plans I have for you”
The Israelites saw themselves as God-defiers sitting in chains in Babylonian captivity, their hope of freeing themselves well beyond arms reach. But God knew it was only for seventy years and He would then return them to the promised land He had given them. Regardless of how bleak their current situation looked; God saw much farther down their path. God knew His plans for them.
“Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future”
What comfort this line delivers. As God reviewed His plan for His enslaved people and saw farther into His future for them, He would not allow long-term harm to come to them. As they repented and turned back to Him, He could gaze down the road and see a sunrise that glowed bright upon their horizon. He knew the plan He had for them, yet needed them to take faith in His plan. For you see, that is the crossroads of faith, when one believes in the plan of God for their lives regardless of how much they can see of it.
“Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.”
Folks, here is where this verse turns the corner. The Israelites could not simply sit in their shackles, cry, whine, complain, and have a big pity party, they needed to address their situation, realize why they were in it, and then do something about it. And that was them realizing who held the power. Only God Almighty could help them in this situation. Not themselves, not positive thinking, not false prophets, not their idols, not the gods of other nations. And in this realization, in this turning back to a Lord that they had forgotten, a beautiful thing happens…they cry out to their God…and God hears their cries.
“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you.”
What a grand promise the Lord makes to His rebellious people here. Notice the huge lack of qualifiers here. It doesn’t say anything about them being or becoming religious again. It doesn’t say they must be sinless and “good” to first begin seeking Him. It is simply a promise to anyone in Babylonian captivity that will read it, hear it, and then execute its message with great faith from a pure heart.
What a tremendous passage God delivered to His children in their rebellion. A message of hope, a message of a future, and a message of a possible renewed relationship with their Creator and Lord. And folks, this same message continues for us into the New Testament in the 3rd chapter of the gospel of John. For here, God delivers to His rebellious sinful children a verse of hope, of a future, and of a possible renewed relationship with their Maker, Creator and Lord. A verse that addresses the fact that we are all born into the bondage of sin, sitting hopelessly in the shackles of our sinful and prideful rebellion to God. But as we sit in those shackles of sin today, God uses His Word to deliver a letter to us captives. A letter of love, a letter of hope, a letter of a future, a letter of a possible renewed relationship with the very God that created us. And to claim that hope, future and redemption, you must simply call on an ever-listening Lord. In great faith and belief, with all you heart, call out and seek for the only One that can break the bonds of your captivity. That verse in John?
“For God so loved the world, that He gave his only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16
God knows His plan for you today. God has created that plan today…just for you, personally. A plan that offers you the great hope and future of an eternal life in His presence in the glory of heaven. And God has clearly instructed you of His plan in the greatest love letter ever written, His Holy Word, the Bible. All you need to do is admit that your shackles of sin are too great for you, that only Jesus Christ holds the key to true freedom from your bondage. And what do you need to do to be freed? Simply call out. Call out and pray to Jesus and He is faithful to hear all that call upon His name, not from their mouths, but from their hearts. If you seek Jesus, if you seek Him with all of your heart to save you from the bondage of your sin…He will be found.
Thank you Lord Jesus for the personal plan of Salvation you have for all that call upon your name.
Dio te bendiga ~ Dan
"For he who finds me finds life..." Proverbs 8:35a
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