A Reset

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I finished my third day of IV drug therapy. It has gone fairly well. I have only experienced some low grade headaches which is one of the side effects. I’m looking forward to our men’s breakfast tomorrow with my friend Pastor Jim Walters.

BIBLE VERSE FOR TODAY… “Look, the days are coming”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. This one will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant they broke even though I had married them”—the Lord’s declaration. “Instead, this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days”—the Lord’s declaration. “I will put My teaching within them and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be My people. No longer will one teach his neighbor or his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me, from the least to the greatest of them”—this is the Lord’s declaration. “For I will forgive their wrongdoing and never again remember their sin.” Jeremiah 31:31-34 HCSB

Jeremiah is filled with warnings and judgment from the Lord. But it also contains glorious promises of restoration and the future that Lord had for His people. Essentially we see the Lord is in the process of a “reset” or creating a new beginning for His people.

We read these words of the prophet, “So then, the days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when people will no longer say, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the Israelites up out of Egypt,’ but they will say, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the descendants of Israel up out of the land of the north and out of all the countries where he had banished them.’ Then they will live in their own land.” (Jeremiah 23:7-8 HCSB)

We see this described in Psalm 126. This is one of the Psalms that was recited annually during the pilgrimage to Jerusalem during the three annual feasts.

“When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dreamed. Our mouths were filled with laughter,our tongues with songs of joy. Then it was said among the nations, “The Lord has done great things for them.” (Psalm 126:1,2 HCSB)

God’s people were going into a long captivity, but what they were about to experience was not going to be their ultimate future. God was using this time to reset their hearts and to show that He is constantly at work to fulfill His purposes, even when God’s people stray and get off track and lose their bearings.

When we look at the history of mankind, we see the Lord did a “reset” when He choose Noah and destroyed the earth with a flood. We see  God calling Abraham and through the years, after a journey that went through Egypt, God brought them to the land He had promised. In the midst of it, God in His anger was prepared to start over with Moses. But Moses interceded and that is why the Children of Israel wandered in the wilderness for 40 years.

Now the Lord was going to place His people in the “womb” of Babylon for seventy years. He would restore them to the land and to Jerusalem. There would be a new Temple and they would be a people with a “new” heart. The Lord promised them a glorious future and was promising them a new “covenant.”

The words of Jeremiah find their ultimate fulfillment when Jesus with his disciples at the “last” supper told them, “I am making a new covenant with you…” The provision of Calvary would allow God’s laws and ways to be in the hearts of people by faith and the grace of God would fulfill and do what the law of God could not.

When I consider God’s ways in accomplishing His work in the lives of His people, it allows me to be confident that He is still at work on our world today, bringing to pass all that He has planned for those who love Him and place their faith in Him. That is something that we can observe in individual lives and as well as in our world.

Prayer for today…  “Lord, thank you for the assurance that You are still working out Your divine plan and purpose in the world and in our lives as Your people. Allow us to be patient, keeping our eyes on You, knowing that what You have promised You will fulfill in Your time and in Your ways.”