Finding God . . .

“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 search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord.” –Jeremiah 29:12-14a

“I will be found by you”, says God!

Many spend their entire lives looking for love, looking for purpose, looking for the meaning of life, and never quite finding the fulfillment it brings.  God, is in fact, all of those things: purpose, peace, power, provider, etc.  He is everything you are looking for—He is the source of everything beneficial!

The promises contained in these verses are every bit as meaningful as the promises of Jeremiah 29:11. God says, “Call to me, pray to me, seek me, and search for me.”  The wonderful result? God says, “I will listen to you and you will find me.” Jeremiah 29:11 is released into our lives through Jeremiah 29:12-13.

Maybe the atheist cannot find God for the same reason a thief cannot find a policeman. ~Author Unknown

Plans . . .

“For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.” –Jeremiah 29:11

2 questions: First of all, can you trust GOD? Meaning—can GOD be trusted? The answer is YES! The second question is the same but different? Can YOU trust God?—meaning, are you capable of releasing control and letting God handle things? I can’t answer this one for you but your ability to receive the promise is contingent upon your trust.

Jeremiah 29:11 is a wonderful promise that most of us have become familiar with and look to when we face uncertain days.  To benefit from the promise requires trusting in God. There are four aspects to this great promise.

God has plans for you . . .

#1—Plans for Welfare. The word translated, “welfare” here is the Hebrew word, “Shalom”, which means peace—the absence of conflict. Peace comes not just when your problems go away, but when you trust God with your problems. He promises peace—but the way to get there is through trusting God.

#2—Not Plans for Calamity. “Calamity” here is from the Hebrew word, “Rah”, which means bad or evil. Literally think of it as things or situations that are detrimental. You will face hardship, but if you trust God, then you can recognize that all thing work together for your benefit and thus they are not detrimental (“Rah”). Calamity is removed by redefining problems as opportunities. This obviously requires trust.

#3—Plans to Give you a Future. The word, “future”, here literally means, “end”. There will be an end to these troubles. Your time of exile is limited. You just have to make it one more day…one more hour…one more minute…one more second. Don’t take on tomorrow’s issues today—just make it today.

#4—Plans to Give you a Hope. I love this one. “Hope”, in the Hebrew here can mean, “rope”. What? Rope? Yes, rope—a life-line. Something to hang on to in the midst of the storm. My dad tells a story about being out in the fields with his father when he was young. They lived near Dalhart, Texas and in those days, massive dust storms would come up and make it nearly impossible to see and difficult to even breathe.  One of those storms hit suddenly and my grandfather led my dad back to the house by making his way to the barbed wire fence and slowly following the fence back to the house while holding on to that wire. They followed a fence—a rope—a hope!

Today, I want to challenge you to trust God. Trust doesn’t mean doing nothing—it means doing the plans that God has already prepared for you—it means following the fence home.

Listen Carefully . . .

“For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, ‘Do not let your prophets who are in your midst and your diviners deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams which they dream. For they prophesy falsely to you in My name; I have not sent them,’ declares the Lord.”

Be careful who you listen to because not everyone knows what they are talking about. Yes, even religious people can get it wrong. My favorite example is Peter who in one moment is credited with speaking God’s words and in the very next is the mouthpiece of Satan (See Matthew 16:13-23). That means that any of us can in one moment be speaking God’s truth and in the very next be speaking deception. Yes, Dave Samples gets it wrong sometimes!

The solution is to have an unquestionable authority that can be referred to whenever guidance is needed. God has given us that authority through His Bible. Our church's doctrinal statement, The Baptist Faith and Message, says it this way, “The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is God’s revelation of Himself to man. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. . . . It reveals the principles by which God judges us, and therefore is . . . the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried.” (BF&M, 2000, p7). 

The Bible says of itself, “Every part of Scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or another—showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live God’s way. Through the Word we are put together and shaped up for the tasks God has for us” (2 Timothy 3:16-17, The Message).

So, we have to immerse ourselves in the Word of God. Find a way to do that. This year I’m reading the “Chronological Bible” every day using my YouVersion Bible App on my Iphone. The "One Year Bible" (also found on the App) has been my go-to previously for about seventeen years. Yes, I read the Bible through EVERY year—and so can you. It doesn’t matter if you read it on paper or on your computer. You can even listen to a digital version if that’s easier for you. But we must all read the Word of God! Otherwise, we don’t know what we’re talking about, and we don’t know what we are doing!

“When you live by God’s Word, your life works.  When you live without God’s Word, life doesn’t work.” –Stormie Omartian, The Prayer That Changes Everything.

Message to the Exiles...

Are you familiar with Jeremiah 29:11? "'For I know the plans that I have for you', declares the Lord, 'plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.'"

This is a hopeful verse of promise that many of us have held onto at some point in our lives. What you may not be familiar with is the fact that the context of this great promise is an extended time of exile--a time of great loss for God's chosen people. For a period of about twenty years, the Jewish people were successively exiled into Babylon. This captivity ultimately lasted for seventy long years. Jeremiah's promise occurs in the early days of this Babylonian exile.

Have you ever been exiled? I don't mean that you've been sent off packing to Babylon. I do mean that all of us, at different points in our lives, have experienced times of great loss--exile. We've lost our place, our power, our privilege, our purpose, and likely our peace. We've lost relationships, jobs, homes, and maybe even the will to live. With that in mind, Jeremiah 29:11 takes on new and essential meaning. In the midst of loss, God still has a plan--a plan for blessing!

In the verses surrounding Jeremiah 29:11, I've discovered seven strategic steps intended to lead us back from exile.

#1--Know the Lord - Jeremiah 29:4

#2--Live your Life - Jeremiah 29:5-7

#3--Listen Carefully - Jeremiah 29:8-9

#4--Limited and Purposeful Suffering - Jeremiah 29:10

#5--Follow God's Leadership - Jeremiah 29:11

#6--Locate God - Jeremiah 29:12-14

#7--Liberation - Jeremiah 29:14

Over the next several days, I will work through these seven steps, putting a little more meat on the bone. If you are like me--a returning exile (or maybe you are just starting a new journey into exile), God has something life-changing to say to us.