Jeremiah’s Encouragement - Part 1 G-3
These words are meant to give us insight into the Heart of God, how He thinks, and how He feels about us. Let this encouragement begin to dwell deep within you!
"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 a 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 I will bring you back from captivity.”
Jeremiah 29, 11-14 (NIV)
These words go to the very heart of God: what God is like, how He thinks about us, and what He earnestly desires for us. Let’s look more carefully at today’s Scripture.
First, know that there is a plan for our lives! Jesus said that He has plans for us! He is not just watching us bounce from one crisis to another, but rather He has perfect plans for your life and for everyone’s life, and He wants to establish these plans in all of us and see us flourish. He has been, is, and will be thinking about us.
What is the nature of His plans? To prosper us, to establish hope, to build a confident future, to know Jesus intimately, to bring us out of any and all captivity. They are strong, clear, positive, dynamic plans. They are not weak, muddied, neutral, or bland passing thoughts.
Do you ever wonder whether Jesus will hear us, whether He will pay attention to us? Jesus guarantees that we will indeed experience Him, along with the Father and the Holy Spirit, as we seek Him! You will surely find Him as shown above. And remember that He has never “lost” us in the billions of people on this earth.
Last, His plan is to bring us out of every captivity: constant fears, strong addictions, harmful habits, twisted relationships, spiritual confusion, and so on. Notice the words simply state that He will “bring you back from captivity”. Not halfway back, not temporarily back, not half-heartedly back, not slowly back. Back, now, forever, healthy.
It’s time for you to experience hope, an exciting future, freedom, peace and most important, intimacy with Jesus. Just call on Jesus; He is listening at this moment!
1) How does your hope and future look to you today?
2) God hasn’t lost you; you just have to seek him. What might stand in the way of this?
3) What kinds of “captivity" do you struggle with?
4) Can you imagine that God has made plans for your particular life? Why would He do that?
5) Why is the word “prosper” mentioned? How could that be misunderstood?
6) Why in the word “hope” mentioned? What does this mean to you today?