Are These Promises for You?

(Jeremiah 29:11–14) For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear 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 restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the LORD, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.

This is an perfect example of what I like to call “refrigerator magnet verses”, so named because of the way that they are forcibly yanked out of context and blithely placed in Hallmark cards and placarded on internet memes.

In Jeremiah 29, the prophet speaks of two different classes of people within Israel. And the above promises are tenderly given to one sort of Israelite and clearly withheld from the other.

So, before we can put any sort of claim upon the mercies promised in these verses, we first need to determine which class of people we most closely resemble.

One camp within Israel was characterized by its refusal to listen to God’s Word and to embrace the God-ordained “death” of exile in Babylon, and to faithfully await the “resurrection” of return to the holy land by God’s means, in God’s time. To the Israelites who spurned God’s Word and were confident that they could save themselves, God promised “the sword, famine and pestilence.”

The other camp within Israel listened and obeyed God’s prophets, humbly embraced the “death” of Babylonian exile and faithfully awaited the “resurrection” of return. But their waiting for resurrection was not passive. In obedience to God’s command they actively built homes, planted gardens, bore and raised children and grandchildren, labored and prayed for the welfare of city where God had placed them, believing, as the Lord had said, that their welfare was linked to the welfare of their city; their city of exile.

It was to these Israelites; the Israelites who listened carefully to God’s Word, humbly submitted to God’s plan of death and resurrection and faithfully labored for the good of the worldlings who surrounded them, that God promised “plans for welfare and not for evil…a future and a hope.”

And so, not coincidentally, every week in our assembly on Mt. Zion, we revisit, re-hear and indeed reenact the Gospel, God’s wonderful plan to save us via our union, by faith, in Christ’s death and resurrection, along with reminders to build, plant and parent while actively seeking the welfare of the unbelieving city in which God has placed us.

And this we do, reveling in the sure knowledge that God’s plans for us are supremely good, filled with hope and bursting with promise.

GH

Fathers' Work

"For you know how like a father with his children, we exhorted each on of you and encouraged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory." (1 Thess. 2:11)

In this verse Paul gives us some important insights into the duties of Christian fathers. Fathers "exhort" and "encourage" their children to walk in ways consistent with their calling and work in God's kingdom. There are many ways to do this, but historically, exhortation and encouragement have included the catechizing of children; grounding them in the basics of the faith. And the following catechism is a good place to start.

Small Children's Catechism

1. Who made you? God

2. What else did God make? God made all things.

3. Why did God make all things? For His own glory

4. Why do things work as they do? God has so decreed it.

5. How do we learn about God? God reveals Himself.

A Prayer for Moms (WJM)

Lord, we pray for Your encouragement of mothers.

This role You have given them, first to physically bear the children,

And then to nurture and care for and raise their children

is so demanding, yet so important. 

We pray that you shower the gifts of Your Spirit on mothers

That You enable them to be kind and gentle with their children

When they have been frustrated and pushed to their limit

That You equip them to be patient and long-suffering with immature behaviors

Even when those behaviors last for years and come from large bodies.

We pray You grant mothers an extra measure of self-control when they need it the most.

And to cover it all, Lord, we pray that You enable mothers and grandmothers to love their children in a special way that only they can, and in circumstances when their children are not acting loveable, and that you recharge their capacity for love hour after hour for the days, months, years and indeed lifetimes that their mothering will go on.

And we pray that through it all, mothers will remain faithful to rely on You and trust in You that You will make their ‘mothering” paths straight and that You will be the Father guiding and leading their children, just as You are the Father guiding and leading them. 

We pray these things in Jesus name, Amen.

Bill Monnette

Mothers' Day Prayer of Thanksgiving (DD)

Father,

Thank you that you give us exceeding great and precious promises.  For a promise is a chance to trust in you while we wait to surely obtain something of great value….   Our first parents believed the demonic message that you were selfish and withheld your blessings.   The first born of the human race believed demonic message of envy: that his he was robbed because someone else was blessed.  And rather than obtaining what they sought, they and all their posterity became laden with the twin fruits of demonic pride: fear and envy.  And ever since we have both faithfully clung to this fruit and been sorely oppressed by their resulting hopelessness and despair. 

But thank you that you saved us in Christ, who delivers us from these scourges.  Thank you for the promise in the verse, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.”  Thank you further, that you give us the same task our first parents failed at:  The need to trust and wait on you, to be faithful while we wait on your promises and blessings.

Mothers' Day Prayer of Thanksgiving 2017 (JP)

Our Heavenly Father, Creator of all that is, the Holy One who declares the end from the beginning, You are the God of order and not disorder.  And so we thank you for establishing motherhood and for creating women to perfectly fill the role of Mothers.

You have endowed them to be nurturers, patient, compassionate, filled with unquestioned love, willing to give their life in an instant for the life of their child, able to do multiple things with children under foot or on a hip.  Things that would cause most of us men to be pulling our hair out.

I thank you for mothers that surrender their own hopes and dreams for the good of their children.

Getting the Psalms into Your Bones

If you're anything like us, you are constantly on the hunt for ways to get the Psalms "into your bones." Ellen and I have been listening to "My Soul Among Lions" renditions of the first ten psalms and we are happy to report that these divinely inspired hymns/prayers are quickly burrowing themselves into our souls and sidling, unbidden, into our thoughts as we move through our daily routines. The album is available on iTunes or here. Here is a little taste. Enjoy. GH

You Were Born to Trouble

For affliction does not come from the dust, nor does trouble sprout from the ground, but man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward. (Job 5:6-7)

The only thing truly strange about our troubles, is our dogged belief that having troubles is truly strange. Here is how N.D. Wilson puts it:

"Heat rises. Man is born to trouble. When Job lifted his face to the Storm, when he asked and was answered, he learned that he was very small. He learned that his life was a story. He spoke with the Author, and learned that the genre had not been an accident. God tells stories that make Sunday school teachers sweat and mothers write their children permission slips excusing them from encountering reality…Nails are forged for pounding. Man is born to trouble. Man is born far trouble. Man is born to battle trouble. Man is born for the fight, to be forged and molded—under torch and hammer and chisel—into a sharper, finer, stronger image of God." (Death by Living, page 69)