Verse of the Day 3/6

 Jeremiah 29:7 (NLT)  And work for the peace and prosperity of the city where I sent you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, for its welfare will determine your welfare." 

 I read this verse the other day and it is one that has stayed on my mind.  The passage is probably better known for verses 11 to 13 which encourage us with "for I know the plans I have for you...to give you a future and a hope" (v.11).

 

It is easy for us to think that this talk of a future will be somewhere else, a mission field, a new state, new job or a new situation in life, after healing or mending has taken place.  But today's verse indicates to us that the mission starts right where you are.  Work for the welfare of  the city, the place in life that you currently occupy.  It is here that your future, where those plans of God begin.

 

I believe that it speaks of more than just a geographical location.  It is a place of the heart and of the circumstances in life.

 

Have you ever gone to visit someone who was ill or injured and realize after you had left that they actually had ministered to you?  It may have been a place of exile for them, but it did not cease to be an opportunity to serve, to minister, even to those who may have come to do the ministering.  It just may be the path to restoration, to a future and a hope.

 

Blessings,
Mike
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Jeremiah 29:7-14New Living Translation (NLT)

⁷ And work for the peace and prosperity of the city where I sent you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, for its welfare will determine your welfare."

 ⁸ This is what the LORD of Heaven's Armies, the God of Israel, says: "Do not let your prophets and fortune-tellers who are with you in the land of Babylon trick you. Do not listen to their dreams, ⁹ because they are telling you lies in my name. I have not sent them," says the LORD.

 ¹⁰ This is what the LORD says: "You will be in Babylon for seventy years. But then I will come and do for you all the good things I have promised, and I will bring you home again. ¹¹ For I know the plans I have for you," says the LORD. "They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. ¹² In those days when you pray, I will listen. ¹³ If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me. ¹⁴ I will be found by you," says the LORD. "I will end your captivity and restore your fortunes. I will gather you out of the nations where I sent you and will bring you home again to your own land."