WITH ALL YOUR HEART
Prayer: Lord help us to seek You each and every day with ALL our heart.
Scripture: ‘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. 12 ‘Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. 13 ‘You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. Jeremiah 29: 11-13 NASB
Many people quote Jeremiah 29:11 as their, “life verse,” or have it on a picture or plaque somewhere in their home or office. Some scholars call it, “the most misquoted verse of the Bible,” because in its original context it is a promise to the Israelites from God as He has just told them they are going to be carried off into captivity in the pagan land of Babylon for seventy years but, says verse 10, “”For thus says the LORD, ‘When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place.”
The good news is that if one reads the verse within its context it can be a verse that today’s Christian can claim. The key is to first recognize the original audience and their circumstances and claim the verse based on the conditions of verses eleven and twelve. As followers of Christ we suffer, just as the Israelites did, when we sin and turn away from God’s commands. Sin still has consequences; God pulls back His hand of protection as we expect Him to bless us in our foolishness and we choose to seek
earthly pleasures and treasures instead of seeking Him and His righteousness. We are even sometimes shocked when foolishness leads to failure and calamity is the consequence of our wrong choices.
Today’s Scripture reminds us that God is bigger than any sin we commit, His forgiveness stands at the heart of our door and knocks, and when we realize and confess our sin we should turn our FULL attention and heart to God for restoration. Before you were born, before you were even conceived, God had a perfect plan for your life; a plan of welfare, hope and a posterity that finds its reward in Him. God will restore you through wisdom that walks in His welfare. God’s conditional promise does apply the people of the Old Testament and today! When you call upon God with a humble heart of repentance, He listens. When you seek Him with ALL of your heart, not half-heartedly or on a whim, but search with ALL your heart, you WILL find Him and His plans for you.
What happens in your classroom when you or your students veer off subject and a whole class period goes by completely off your lesson plan? Is all lost? Is the subject not recoverable? Do we throw out the text book and declare the whole year a loss – of course not! Our life on earth is a vapor, a mist, a cloud in all eternity; a time of sin certainly results in earthly consequences that sometimes cannot be erased. God can turn your mess into a message, a test into a testimony that serves as a lesson to you and others. He can wipe away the eternal record of wrong and set us back on the right path of His welfare and future plans. Many of you have prodigals in your life and you are praying this lesson over them, that they would know that they can be restored, that they do have a hope and His name is Jesus. Pray for them together. Pray for families of students who have left God’s path, pray that they would seek Him and search for Him with all their hearts, so that they may find Him.
Copyright Kathy Branzell. Email [email protected].