"God's Impossible Grace" June 3 Readings: Jeremiah 29-34

 

Reading the Bible Chronologically in 2022

This year, instead of reading from Genesis to Revelation, we will read the Bible as the story flows, as it happened and was written. There are several plans out there and I have worked to combine them into a plan that lets the Bible tell its own story "as it happened." Remember, the Bible is inspired, but not in the order the books appear in our Bibles. The Old Testament is approximately 3/4 of the Bible, but I have divided it so that we will spend half the year in the OT, and half the year in the NT. 

Bible Readings:  Jeremiah 29-34  

Background:   

Today's reading deals with the promised restoration of Israel and it combines prophecies of the historic return after the Babylonian Captivity and the millennial return when Israel will not only be physically restored but also spiritually restored and fully devoted to God and to the Messiah God sent.

There are two familiar passages in this reading, one of which is among the most misread passages in Bible. Jeremiah 29:11 says, "For I know the plans I have for you”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“plans for your well-being, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope." This is misused as a general promise that only good things will happen to us. Read verse 5. This is a promise that God was going to restore Israel and give them a future. Of course, God does give us a hopeful future, but it is not without hardship. 

The second passage is 31:31 in which God promises a New Covenant with Israel, written on their hearts, which is the basis of the New Covenant in the blood of Jesus that binds the church together. There are many other powerful and familiar promises. 

Daily Devotional: God's Impossible Grace 

God draws a stark contrast in Jeremiah 30:12-17. The prophet has been lobbing judgment after judgment from the mouth of God on his people and they were beginning to come true. And through Jeremiah, God pronounced the position of his chosen people untenable and hopeless. Look at verses 12-14

This is what the Lord says:
“Your injury is incurable—
a terrible wound.
13 There is no one to help you
or to bind up your injury.
No medicine can heal you.
14 All your lovers—your allies—have left you
and do not care about you anymore.
I have wounded you cruelly,
as though I were your enemy.
For your sins are many,
and your guilt is great.

Their severe wounds are incurable and no one is coming to help them. All the allies (lovers) they had turned to for help had now abandoned them and there was no one to stand with them. God's discipline had fallen on them in a powerful and seemingly irreversible way because of their "enormous guilt" and "innumerable sins."

But in verse 16 things begin to turn around and God promises to deal with those who had come against them. All of their enemies were going to be dealt with by God and then God would restore them. The incurable wounds would be restored and their enormous, innumerable sins would be forgiven. Verse 17 makes it plain.

I will give you back your health
and heal your wounds,” says the Lord.
“For you are called an outcast—
‘Jerusalem for whom no one cares.’”

God will heal and restore what the world calls hopeless.

Is there anything in your life that seems hopeless? Have people ever told you that you are useless, that your faults are incurable? Have you made mistakes that you feel negate your usefulness in the cause of Christ? Remember that the love of God overcomes the power of sin. You are not hopeless because of Jesus Christ. What sin has broken God can fix.

Father, I thank you for a love that is not rendered helpless by my failings, for a grace that is greater than my sins. 

Consider God's Word:

Have you written off yourself, or others, as hopeless? 

Do you look at situations in this world as hopeless? 

Remind yourself today that with our God, nothing is impossible, and give him praise.