GOD LISTENS, GOD GIVES HOPE
WE HEAR… WE MUST RESPOND – JEREMIAH 29:1-14
“For thus says the Lord: After 70 years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you and cause you to return to this place. For I know the thought that I think toward you says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me with all your heart. I will be found by you and I will bring you back from captivity.” (v11-14)
When we are faced with difficulties and challenges in our life, it is easy to assume that God does not acknowledge the position we are in. The truth of the matter is that, God not only listens to our cries for help, but He acts above and beyond the expectation and outcome we desire. Throughout the book of Jeremiah we see that even in the most wayward and rebellious time in the life of the people of Judah and Israel – when God was disciplining His people – His thoughts of wholeness and peace and not evil were still evident.
As people of God, we need to be certain that God is at all times very interested in working in our lives. He desires to remove hindrances to our destiny and shape us into the person He has purposed us to be. Our responsibility is to respond appropriately to Him and His discipline and to seek Him.
In hearing we must respond
- Hope Begins With God – Acknowledging God
- Acknowledging that God is God
- Acknowledging that His thoughts are good, righteous & just
- Acknowledging that hope apart from Him is hopelessness
- Hope Requires Change – Obeying God
(Jeremiah 28)
All other refuges are refuges of lies, all other strength is weakness, for power belongs unto God: but as God is all-sufficient, our defence and might are equal to all emergencies. (Charles Spurgeon)
- Turning away from our own understanding
- Turning away from lies
- Turning away from our sins
- Hope Is Realized In God – Walking Into Our Destiny
- Trusting God and having courage to hope in Him
- Seek Him, Find Him
- Remain in His love