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Keep Hope Alive

January 25, 2010

“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. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:11-13

Meditating on a verse like this will pull you out of regret for the past and dread of the future and it’ll make you aware that the future God has planned for you is a future with hope.

If you read the beginning of Jeremiah 29, you’ll see that Jeremiah is prophesying in order to get four things across to the exiled Israelites stuck in Babylon. He is telling them to build, multiply, ignore the false prophets, and keep hope alive.

This strong exhortation communicates that even though the Israelites had some grim circumstances, God always works for the well-being of His people. Paul reiterated this recurring theme of God’s faithfulness when he wrote as a captive in a Roman prison: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4). God is calling us to learn how to abase and abound (Philippians 4:12) and live as Kingdom people who are clear-headed, victorious, and full of love, independent of our circumstances.

But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, that shines brighter and brighter until the full day. Proverbs 4:18

Don’t let anything other than the Bible define who God is in your world. The problems come when our meditation shifts from the Word (Psalm 1:1-3) and we listen to the bad report or to false prophets. Take Jeremiah 29:11 into your spirit and let it stir your heart with courage and dispel the dismal outlook that has tried to settle on you. Just like His plans for Israel, God’s plans for you are good plans. Keep building. Keep multiplying. Don’t listen to false prophets. Keep hope alive!

God has good things ahead,
Pastor Jeff

Copyright © 2010 St. Louis Family Church. All rights reserved. No part of this article may be reprinted or distributed in any form without prior written permission of St. Louis Family Church. Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are from the New American Standard Bible (NASB) Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation.