January 13 – He Knows and Gives Hope

“‘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.” – Jeremiah 29:11 (NASB)

The verse selected for today is often a favorite. Many take the promise in this verse as if it is given directedly to each believer. In a much larger sense it is true but not in the primary sense. Jeremiah, was sent to give God’s messages and warning to the His people in the Kingdom of Judah. (The northern Kingdom of Israel was gone and its people dispersed.) Warnings of conquest and destruction were repeatedly given to them by God through Jeremiah and each was ignored, mocked, and disregarded. They treated Jeremiah treacherously with malice and physical torture. But look one verse back to Jeremiah 20:10 we have the necessary context. God promises a time to bring the captives back from Babylon after seventy years in exile. Not all came back but God is promising in verse 11. God promised welfare and no longer calamity. He promised a future and a hope. While not directly in this verse, God has promised each believer a future and a hope. We too have this promise of welfare and not calamity from God from God. We find these promises many places. He gives us hope that is absolute and never disappoints.

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March 23 – Welfare Not Calamity

“For thus says the Lord: Only when Babylon’s seventy years are completed will I visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.”  -Jeremiah 29:10-11  (ESV)

The words of this passage were delivered in a letter to the elders, priests and prophets and all the exiles who were in Babylon after King Nebuchadnezzar had deported most of the people out of Jerusalem.  Jeremiah, still in Jerusalem, delivered this prophecy from God to those who had been warned many times in many ways about this calamity.  Now it had come true. The words of these verses are a promise to the captives that God was going to limit their time in Babylon to seventy years and that His plans for them were not for harm but for a future and a hope. Christian believers today often come to this verse for encouragement when our future seems bleak because God’s promise to Israel is our promise too.  God has made plans for each of us.  His plans are for our good welfare and they are not to place us in harms way. They promised the captives a future return to Jerusalem and rebuild and live there. His promises for us are what we read and study each day.  God cares about our future and He has good plans for us now and in the future in heaven with Him.  

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