The lesson in the title is one that is probably the biggest step toward acquiring the right position to perceive what led to the process of the Captivity that reduced God’s citizen to slaves at the mercy of Babylon.
We have already seen that covenant breaking was the single reason for this radical and brutal change in their lives.
Much we can attribute to be external causes to what we are experiencing and much we can blame. However contrary circumstance is almost always the result of a attitude and lifestyle sown which displeased God who made covenant with us.
When we begin to understand Jeremiah 29 as a tough letter that clearly stated the reason for the Captivity, the purpose of it being 70 years and then seek that within those 70 years a great opportunity for transformation is to be perceived. That no matter how bad the situation is, the purpose is for eternal fruit and what will be enjoyed is a result of not resisting God’s discipline and coming out repentant will open blessings for the moment and for eternity.
It is evident that Babylon began to show kindness and favour to the children of Judah, and it was the Persians that released them to build the House of God. God gives favour to those who understand God’s ways.
Nothing that God allows us to pass through is for our earthly destruction but our redemption. It is as Paul says ” that this light and momentary works for us an eternal weight of Glory.” So precisely expresses the ways of God from someone who knew what place suffering had in his life.
There are many structures that we take for granted and think they substitute the obedience and intimacy of living the covenant. God can take all from us to take us from the happening TO us so that we embrace that it is happening FOR us. In that way we then begin to seek and discern what those bad experiences did FOR us which will shape our eternity for us.
Maranatha!
Leave a Reply