September 3rd, 2011
Today’s reading from Encounter with God

Imagining the Kingdom

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Opening Prayer

Father, You are so faithful to Your word. Today, I am standing on Your promises. I bless Your name.

Read JEREMIAH 33:14-26

[14] “‘The days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘when I will fulfill the gracious promise I made to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah. [15] “‘In those days and at that time I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line; he will do what is just and right in the land. [16] In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. This is the name by which it will be called: The LORD Our Righteousness.’ [17] For this is what the LORD says: ‘David will never fail to have a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel, [18] nor will the priests, who are Levites, ever fail to have a man to stand before me continually to offer burnt offerings, to burn grain offerings and to present sacrifices.'” [19] The word of the LORD came to Jeremiah: [20] “This is what the LORD says: ‘If you can break my covenant with the day and my covenant with the night, so that day and night no longer come at their appointed time, [21] then my covenant with David my servant-and my covenant with the Levites who are priests ministering before me-can be broken and David will no longer have a descendant to reign on his throne. [22] I will make the descendants of David my servant and the Levites who minister before me as countless as the stars of the sky and as measureless as the sand on the seashore.'” [23] The word of the LORD came to Jeremiah: [24] “Have you not noticed that these people are saying, ‘The LORD has rejected the two kingdoms he chose’? So they despise my people and no longer regard them as a nation. [25] This is what the LORD says: ‘If I have not established my covenant with day and night and the fixed laws of heaven and earth, [26] then I will reject the descendants of Jacob and David my servant and will not choose one of his sons to rule over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. For I will restore their fortunes and have compassion on them.'”

Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. All rights reserved throughout the world. Used by permission of International Bible Society.

Meditate

“At the end of Matthew’s gospel, Jesus commissions his followers to go out and make disciples from every nation, giving an indication that the Messiah’s worldwide rule is going to come true” (N.T. Wright).

Think Further

There is much that we simply cannot know, much that God keeps hidden from us. While Jeremiah was commanded to speak God’s words, he could not have known or understood the enormous significance of this particular prophecy. We know now, of course, that Jeremiah was speaking prophetically of the work of Jesus; but at this point, we cannot know how all that he was foretelling would come to pass. Still, we can take great heart from Jeremiah’s words and example. Consider Jeremiah’s faithfulness. His “troubled life spanned one of the most troublesome periods in Hebrew history … Everything that could go wrong did go wrong. And Jeremiah was in the middle of all of it, sticking it out, praying and preaching, suffering and striving, writing and believing” (Donald English). Consider the staggering magnitude of God’s promise through Jeremiah that the time will come when the Messiah will “execute justice and righteousness in the land” (15, NRSV). This is a gilt-edged promise, likened to the guarantee referred to by Jeremiah (20) that God will never abandon his creation (Gen. 8:21,22).

The God who loves justice calls us to share this passion. When we do, discovering in the process a deep need for resilience and grace, this prophecy assures us that no matter how persistent and ubiquitous injustice and violence is in the present, we are walking and working with the One who will be triumphant. It also reminds us that even though the pain of a groaning creation (Rom. 8:22) is intensifying, we can commit to its loving and grateful care in the absolute confidence that God, too, has a creation commitment, not to its obliteration but to its renewal.

Apply

“The point is not to completely understand God but to worship him. Let the very fact…lead you to praise him for his infiniteness and grandeur” (Francis Chan).  

Closing prayer

Lord, I praise You for Your sovereign rule in the world. Amidst all the confusion and clamor in the world, I need to be reassured that You are in control.

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