Wednesday Devotion 8-12-20 7 Minutes

Good evening everyone watching by video this evening,,, it's time for our weekly devotion.

This evening I want to talk about our country and the things that are going on today that God is using to bring us back to Him.

My scripture today comes from Jeremiah 29:10-14: 10 This is what the Lord says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. 11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.”

God bless the reading and the hearing of your word this morning.

Let us pray:

Dear Lord,,, as we begin this evening,,, with all that are listening and watching by video,,, we ask that you open our ears to hear and our hearts and minds to receive the message that you have for us today,,, In Jesus' name I pray,,, Amen.

Most of the time when you think of any of these verses,,, you think of verse 11 where it says: 11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

This is a wonderful verse and it has a beautiful message,,, especially if you read this verse by itself.

And it is a beautiful verse,,, don't misunderstand me when I say what I'm going to say today.

But,,, the message that God had for the Israelites that day,,, in these verses,,, wasn't what they wanted to hear.

They wanted to go home!

Kinda like we want all of this Corona-virus mess gone,,, our people to quit fighting,,, and we want everything back to normal.

I thought that this coronavirus stuff was a big joke to begin with,,, when it first started and the first cases were in Washington,,, then a few weeks later,,, it was here in Mississippi.

Then I thought it would die down in the summer,,, wrong again.

I'm ready for this junk to be gone.

In the mean time we again have the fight for equality that some of our brothers and sisters are fighting for.

We know that these are legitimate issues.

And we need to help however we can,,, but as it so often happens,,, we have too many that want to abuse their right to protest and it hurts the fight that they are in and serves to divide our country further.

I'm like so many of you maybe,,, that just want this mess to leave and let us get back to normal,,, when maybe this is something that won't happen until we recognize the verses that come after that beautiful verse that everyone can almost spout from memory.

And I'm talking about verses 12-14 that say: 12 Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.”

This is the fix that we need for all of our problems!

We need to spend time on our knees in repentance.

This will take care of any virus,,, any hate that any of us have,,, and God can restore us,,, but my greatest prayer is that we are restored to a better people than what we have become!

I don't want to go back to our normal,,, I want better than that!

I want what verse 11 has promised,,, but hopefully we can figure out that,,, we as a nation need to obey verses 12 and 13.

And we do that by starting with each of us individually,,, doing what needs to be done as a church so that we can be a light for everyone else to see and learn from!

If we were doing the job that we should have been doing all along,,, this nation wouldn't be in the mess that it is in,,, so we must go back to the basics and fix the problem as it should have been fixed before.

Maybe once we start this part of the process,,, God will hear our cry,,, and heal this nation as we want it to be,,, as it must be,,, or before long,,, we won't be a free nation at all!