Month: April 2020

245. God will Answer

Jeremiah 33:3 Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.

This is a conditional promise: if you call on me, then I will answer you. God will not only answer but He will also do great and mighty things. The great and mighty things are His answers to your prayers. These are things that you do not even know. God answers in great ways, ways that are even better than you asked, and things that you couldn’t even imagine. God does things for you that you would not even ask or imagine. His ways are not your ways. 

I might call on the Lord for something that I think is good for me. But, thank God, He shows us things in answer to prayer that He thinks are good for me. When I submit to God and admit that He is God and I’m not, that He knows better than I, that His ways are greater than my puny imaginings. He knows what is best and what is ultimately for my good. For instance, one ultimate good is eternal life with God, and whatever answers He grants has my ultimate end in mind. I do not know God’s reason or purpose in mind, but I can know that He has reasons and a good purpose in mind. The challenge for me is to trust in God’s good heart and intention for me. I need to rest assured that He always shows good and right things for me. I must admit I am a mortal creature with limitations, and with sinful desires mixed in with holy desires. But the Lord has unlimited love for me, unbounded grace, amazing kindness, and perfect wisdom. I may call on Him and let Him answer the way and time He wants. What He wants is my good, especially my ultimate good. And this is according to His good and gracious will. 

I believe God is my God and I believe He is always good. Then I pray. I call unto the Lord, trusting in nothing and no one else, including myself. When I call, then He will answer. But I must call. I will call upon Him in every trouble, pray, praise, and give thanks. Prayer is turning to God first, not as a last resort; prayer is being aware of God’s presence, not ignoring or forgetting the Lord. He commands me to call; He promises to answer.

244. God Brings the Good He promises

Jeremiah 32:42 For thus saith the Lord; Like as I have brought all this great evil upon this people, so will I bring upon them all the good that I have promised them.

God is good. All the time, God is good. This refrain is a constant in our lives for all believers in the Gospel. God promises good and He promises to bring His people all the good He promises. God promises thousands of good things, and He promises to get those good promises to us in real life. This promise is so solid we can build our lives on it; the promises of God are the very foundations of life. In fact, life itself could not be lived without promises. A good life could not be lived without promises of good. The good news: because of Christ we enjoy the promises.

The good promises of God can be divided into the physical and spiritual, the visible and invisible, the material and immaterial, and the temporal and the eternal. In some limited sense, the physical, visible, material and temporal promises are prominent in the Old Testament. All the temporal promises flow into and come out in the eternal promises of the New Testament. The NT emphasizes the spiritual, invisible, immaterial and eternal promises of God. The Father grants them, the Son earns them, and the Holy Spirit applies them personally. Since the entire Bible points to and leads us to Jesus Christ on every page, every promise of God ends up in Him for all things, and all these things are spiritual.

“We look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal [2 Corinthians 4:18]” God may give temporal, physical and material blessings (the things we see as blessings, like health and wealth), but they are not unconditionally promised. These blessings are conditioned on keeping the Law of God. But when Jesus promises results from following Him He includes “persecutions” in the list of material promises. Physical life will not always be easy, comfortable and painless, but in the middle of suffering we have eternal things like peace, joy, hope, love, life and every spiritual blessing. These good things are guaranteed, no matter what temporal troubles we undergo. We can always know that God will bring all the good He promised.

243. Do Good and Plant

Jeremiah 32:41 Yea, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will plant them in this land assuredly with my whole heart and with my whole soul.

The Lord God rejoices over His people. He is happy to do them good. It is remarkable for us to believe that we make God happy. He rejoices over me! He is interested in me and in what happens to me. He is curious to see the decisions I make. He knows how my decisions will turn out, but He still wants to see my actions and reactions. It is not drudgery for God to take care of me and guide me in the right way. He delights in the hard work of taking care of me.

He does all this guiding, preserving, providing, and protecting me for my good. It pleases Him to work for my glorious benefit. He is happy when He can make me happy, similar to the feeling humans enjoy when they are able to make loved ones happy, like at Christmas. It is comforting for us to believe in and rest in the goodness of God working things out for my blessing and wellbeing. This kind of faith in His promise can keep me going through rough times: He is working out all things together for good, to them that love God and are called according to his purpose. Faith believes that only good comes from the hand of God. If something doesn’t feel good it may be a judgment leading me to repentance and greater faith in the Gospel. God blesses with good times for our good; and He uses bad times to turn them out for out good. God is always good. And enjoys doing good.

It is the Lord God who plants us in the land. The Land is the Promised Land, the Kingdom of God, the Paradise in the heart, or heaven on earth. In this spiritual kingdom the Lord will plant us securely and happily. And He does it with all His heart and soul. He is tirelessly and relentlessly working things out for our good. We must believe this even when apparent bad things happen. This promise will keep us going. We never forget that in all things God is working, and He is working things out for our good. It makes Him happy to do so. And He plants us securely in that Eternal Joy with unbounded love. And that love will never stop.

242. God will do us Good

Jeremiah 32:40 And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me.

God promises an eternal covenant, which was sealed for us by the blood of Jesus Christ. This covenant promise includes four promises: 1) the Lord will not turn away from us, 2) He will do us good, 3) He will put His fear in the heart, 4) we will not depart from Him.

The refrain, “they will be my people and I will be their God,” is an everlasting covenant that means He will not turn away from us and we will not depart from Him. The bond is tight, secure, and everlasting. We are in Him and He in us, and nothing will ever separate us ever again forever. No matter what else happens to us in our life we will always have the Lord with us and in us. The interesting promise, however, is this: “You will not leave Me.” How can God say this? Surely, we can leave Him and break the covenant if we want to. We have such a free will. We can reject. But the promise is sure, because we will not want to. The sealing and holding of the Holy Spirit is so strong that nothing can separate us from the love of God. Forever in eternity, we can depart, but we will never do so for we do not want to. KTrust the holding power of the Spirit within. He won’t let us go. He has ways of pulling us back when we start to ignore, stray, or even reject the Lord. Love is the binding power.

The Lord will put His fear in our hearts. Fear = Faith. We can’t solidly trust our own faith: we doubt; we waver; we slip. But this is His faith; He gives it; He seals it; He holds on fast for us. Good News: we are not left to our own faith, repentance, decision, efforts, or good works. We have His Fear. We will not leave Him, even though God allows us to absent ourselves from the Gospel, which we receive from the Bible and from the Church. The Gospel is the power to save, hold, keep, and secure us in Him. And it is everlasting.

Finally, God promises to be with us to do us good. A god is what we look to for our highest good. Only the one true God actually keeps this promise. He is good, and He does good. At certain times, like in a disaster, tragedy, pandemic, or other bad things, we are tempted to wonder if God is really good. During those times we need to receive personally this promise: He is with us to do us good.

241. Give One Heart to Fear

Jeremiah 32:39 And I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear me for ever, for the good of them and of their children after them.

The Lord promises us one heart and one way. This turns out to be Jesus. He is the one heart and the One Way. This one heart is for us the Holy Spirit, who is in the heart of the believer. Jesus and the Spirit is one and the same God, and both are one with the Father. God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is within us as one heart and one way. This indwelling is no more confusing than the very mystery of the Trinity itself. It is impossible to explain but very simple to understand and believe. Who lives in the heart? Which person of the Trinity? Well, yes, it is all three; it is God.

Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He sends the Spirit to the heart, as the One God who guides, teaches, leads and directs our life. The purpose and promise of this wonderful indwelling is “that we may fear God forever.” Fear is best defined and understood as believe. We believe God. We believe God when we hear and read the Gospel of Jesus Christ. John 20:31: “ These are written than you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” When we hear and read the Gospel the Sprit creates faith in the heart and the Spirit enters as the One God then we believe Him. When we believe we have life. This faith and life is forever.

And this faith is for our good, and for our children’s good. Generations after us will believe God for their good. We stake our hopes on this promise when we pray for succeeding generations to come. God gives one heart to believe Him and to use all His promises. This is for the good of us and of our children. Jesus is the one heart and the one way to God and to good and to life forever. The promise is real and present.

240. Cause to Dwell Safely

Jeremiah 31:37, 38 Behold, I will gather them out of all countries, whither I have driven them in mine anger, and in my fury, and in great wrath, and I will bring them again unto this place, and I will cause them to dwell safely. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.

The anger, fury and wrath of the Lord have driven the Jews into Exile in foreign countries. But He promises to bring them back into “this place.” And in this place they will dwell safely and they will be His people. This return from Exile has been fulfilled, and Jews dwelled safely in the Promised Land once again, although their return and settling again in the Land was an arduous process, and their dwelling safely in the old land of promise was not always in safety and security.

However, the full fulfillment of the promise is for us NT believers in Christ. We shall, according to God’s Promise, dwell safely in the spiritual land, the Kingdom of God. This Kingdom place is spiritually in the hearts of those who have received Jesus as the Promised Messiah; and there is an eternal Land of Paradise in which His people will dwell safely and enjoy securely forever without Sin and Death and Evil.

The beautiful part of the promise is that God says, “I will cause them….” Salvation is of the Lord; He has done the work and finished it, and guaranteed it to us in the resurrection of Christ. God Himself is the effective and final cause of salvation. The Father initiated it; the Son carried it out; the Spirit gives us faith to receive it. The kingdom is ours and we belong in it. So the Word asserts and the Spirit assures through the Gospel.

We can take hold of this promise of “dwelling safely” today, in fact, we need to apply the promise of “dwelling safely” in the Kingdom. Psalm 91: “Make the Most High your dwelling-place…and no plague (pestilence, pandemic, virus) shall come near your dwelling.” Spiritually, we dwell with the Lord in the heart by faith, and we are safe from spiritual attacks.

239. Remember Sin no more

Jeremiah 31:34 And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

This fantastic prophecy prophesies that everyone will know the Lord. “The knowledge of the Lord will cover the earth from sea to sea.” The Gospel has gone out into the whole world during the New Testament times. “You shall be witnesses to me…unto the ends of the earth.” “The Gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” It may be an exaggeration to that literally “all” shall know the Lord, but generally the prophecy has been fulfilled. But the fulfillment is still going on, for we still “preach the Gospel to all nations.”

The promise contained in this prophecy is that the Lord will forgive their sin and remember it no more. We can take this promise to heart in our daily lives. The Lord has done this for us: He has forgiven our sin and He remembers it no more. We need to be reminded of this promise because we remember our sins and the devil is trying to constantly remind us of our sin and guilt again and again. It is easy to remember sin because it remains a part of us all the time. Our own memory dredges up past already-forgiven sins and weighs us down.

But God does not remember. How can God not remember? He can do all things. Ah, but he chooses not to remember; He puts it behind Him and casts it away. This promise is literally true; it is not just a figure of speech. God does not remember, so why should we? We still need to hear the Gospel that reminds, we need to remember our Baptism, and we need to “do this in remembrance of Me.” Daily repentance does not dwell on our sins and failings, but repentance dwells on the forgiveness of sins through the Gospel. We need the Spirit to remember the right things, the things God has done for us, and we need to forget the wrong things, the things we have done. God promises the ability to remember that God is good and to forget that we are not. Thank God for this miracle.

238. Law in the heart

Jeremiah 31:33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the lord, I will put my law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts, and will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Another “new” part of the new covenant is that the law will be inward, in the heart. God promises a new covenant with the people of God. This will come about after the new covenant is established by the Messiah. “After those days” is after the Messiah has come and lived and died and rose again. It is the Messianic Age, the Days of the New Testament, the days in which we are living today.

In place of outward worship and ritual and sacrifice and the Law on tablets of stone, we have worship in spirit and truth, inward faith in the once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, and the motivation and working of the Holy Spirit in the inward parts to actually bring our lives more in accord with God’s Moral Law. The Holy Spirit lives in the believer creating faith, keeping him in the faith, and living the faith.

This promise of “law in the heart” makes all the difference. We do not obey the Law of God or live a moral outward life out of duty and fear and proper ritual; but we live a renewed, and better, life because we want to out of love for Him who loved us. The heart is changed by the One living there. He changes our desires, thoughts and motivations by the Gospel. The Gospel is the power of God that brings desires and lives in line with the Ten Commandments. The Law in the heart is exactly the same as the Law on tablets. The difference in the “new” covenant is that by the Gospel and the Spirit we have the power to actually keep it. Sanctification is a long and arduous process and all believers are some way along the path, but no one is finished yet. Meanwhile, we have this promise that the Law has been put in the inward parts and written in the heart. This is the power to live the right way, like I always knew I wanted to but could not. Hang on to the promise: “He that is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” If you believe in Jesus you have a new covenant; if you have the new covenant you have the Law in your inward parts; if you have the Law in the heart you have His Life which is the power.

237. New Covenant

Jeremiah 31:31 Behold, the days come, saith the Lord that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah.

The Lord will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and Judah. This is fulfilled in the New Testament, where God makes a new covenant with the people of God. “The House” is the Church, made up of all the believers in Jesus Christ. The people through sin and idolatry broke the old covenant made with God and His people through Moses. But God didn’t forget His love for people, so He will make a new covenant.

In the new covenant the Son of God keeps the people’s part of the covenant by complete obedience to the Law of God. By grace Jesus gives that perfect keeping to us who believe. By faith we are counted as righteous. On account of Christ God is obligated to keep His part of the covenant promise. Jesus is the “new” part of the new covenant. God is bound, but, of course, He wants to be bound anyway, for His love is unconditional. The blood of Christ, the “blood of the new covenant”, forever settles God’s obligations. God doesn’t need the binding obligation since He will keep His promises anyway, but we need to be assured that God the Lord will absolutely, for sure, beyond a doubt, do what He says. God binds Himself to the covenant promise so that we may be absolutely certain. He is our God; He does forgive sins; He does save; He does give eternal life.

When we have doubts and fears we may believe the Gospel again, and we may participate in the blood of the new covenant in Holy Communion. God wants to give the greatest assurance of heart and peace of mind possible, and this is the way He has chosen to do it: through Word and Sacrament.The promised new covenant gives the “blessed assurance” we need for every day. In the received new covenant we receive countless blessings and promises. Count on it. Live in it.

236. God will Watch to Build and Plant

Jeremiah 31:28 And it shall come to pass, that like as I have watched over them, to pluck up, and to break down, and to throw down, and to destroy, and to afflict; so will I watch over them, to build, and plant, saith the Lord.

God watches! He is everywhere and He knows everything. He sees all and knows all, and He is watching. This truth is both a threat and a promise. Watching is a threat in that the Lord sees the sin and rebellion and selfishness of people and His Justice makes certain that every sin will be punished accordingly. God’s Law is actually “Draconian.” The original Draco was a lawgiver in ancient Sparta. His laws were not unusual or severe, but his punishments were: every crime, small or large, was punishable by only one thing, Death. God is Draconian in that sense. He knows only one punishment for any sin: Death. And He is watching for any infraction in thought, word and deed. He says He watches with the result that He plucks up, breaks down, throws down, destroys, and afflicts. There is one penalty for every sin: He kills.

God has done this through the Babylonian Exile. He has seen the One Sin, idolatry, or having other gods besides Yahweh alone. Therefore, the punishment is Exile, which is death as a separation from His Kingdom. For us the same First Commandment, and all the Commandments, still apply. In Adam we all sinned, and death is the result.

But the Lord God still has a way: He sent His Son to bear the penalty of our sin upon Himself (He died on the cross.). Jesus took on Himself our deserved exile. Because of Jesus’s death and resurrection the other result of God’s watching over comes into effect: the promise that He will build and plant. Jesus has taken away and destroyed death, once and for all, In place of death He has given life. God’s life in us builds life and love and goodness. His life plants new growth and beauty and fruitfulness. And this is a result of God’s “watching over.” Because of Christ God is watching over us for good and for blessing. He knows His own; He knows who believes; He knows who repents; He knows the needs, hopes and prayers of His Redeemed. He will tenderly care for them and build and plant.