Some of the Most Popular Verses in the Bible Day 8
“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11).
The line between consequences and anger is often blurred. It’s easy for the person who messed up to misinterpret a consequence as someone acting out of anger. It’s also tempting for the person who was wronged to embellish the consequences in their anger. In our passage today, God had warned the people of Israel repeatedly about the dangers of disobedience. However, they didn’t listen, and the time had come for them to reap the consequences of their actions.
God uses the prophet Jeremiah to tell them that because of their disobedience there would come a time when the Babylonians would take them captive for 70 years. In being captured by a rival nation, it might have been easy to think that God had given up on them — that God was so angry at them for their disobedience that He had written them off and they were no longer His people because they had been taken into captivity.
God most certainly had not given up on His people. God would use this time in captivity to bring about repentance in His chosen people and to lead to a renewed focus on Him. As a nugget of solace in a difficult time, God gives Jeremiah these words in Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” God knew this would be a difficult time for his people but He wanted to remind them that His ultimate plan was not to destroy His people — it was not to give up on His people. His plan was to give them a future and a hope.
This verse is among one of the most quoted passages in the Bible. However, we need to pause when using it because it was not intended for us. This was a specific promise made to a specific set of people at a specific time in history. God was telling the people of Israel that He would not abandon them in their captivity and that He had a plan to use this situation for their good and His glory. With that in mind, we can and should be encouraged by this verse because it gives us a glimpse of God’s character.
What can we take from this passage that can apply to us?
God Will Never Give Up on You
Romans 8:31 – 39 tells us that even though we may be persecuted for our faith in God, these hardships do not mean that they have “separated us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.” While this is true, what about the times when we face difficulties not related to persecution? Romans 8:32 says, “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” God has already given us the greatest gift, the gift of His Son. This is meant to encourage believers that persecution doesn’t mean that God has abandoned them. I don’t think it’s a stretch to take these verses to mean that when we are enduring hardships, God has also not given up on us, because God has already given us the gift of His Son and we are now part of His family. Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.
God Will Work All Things for Good
Earlier in Romans 8, Paul gives us the verse we looked at yesterday: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” For the believer, everything works out for their good and God’s glory. That was on display in Jeremiah. In Ezra 3, we see the people coming back to Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the temple. Ezra 3:12 says, “But many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers’ houses, old men who had seen the first house, wept with a loud voice when they saw the foundation of this house being laid, though many shouted aloud for joy.” The men who had seen the first temple began to weep because they recognized God’s faithfulness in the midst of their disobedience. Even though they turned their back on God, He did not turn his back on them.
While Jeremiah 29:11 is not a direct promise to us, it should remind us that God will never give up on us no matter the situation or the sin, and regardless of what you are going through, God has a plan to work this for your good and His glory.
Adam Deering