Post by Deleted on Dec 28, 2020 17:37:44 GMT -5
Rebuilding the Ruins By: Amy Boucher Pye
Click on this link for audio message
Then this city will bring me renown, joy, praise and honor.
Jeremiah 33:9
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Jeremiah 33:6–11
At seventeen, Dowayne had to leave his family’s home in Manenberg, a part of Cape Town, South Africa, because of his stealing and addiction to heroin. He didn’t go far, building a shack of corrugated metal in his mother’s backyard, which soon became known as the Casino, a place to use drugs. When he was nineteen, however, Dowayne came to saving faith in Jesus. His journey off drugs was long and exhausting, but he got clean with God’s help and with the support of friends who are believers in Jesus. And ten years after Dowayne built the Casino, he and others turned the hut into a house church. What was once a dark and foreboding place now is a place of worship and prayer.
The leaders of this church look to Jeremiah 33 for how God can bring healing and restoration to people and places, as He’s done with Dowayne and the former Casino. The prophet Jeremiah spoke to God’s people in captivity, saying that although the city would not be spared, yet God would heal His people and would “rebuild them,” cleansing them from their sin (Jeremiah 33:7–8). Then the city would bring Him joy, renown, and honor (v. 9).
When we’re tempted to despair over the sin that brings heartbreak and brokenness, let’s continue to pray that God will bring healing and hope, even as He’s done in a backyard in Manenberg.
Reflect & Pray
How have you seen God bring restoration in your own life and in the lives of others? How can you pray for His healing this day?
God, thank You for sparking new life in what appeared to be dead. Continue to work in me, that I might share Your saving love with others.
SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
Jeremiah spoke the words in Jeremiah 33:6-11 while Jerusalem was under siege from Nebuchadnezzar’s army. Yet he himself was a prisoner of King Zedekiah at the time. Displeased with Jeremiah’s persistent message of judgment against Judah, the king had the prophet placed in confinement (see 32:2-5). Imagine being a prisoner inside a starving city surrounded by a hostile army. That was Jeremiah’s personal situation. Yet God continued to speak through His prophet. Chapter 33 begins, “While Jeremiah was still confined in the courtyard of the guard, the word of the Lord came to him a second time” (v. 1). The message again was bleak. The city’s desperate measures to save itself would fail. But verse 6 signals a change. God would bring a future deliverance.
Visit Our Daily Bread University: Old Testament, Jeremiah to gain an overview of the book of Jeremiah. Tim Gustafson
Jeremiah 33:6-11
New International Version
6 “‘Nevertheless, I will bring health and healing to it; I will heal my people and will let them enjoy abundant peace and security. 7 I will bring Judah and Israel back from captivity and will rebuild them as they were before. 8 I will cleanse them from all the sin they have committed against me and will forgive all their sins of rebellion against me. 9 Then this city will bring me renown, joy, praise and honor before all nations on earth that hear of all the good things I do for it; and they will be in awe and will tremble at the abundant prosperity and peace I provide for it.’
10 “This is what the Lord says: ‘You say about this place, “It is a desolate waste, without people or animals.” Yet in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem that are deserted, inhabited by neither people nor animals, there will be heard once more 11 the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of bride and bridegroom, and the voices of those who bring thank offerings to the house of the Lord, saying,
“Give thanks to the Lord Almighty,
for the Lord is good;
his love endures forever.”
For I will restore the fortunes of the land as they were before,’ says the Lord.
Click on this link for audio message
Then this city will bring me renown, joy, praise and honor.
Jeremiah 33:9
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Jeremiah 33:6–11
At seventeen, Dowayne had to leave his family’s home in Manenberg, a part of Cape Town, South Africa, because of his stealing and addiction to heroin. He didn’t go far, building a shack of corrugated metal in his mother’s backyard, which soon became known as the Casino, a place to use drugs. When he was nineteen, however, Dowayne came to saving faith in Jesus. His journey off drugs was long and exhausting, but he got clean with God’s help and with the support of friends who are believers in Jesus. And ten years after Dowayne built the Casino, he and others turned the hut into a house church. What was once a dark and foreboding place now is a place of worship and prayer.
The leaders of this church look to Jeremiah 33 for how God can bring healing and restoration to people and places, as He’s done with Dowayne and the former Casino. The prophet Jeremiah spoke to God’s people in captivity, saying that although the city would not be spared, yet God would heal His people and would “rebuild them,” cleansing them from their sin (Jeremiah 33:7–8). Then the city would bring Him joy, renown, and honor (v. 9).
When we’re tempted to despair over the sin that brings heartbreak and brokenness, let’s continue to pray that God will bring healing and hope, even as He’s done in a backyard in Manenberg.
Reflect & Pray
How have you seen God bring restoration in your own life and in the lives of others? How can you pray for His healing this day?
God, thank You for sparking new life in what appeared to be dead. Continue to work in me, that I might share Your saving love with others.
SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
Jeremiah spoke the words in Jeremiah 33:6-11 while Jerusalem was under siege from Nebuchadnezzar’s army. Yet he himself was a prisoner of King Zedekiah at the time. Displeased with Jeremiah’s persistent message of judgment against Judah, the king had the prophet placed in confinement (see 32:2-5). Imagine being a prisoner inside a starving city surrounded by a hostile army. That was Jeremiah’s personal situation. Yet God continued to speak through His prophet. Chapter 33 begins, “While Jeremiah was still confined in the courtyard of the guard, the word of the Lord came to him a second time” (v. 1). The message again was bleak. The city’s desperate measures to save itself would fail. But verse 6 signals a change. God would bring a future deliverance.
Visit Our Daily Bread University: Old Testament, Jeremiah to gain an overview of the book of Jeremiah. Tim Gustafson
Jeremiah 33:6-11
New International Version
6 “‘Nevertheless, I will bring health and healing to it; I will heal my people and will let them enjoy abundant peace and security. 7 I will bring Judah and Israel back from captivity and will rebuild them as they were before. 8 I will cleanse them from all the sin they have committed against me and will forgive all their sins of rebellion against me. 9 Then this city will bring me renown, joy, praise and honor before all nations on earth that hear of all the good things I do for it; and they will be in awe and will tremble at the abundant prosperity and peace I provide for it.’
10 “This is what the Lord says: ‘You say about this place, “It is a desolate waste, without people or animals.” Yet in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem that are deserted, inhabited by neither people nor animals, there will be heard once more 11 the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of bride and bridegroom, and the voices of those who bring thank offerings to the house of the Lord, saying,
“Give thanks to the Lord Almighty,
for the Lord is good;
his love endures forever.”
For I will restore the fortunes of the land as they were before,’ says the Lord.