Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem
The week's current events, the week's holy days (Christian and Jewish), today's reading, and even my own personal devotional reading all lined up in a way that simply could NOT be a "coincidence".
1. The Fire at Notre Dame in Paris: This event has been on a lot of people's minds. Lots of diverse groups have offered money to rebuild this 850-year-old church. The UN, The Russians, the French Government, and many private individuals. Some, though, have offered opinions that it should be rebuilt as a "work of art and architectural heritage" and not so much as a house of worship. One wonders about motives, and, after reading today's Scripture Passage, where God tells David that he was NOT going to be the one who builds the Temple, perhaps we should ask, "What does GOD want?"
2. "I have plans for you..." My personal devotional reading JUST HAPPENED to land on Jeremiah 29 this morning. The context is the tragic burning of Solomon's Temple, and the people exiled to Babylon. The "professional" prophets were all clamoring to resist the deportation, and fight to the death. Meanwhile, the true Prophet of God, Jeremiah, had a different vision. He addresses the people with a letter:
4 Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all who were carried away captive, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon:
5 Build houses and dwell in them; plant gardens and eat their fruit. 6 Take wives and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, so that they may bear sons and daughters—that you may be increased there, and not diminished. 7 And seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray to the Lord for it; for in its peace you will have peace. 8 For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are in your midst deceive you, nor listen to your dreams which you cause to be dreamed. 9 For they prophesy falsely to you in My name; I have not sent them, says the Lord.
10 For thus says the Lord: After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place. 11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. 13 And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back from your captivity; I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you to the place from which I cause you to be carried away captive.
15 Because you have said, “The Lord has raised up prophets for us in Babylon”— 16 therefore thus says the Lord concerning the king who sits on the throne of David, concerning all the people who dwell in this city, and concerning your brethren who have not gone out with you into captivity— 17 thus says the Lord of hosts: Behold, I will send on them the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, and will make them like rotten figs that cannot be eaten, they are so bad. 18 And I will pursue them with the sword, with famine, and with pestilence; and I will deliver them to trouble among all the kingdoms of the earth—to be a curse, an astonishment, a hissing, and a reproach among all the nations where I have driven them, 19 because they have not heeded My words, says the Lord, which I sent to them by My servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them; neither would you heed, says the Lord. 20 Therefore hear the word of the Lord, all you of the captivity, whom I have sent from Jerusalem to Babylon...
A LOT of people quote the 11th verse out of context, and while it is true that God "has plans for you", few people want to admit that Jeremiah was telling the people to ALLOW themselves to be deported! The verse that really hit home to me was this:
." 7 And seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray to the Lord for it; for in its peace you will have peace." This is similar to the philosophy of America's early (legal) immigrants. When they found out that the streets of New York City were NOT paved with gold, they gathered at "settlement houses", learned English, worked by day and studied by night, and became part of the rich cultural and economic fabric of America. To quote JFK: "A Rising Tide Lifts ALL the Boats."
3. Good Friday and Passover: On the first day of what we now call "Holy Week", Jesus prophesies the Destruction of the Second Temple that would be occurring in 70AD. However, on Good Friday afternoon, when Jesus gave up His Spirit and died on the Cross, there was an earthquake and darkness. At that moment, the heavy veil which separated the People from The Holy of Holies in the Temple was torn from the top down. Now, some may argue that a lot of weird things happen in an earthquakes, and the strange artifacts that occur are displayed in museums of geology. But the symbolism of the torn curtain is not easily dismissed.
Now, Good Friday and Passover do not always line up because of the difference in calendars, but this year they do. So to our beloved little "congregation" here on FR, I wish you all a Blessed Good Friday, a Happy Passover, and a Glorious Easter!
Come and Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem, For Our FRiends in Need, For Persecuted Believers, and For Our Beloved Nation.
28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28 NIV)
God Bless America!
Blessings To All Who Visit This Garden of Prayer.
This Symbol Represents Christians in The Middle East, who desperately need our Prayers.
Hallelujah and Amen
ML/LTOS