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Good morning my ‘Walking with Jesus’ friends on this special Friday.
All across America and many places around the world today, cards and notes, candy and flowers and many different expressions of love will be given in hopes of encouraging people with a special touch of love, on this Valentine’s Day 2025. Once again, I’m amazed at God’s perfect timing as the Holy Spirit leads us on a journey through the Scriptures.
2600 years ago, a great many people needed a word of encouragement. As we’ve seen in the past several days, three prophets were speaking God’s messages of truth simultaneously. Daniel spoke God’s truth to King Nebuchadnezzar and other rulers in the great Babylonian empire while Ezekiel spoke God’s messages to thousands of fellow Jewish captives in Babylon. Jeremiah was still back in Jerusalem as God’s spokesman to the last kings of the small remaining portion of the once great nation of Israel, living in and around Jerusalem.
While most of the messages Ezekiel and Jeremiah received from God were warnings of approaching judgment, about the same time as Ezekiel was proclaiming the message we looked at yesterday found in Ezekiel 8, Jeremiah was receiving a very different message from God which he recorded in Jeremiah 29. May I show you how it fits with Valentine’s Day?
The Spirit of God led Jeremiah to write this particular message of God as a letter to be sent to the thousands of Jewish captives living in exile with Ezekiel in Babylon. Naturally they were deeply distressed, far away from their Jerusalem home, living as captives and probably presuming they would die in captivity. Jeremiah’s letter begins: “This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: ‘Build houses, settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there in Babylon, do not decrease!” (Jeremiah 29:4-6)
It sounds like a Valentine’s Day love message, doesn’t it? In brief God was saying “make the best of a bad situation”! Do you see that God Himself declares that HE had ‘carried them into exile’? Their captivity was God’s doing through King Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian army!!
While the Jewish captives understood they were living the well-deserved judgment of God upon them for their many decades of rebellious wickedness and turning away from God, Jeremiah’s message assured them that God still loved His people very much. Even in their captivity, in exile in Babylon, God wanted His people to live in the blessing of God. But how is that possible, we ask?
Now pause and ponder that for a moment. We naturally assume the blessing of God means peace and prosperity, good times and plenty of everything we want, isn’t that right? But my friends, much of the world then and now live in desperate times. Hundreds of millions of Christians who love God very much live under the reign of ruthless and corrupt governments or in fear of drug cartels or merciless criminals ravaging their countries without restraint.
Millions of God-loving people live in countries where drought has turned fertile fields into deserts and starvation is all around them. Millions of others live with great devastation from hurricanes or typhoons, earthquakes or floods. How is it possible God asks people in such terrible situations to find God’s contentment in tragedy?
Both as a boy and an adult I had the privilege of living in one of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere for many years, and there I found people living in extreme poverty, under a brutal dictatorship, yet able to sing God’s praises and thank God for His majesty, His Love, their salvation in Jesus Christ and their certainty of eternity in heaven with Jesus when they die.
Jeremiah’s message was clear. The Jewish captives in Babylon should NOT expect to be rescued or delivered, but rather should settle down there in captivity, with a strong sense that God had not abandoned them, but God had actually accompanied them there to Babylon and He wanted them to live in God given contentment even in their deserved captivity! Pause and ponder that my friends! God wanted them to marry and build families and teach their children about their great heritage as God’s people and how God loves His people even as He disciplines them or pours out judgment in justice upon their rebellion.
I wonder if that rings a bell in your mind about something the apostle Paul wrote about 700 years later from a Roman prison: “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want…” (Philippians 4:12) So what is that secret to contentment, my friends? Have you and I learned it?
On this Valentine’s Day, may I give you three keys which I have found to living in this God given contentment regardless of circumstances?
1. Confident that Almighty, Holy God is SOVEREIGN over all things, at all times, in all places thus NOTHING happens in my life which is outside of God’s Sovereignty over my life. I TRUST God’s sovereignty to be HOLY. (Eph. 1:11,12)
2. Confident that NOTHING can separate me from God’s LOVE for me that flows to me unceasingly through Jesus Christ my Savior and the Holy Spirit alive within me. (Romans 8:32-39)
3. Confident that God is working His developing, refining work in me and His purpose is that I become the best possible version of me and be a blessing to as many people as my life can touch! (Phil. 1:6)
May I suggest the best example of Valentine’s Day is the cross upon which Jesus Christ died to pay the sin price for you and me so we could live delivered from our sin bondage and sin condemnation? That’s why John wrote these words: “This is LOVE: not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” (1 John 4:10)
I urge us to spend some time in worship today, pouring out our love to God the Father for His outrageous love and Jesus Christ for His love filled sacrifice! And I urge you to write down the keys you have found for CONTENTMENT in all situations! Here’s a worship song to help us celebrate true Valentine’s Day.
Today’s Scripture: Jeremiah 29:4-7.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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