February 2, 2015

Keeping our hearts focused on our true home...

Baruch 2:29-35 (LXX)

"If you do not obey My voice, truly this very great multitude of people will become a small number amidst all the nations where I shall scatter them. For I knew they would not obey Me, because they are a stiff-necked people. But in the land of their exile their hearts will turn back, and they will know that I am the Lord their God, and I will give them a heart and ears that obey; and they will praise Me in the land of their exile and will remember My name. They will turn from their stubbornness and their evil deeds; for they shall remember the way of their fathers, who sinned against the Lord. And I shall bring them again to the land I swore to their fathers—to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—and they will rule over it, and I will multiply their numbers, and they will not be diminished. And I shall establish an everlasting covenant with them to be their God, and they will be My people; I shall never again remove My people Israel from the land I give to them."

Encouraging Words...

We can read this passage looking back as a story of the exile of the Jewish nation...or we can read it looking forward as a promise, a prophecy of what is going to happen to the Church, the Bride of Christ. We live today in exile in a foreign land. We yearn to be with our Lord in His eternal kingdom, the one truly promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And we are reminded here what we must do to prepare ourselves to make it to this kingdom and to bring as many of our neighbors with us as possible. We must stop living our lives in exile as if this is that best that their is and keep our hearts and minds focused on our true home. Glory be to God!