October 17, the blessing!
I will rejoice in doing them good.
Jeremiah 32:41
Blessings from God’s perspective! Have you even considered this?
The prophet Jeremiah led God’s people to entertain this wonderful thought, that God enjoys blessing His own. Any parent can understand this. Perhaps, grandparents all the more. God desires to bless His children.
This powerful attestation references in part the restoration of Judah and the rebuilding of Jerusalem, as God promised to plant them securely:
“I will rejoice in doing them good and will assuredly plant them in this land with all my heart and soul.”(Jeremiah 32:41)
Sin had been the reason for God’s judgement. Sin, and nothing else, always stands as the ruin of humankind. But, this time of failure in the lives of God’s people also represented the purpose of God’s grace and restoration. God’s own had been brought to despair, but He gave hope and mercy for their lives hereafter. The fuller picture of this restoration offers such an amazing demonstration of God’s grace (Jeremiah 32:36-41):
36 “Now therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning this city of which you say, ‘It is given into the hand of the king of Babylon by sword, by famine, and by pestilence’: 37 Behold, I will gather them from all the countries to which I drove them in my anger and my wrath and in great indignation. I will bring them back to this place, and I will make them dwell in safety. 38 And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. 39 I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for their own good and the good of their children after them. 40 I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me.”
Thus, the resounding conclusion from God to His own: “I will rejoice in doing them good.”
This grand announcement of promise came from within the historical setting of Jerusalem’s besiege by Nebuchadnezzar (the year was 589 B. C., the tenth year of Zedekiah, Jeremiah 32:1). And, most dating does not reveal the first wave of exiles returning until 536 B.C. But, in the midst of this devastation, God’s promise arose that He would one day restore His people. And, their rescue from Babylon would be but a forestate of the ultimate grace and mercy to be expected by Israel through Jesus Christ. In Jeremiah 33:15, God announced,
“In those days and at that time I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line;
He will do what is just and right in the land.”
This branch represents the branch of the Lord, our Savior Jesus Christ. Therefore, God’s goodness is both promised and fulfilled in Jesus.
Now, see this from God’s perspective. God’s desire and joy was also His greatest gift and ultimate cost: the sacrifice of His Son. Realize, then, that as you “survey the wondrous cross,” you witness the full demonstration of God’s joy to bring His ultimate goodness to you personally. Therefore, God “made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that we could become the righteousness of God through Jesus.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)
God initiated. God reached down into our brokenness. He first loved us. And in the overwhelming flow of His grace, His covenant from of old pointed to His new covenant in Jesus, and today His love eternally announces that He delights in doing good to you.
So today, I simply remind you that if your faith is in Jesus, you have received God’s ultimate goodness. You, child of God, are blessed more than you could ever imagine. “If He did not withhold His own Son from you, how will He not also, along with Him, freely give you all things” (Romans 8:32).
Live blessed today! For this is who you are.
Blessings.
