We hope this week's devotional will encourage you in your spiritual walk. You are welcome to share this and include it in your church newsletters if you wish; we just ask that you please give credit to NTC and the author. Thank you!
Scripture: Jeremiah 31:31-34
31 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. 33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbour and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
Devotional Thought:
From exile we recall the words of your prophet.
He was right.
We had cried out in panic, terror, no peace.
We had been in labour-like pain with ashen faces.
Now, our wound is incurable, and our guilt is great.
We are scattered and forgotten.
We are languishing, weeping, and mourning.
We are ashamed, dismayed, distained, disgraced, weary, and faint.
But your prophet spoke too of a day—
a day after the discipline;
a day when we would be satisfied, replenished, remembered, and shown mercy;
a day of comfort and gladness;
a day of being rescued, gathered, healed, restored, rebuilt, and honoured.
But as good as it sounds—to those living in exile—
to have our iniquity forgiven and our sin remembered no more,
we want more.
We cannot keep repeating this vacillating cycle, this roller coaster ride.
You say there is more … a new thing (31:22) … a new partnership (31:31-33).
We need your NEW … to make us new.
PRAYER:
We are helpless to transform ourselves.
And so, we cry out to you, who from the beginning created order from the chaos.
Would you take our individual and collective disorder and exchange it for your NEW.
Amen
Linda Stargel,
Academic Dean