Dan. 1:1
"In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it."
Dr. Ralph Winter has observed that throughout history when the people of God have failed to share the gospel with the peoples around them, He has often brought the peoples to the gospel-sometimes even with great force. Israel's idolatry and selfish failure to take the good news to their neighbors led to the siege of Jerusalem. Today's church has failed to take the gospel to all the peoples of the world, and so God has brought the peoples to the church's shores, most often not as military conquerors but as refugees, students, and businessmen. Are we willing to share with them our spiritual and material abundance?
pray: Father, help us to respond to wonderful opportunities for ministry to "newcomers" in our own communities.
Jer. 45:4, 5
"...'I will overthrow what I have built and uproot what I have planted... Should you then seek great things for yourself? Seek them not.'"
God's Word, when delegated to His people, powerfully influences the rise and fall of nations and kingdoms of the earth. God intends to "overthrow" and "uproot" as well as to "build" and "plant." Therefore, He admonishes us, as He did Jeremiah's scribe Baruch, to abandon a selfish ambition which is not only futile but is also irrelevant. It is nothing less than tragic when we chase personal aspirations to the ignorance or neglect of the clearly-revealed purposes of God. In light of what God is doing and wants to do among the nations, can we possibly justify seeking great things for ourselves? "Seek them not."
pray: Father, we yield to You our aspirations, our ambitions, and our dreams. Do with them as You will.
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