A Year with God

Selection Taken From:
A Year with God by R.P. Nettelhorst

Make this the year you let God's Word "dwell in you richly"---and marvel at the results! Each entry in this 365-day devotional features Scripture verses in which God speaks, accompanied by insights and applications to enhance your understanding. Learn what God says about hope and fear; perseverance and quitting; companionship and isolation; and more! 384 pages, softcover from Nelson, Copyright 2010.

You Don't Quit What You Love

You are saying about this city, "By the sword, famine and plague it will be handed over to the king of Babylon"; but this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: I will surely gather them from all the lands where I banish them in my furious anger and great wrath; I will bring them back to this place and let them live in safety. They will be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them singleness of heart and action, so that they will always fear me for their own good and the good of their children after them. I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them to fear me, so that they will never turn away from me. I will rejoice in doing them good and will assuredly plant them in this land with all my heart and soul.
This is what the LORD says: As I have brought all this great calamity on this people, so I will give them all the prosperity I have promised them. - Jeremiah 32:36-42 NIV

Who's your boss? Whom are you really working for? Israel's contract with God stipulated that they had to worship God exclusively and love their neighbors as themselves. But not long after the death of Moses, when they stood triumphant over the newly conquered promised land, Joshua found it necessary to ask them to choose whom they were going to serve—God or someone else. In the centuries that followed, God sent prophets who asked the same question Joshua had asked on the banks of the Jordan River: Whom will you serve? God sent them ever-escalating troubles for disobedience, just as the contract had stipulated.

The prophet Jeremiah's message was not only one of destruction, however. God also gave him messages of hope for the people of Judah. The judgment God was bringing by means of the Babylonians would solve his long-standing problem with his people. God could reassure them that everything would finally turn out for the best. They remained his people, and he had not torn up his contract with them. The reconciliation between God and his people would make the long struggle to achieve it worth the effort.

Most people quit the things they are doing as soon as they start to get uncomfortable. But some people find it easy to keep doing what they love, even if it's hard. God loved his people, so he kept working with them. You mean more to God than your problem.