Rise Daily: April 20

Rise Daily: April 20

THIS WEEK’S THEME & PASSAGE

Serving the City – Jeremiah 29:1-14

This week’s sermon from the series “Where We are Going: The City and the Mission“

THIS WEEK’S MEMORY VERSE

Memorizing scripture is a way to keep God’s word close to our hearts. Each week we will select one verse of scripture to remember as a community.

Jeremiah 29:7

But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

THE WORD

Each day’s devotion will focus on one part of the week’s passage.

Jeremiah 29:7 (same as this week’s memory verse)

But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

MEDITATION ON THE WORD

In our busyness and distraction, it is easy to skim through our reading rather than taking it in. Yet we believe this is the inspired word of God. Take a moment to pause, thank God for the scriptures and ask him to speak to you through them today.

In yesterday’s meditation we considered that God’s discipline of his wayward people was not all misery, but also a blessing. They were blessed even while held captive in far off Babylon—with crops, with children, and with homes.

But God’s reasons for exiling his people didn’t stop at restoring relationship with them. Certainly he blessed them, but he also intended them to be a blessing to those into whose land they had been carried: to give themselves in service for the welfare of the Babylonian people would bring about a Babylon in which they themselves would prosper.

Was the Babylonian exile a punishment? Of course it was. But it was the kind of punishment that is a corrective measure—the same way a loving father disciplines in order to spare his children from greater disaster. As we saw earlier in the week, the people of Judah were self-destructing. By his perfect balance of discipline and blessing, God was drawing his people back to himself and training them to do the things they were meant to do in their own land: to love him and to love their neighbors as themselves.

We need to remember, however, that exile is not always a punishment but a very common experience in a broken world. It’s easy to feel lost and out of place sometimes. But we have ample reason to believe that God goes through our exiles with us (Isaiah 43:2) in the same way he was present with his people in Babylon. Wherever we find ourselves, the call remains the same: to love the God who promises to never leave us or forsake us (Deuteronomy 31:8), and to love our neighbors with the same love we long for ourselves.

THIS WEEK’S RISE REFLECTION

How are you being called to be part of this vision of reaching a tipping point of gospel renewal in our city? How is God calling you to use your gifts and resources to bring growth and flourishing to the city? Our hope is that this would be a spiritual process before it’s ever a financial calculation. So as you reflect, pray that God might work through you and others as we pursue this vision—knowing it will stretch us in our faith as we make our commitments. We know that this vision and its financial goal is something that only God can make possible. But we trust a God who is able to do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine.

TODAY’S PRAYER

For your Heart: Pray to know deeply in your mind, body and soul that he is with you at your side. Pray that you would experience his presence and his love continuously today.

For your Church: Pray that God would help our church serve each other in truth and in love without abandoning each other. Pray that God would build up a deep commitment to community for the sake of serving the other.

For our City: Pray for many in our city that have been abandoned by society, family, friends and institutions: pray that God would lead you to step into those lives and demonstrate his great love that never forsakes.