SETTLE or SHIFT, Judah(Israel) were being bombarded by differing prophecies in exile in Babylon. Jeremiah 29 (& 28)
God had warned Israel from their earliest days that they would be removed from their land if they disobeyed Him and finally God sent Nebuchadnezzar to take them away.
‘Thank You Lord that I or we know the plans You have for us, plans of good and not of evil, plans of prosperity and not of calamity/harm, to give us a hope and a future’. Jeremiah 29:11 Modified KJV
Jeremiah, the true prophet of God, sent these words of encouragement to his banished people. God’s reassurance of His love and care for the remnant of His people, even after they’d been sent far away. This is a favourite scripture and valuable for us today to declare over our own lives, to continually affirm God’s love for us. God HAS A FUTURE HOPE FOR US and just like Judah, He is able to bring that future to pass. There is benefit in Declaring God’s Word over our lives until it becomes ingrained in our thinking. God’s Word is a Living Word and the more of it we write on our hearts(Proverbs 2:1-8) and confess it over our own lives, the more we’ll know His blessings.
God’s word through Jeremiah told Judah to make their lives where He’d brought them;
4 This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 ‘BUILD houses and SETTLE down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. 7 Also, SEEK THE ‘PEACE AND PROSPERITY’ of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.’ (Religious people don’t think God should prosper or bless the godless but He will for the sake of His people!) Jeremiah 29
Judah wouldn’t serve the Lord (worship Him in Jerusalem) so He brought them into Babylon, (represents pride and idolatry). Sometimes God has to break us right out of the place we’ve lived our lives to get us unto His plans again. But there were voices speaking against the leading of God’s Spirit through Jeremiah. God didn’t want His people in Babylon, but He had to break the idolatry in Jerusalem.
In Jeremiah 28:16 the death of Hananiah was prophesied that year, because he ‘preached rebellion against the Lord’. Similarly in Jeremiah 29:22,23 God said He would put to death those who said they were speaking God’s words, but weren’t and also in the last verse of the chapter, verse 32. The enemy continued to try and draw the people out of God’s will by false religious proclamations, but God removed them. He had to completely eradicate the rebellion from the remnant of His people.
We are living in more uncertain times and in society moving further away from God. Like the exiles we need to keep speaking God’s plans and His Hope and Future over our lives. Jeremiah 29:11 see above
God bless and keep you today.