Daily Devotional

The God of Israel allowed His people to be taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon because of their sin. God was punishing His people. He was getting their attention. He wanted their focus on Him, not idols. And in captivity I’m sure God’s people were discouraged. I’m sure they were without hope. I’m sure they felt there was no way they could ever be in a right relationship with God again. It’s over.

But the prophet Jeremiah says that God will not abandon them forever. After 70 years He will fulfill His promise (Jer.29:10) and bring them back to their homeland. The plans He has for those in exile are good plans (Jer.29:11), “plans for prosperity and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”

Even after falling into the sin of idol worship; even after God exiles them to Babylon; God is still faithful to His promises. It’s as if God is saying, “While living in Babylon you will get the message. You will realize that I’m serious when I say, ‘You shall have no other gods before Me’.” And you will humble yourselves before Me.

(Jeremiah 29:12-13) “Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.”

As followers of Christ, we still sin. We are not sinners saved by grace; we are saints who sin occasionally. We are not defined by our sin; we are defined by what Christ has done for us by imputing His perfect righteousness to us, making us saints. As the Apostle Paul says (Rom.7:19) “For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want.” Discipleship can sometimes be thought of as ‘three steps forward and one step back’. Why? Because when we are walking with Christ, we continue to take steps forward as we grow to become more like Him. But when we slip back into some well-known sin and do the very evil we do not want to do, we take a step back.

So, sin is still very much a part of our lives as Christians. And when we sin, it’s easy to get discouraged, feeling a sense of hopelessness, like God will kick us out of His forever family. But nothing could be further from the truth. The Apostle Paul says in Romans 8:38-39 “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

So, you can seek Him with all your heart, humbling yourself before Him, and He will listen to you. The evil one will try to convince you that you’ve sinned one-too-many times and therefore there’s no more forgiveness for you. And that’s not true. Don’t listen to him. Instead, seek God, searching for Him with all your heart, and you will find Him. Confess your sin (expressing your sorrow to God and asking for His forgiveness) and repent of your sin (turn from that sin and stop doing it). When we do that, God hears us and forgives us. Seek God.