Day 21 (Monday): Jeremiah 29:4-7
Today’s Passage
Read the passage – Jeremiah 29:4-7
These verses were written to the Jews in exile in Babylon, exhorting them to pray for a city which had defeated Israel in battle and now held them in tyranny. When we consider our city, we may at times think negatively of some of its aspects such as unfriendliness, crime or pollution. What can we pray for the welfare of our city?
Questions to Consider
- What can we pray for the welfare of our city?
Prayer
- Lord may this course deeply touch the hearts of all who attend Mission 25.
- Pray for the well-being of our city. Pray for families that God would be strengthening the relationships and that there would be less conflict within them. Pray for our suburbs to be safe and not to have the same measure of crime.
Go Deeper
J. Andrew Dearman, Jeremiah and Lamentations, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2002), 265–266.
To pray or not to pray? If that is the question for Christians, then the book of Jeremiah offers some surprising answers. On occasion Jeremiah is enjoined by the Lord not to pray for his people because they are intransigent and for the moment irredeemable (7:16; 11:14; 14:11). This somber communication is not, of course, for Jeremiah’s private consumption; instead, this word of the Lord becomes part of his public proclamation, designed to shock and to evoke change. The people’s time is up, and the consequences of failure will be severe. But what about the enemy? Surely God’s people should pray for the defeat of their enemies, shouldn’t they? Otherwise, they themselves will be overtaken. “Not so this time,” says Jeremiah about Babylon.
There are some surprising things to be learned from and experienced through prayer. Such is the rich testimony of Scripture and saints alike. As a general rule, communities and individuals who do not regularly pray indicate by this that they do not have an adequate theology. The command for Jeremiah not to pray is thus a special case and comes as a radical illustration of the spiritual deadness of the people. Fervent prayer means confidence in God and an openness to his surprising leading. Prayer is a form of applied theology. The issue here is not belief in God, but communion with God through prayer. The devil and his assistants do not pray to God, but they believe in his existence.
Prayer is not for the benefit of God, although both praise and petition belong in a relationship with God. Prayer changes both the perceptions of those who pray and their actions. Surely this is the case in ancient Babylon. As Judeans pray for the welfare of the city, God’s people will learn that no one is only an enemy. In the case of Babylon, their doom is sure to come, but in a radical way God has bound the fortunes of his people with their enemy. There is something profound at work in such circumstances. What comes with clarity in the gospel is already adumbrated in the Old Testament. Through prayer one can look at opponents or problems as more than someone or something to be overcome. They can become also a means of education and sanctification, the agents through whom one finds growth in relationship with God.
Praying for peace. “Their peace is your peace.” Certainly, the tremendous changes in relations between East and West—the end of the so-called “cold war”—is an illustration of this truth. The fall of the Iron Curtain and the dissolution of the Soviet empire in the last few years has brought home to millions in the East and West that the “other” is not necessarily an enemy. Subsequently it has become clear that in the prosperity of the one lies the prosperity of the other. For Christians in both East and West this truth hits home with particular force. As former enemies now seek a better coexistence, Christians on both sides can see that God has done more than instruct them about an enemy—there is now a foundation for a new community of faith. Praying for the “other” has changed those who pray as surely as it has affected the “other.”
How many tensions would be alleviated, how many problems set on the road to solution, if Christians would pray for the welfare of their opponents? Prayer for an opponent does not forbid action that may keep each other in relational tension. It does not guarantee a solution. But since prayer is applied theology, it will change one’s attitude toward opponents.
Prayer is the bedrock of confidence in God. It was in Jeremiah’s day, and it remains a key to seeking God with all one’s heart. God’s promises are freely given, but not all of them can be freely accepted—that is, they have little relevancy to an indifferent people. For those in dire straits, it should come as good news that God knows the future and is committed to the redemption of his people. “Seek and you will find” (Matt. 7:7) is the Lord’s gracious command, not “resign and do nothing.”
