And I will give them an heart to know me, that I am the LORD: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto me with their whole heart.
I have come to view Jeremiah 24:1-7 as a snapshot of God’s eternal plan for Israel. He describes Judah before the Babylonian captivity as two baskets of fruit: one good and one bad.
Both baskets would go into captivity, but God would look after the good basket while they were there. He would favor them and, in His own time, return them to the Promised Land. At that time, they would have a heart to know the Lord, to be His people, and to have Him as their God.
We know that the basket of good fruit that went into Babylon would have almost all died off over the seventy years of captivity. It’s their children and grandchildren who, for the most part, return.
The basket, I think, represents God’s plan[1] well. The basket goes into captivity, and the basket returns from captivity. The fruit inside the basket changes through the captivity. It’s difficult for us, who view everything in this “me first” culture, to accept, but God deals with communities. He views us as groups, as assemblies. In our age, He views us in our church setting. We are parts of a whole, but we are not the whole by ourselves.
When God’s plan is finished, there will be a basket of good fruit that enters eternity. There will be another basket that goes into the eternal lake of fire. Our heart ought to want to be part of God’s good basket. We ought not want to be “Christian cowboys” out doing our own spiritual thing but to be members connected with God’s thing, which, in our day, is a local congregation of believers[2] united together to serve the Lord.
#GodsPlanForIsrael #BasketsOfFruit #ReturnFromCaptivity #CommunityInGodsPlan #EternityBoundBasket
Fruitful Faith: A Snapshot of God's Plan of Redemption
Thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.
For this and, more than 6200 earlier Daily Visits with God, visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2005.
If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.
For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.
My books, and other resources, are available at:
https://marvinmckenzie.org
Join me at Daily Visits with God Podcast
https://marvinmckenzie.substack.com/
Merch at my Teespring store https://macz.creator-spring.com/
Be a witness with hats, mugs, t-shirts, sweat shirts, and more
Let’s have coffee?
The link to Ko-fi is an opportunity to support this effort to reach a world of souls with the Word of God. I would appreciate any gift you can give.
Jeremiah 24:7 (KJV) Fruitful Faith
Thank you Pastor.. God bless you always
ReplyDelete