I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. (2)

Take courage, God is looking for you.

Jeremiah 29: 14   I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.”

1.  We heard last Wednesday that God has a plan for our circumstances and our lives. We know his purpose:  “My plans are to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you hope and a future”. (verse 11)

2. How will these plans start to happen? What must take place before we see the Lord’s plans for our new future begin. 

It starts with a faith that accepts God’s promise that we will be able to find him again. He will make sure of that! It starts with a firm trust that even though we experience a sense of being lost within the challenges we have and the feeling we have of being stuck at a dangerous and scary place, our Lord will make it possible for us to find him, and his purpose for us, again. (verse 14)

3. Two key words explain to us what it means to be enabled to find God again:  To be “gathered” and to be “brought back”. 

4. We will be gathered by the Lord.  It means to be brought together to form a group, a family of believers, again. To joyfully and with excitement join the followers of God, once again. To see the gradual growth, the increasing mass, of God’s children gaining the influence and power to change their world and that I may be part of it, again!

5. For this purpose we are “brought back”.  Back from the captivity of fear, of uncertainty and of being without a vision and excitement for the future. Not to be in spiritual exile anymore and to “come home” to Jesus and his other followers to find rest in him.   

6. Our Lord remains the Good Shepherd.  Even when 99 others are safely in the fold, he goes to gather and to bring back the one who is out in the cold. 

Are you the one the Lord wants to bring back in order to accomplish his plan for your life? When Jesus makes it possible for you to find him – run back to him and his church family today!