Jeremiah 17:5-10 (click to view Scripture below)
In these five short verses, Jeremiah contrasts two outcomes for our lives depending on how we live. A life of curses for those who put their trust in man and turn away from the Lord. But a life of blessing for those who put their trust in the Lord. If we rely on our human strength and turn our backs on our creator, we will have a life full of calamity living in a barren wasteland with no hope for the future. But, rather, if we put our lives, our dreams, our trust and hope in the Lord – then our lives will be blessed and ever producing fruit.
Over the years I have seen many of the families and students who live in the communities where ChildHope works go from living under the curse to living under an umbrella of blessing because they turned their lives over to the Lord and began to live according to the principles of the Kingdom of God. I have witnessed them move from extreme poverty to owning their own business simply because their focus changed from living according to their flesh to living for their creator and what he created them for.
What is your life focused on? Do you live to serve yourself thinking you don’t need the help of your Heavenly Father, or have you given everything, even the difficult things, over to God?
President/Executive Director, ChildHope
Prayer: Lord, today I put all of my hope and confidence in you. I trust you in every aspect of my life and realize that because you love me, you gave the gift of life so that I could live and walk in the blessings that you have provided.
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Jeremiah 17:5-10 (ESV)
Tenants
5 Thus says the Lord:
“Cursed is the man who trusts in man
and makes flesh his strength,
whose heart turns away from the Lord.
6 He is like a shrub in the desert,
and shall not see any good come.
He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness,
in an uninhabited salt land.
7 “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
whose trust is the Lord.
8 He is like a tree planted by water,
that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
for it does not cease to bear fruit.”
9 The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it?
10 “I the Lord search the heart
and test the mind,
to give every man according to his ways,
according to the fruit of his deeds.”
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Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®),
copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.
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