[Direct from my prayer journal this morning... i dunno, but it may be helpful to somebody. Peace and the prosperity of God to you, brothers and sisters.]
“For I know the plans that I am planning concerning you,” declares YHWH, “plans for prosperity and not for harm, to give you a future and a hope.” Jer 29:11
A very famous verse and one that prosperity gospel gets its name from. One often taken out of context by both those who love it and those who want to debunk it. No, it was not written about modern americans. But what Scripture is there that is not God breathed and useful for all teaching and instruction and admonition? What prophecy does not have both a near and a far meaning? It is important to note that the prosperity that You gave them was one or two generations growing up knowing nothing but life in Babylon. That three generations later, the grandchildren of the Jewish exiles will see Babylon destroyed by Cyrus. A traumatic event. And some will remain to serve the Persians. And some will return to the land, the land they did not know and find filled with foreigners, and rebuild in their poverty a nation hated by its neighbors. A land surrounded. Mason’s packing heat in case of attack. Hard work. It’s not that your gifts are not good, Lord, they are. It’s that we tend to misinterpret them. We seek comfort and ease, and you seek discipline and training us up into the image of Christ, who suffered greatly in order to serve others and obey you. Who was perfected through suffering. And that is still true today. Our prosperity is Christ. Christ in us. Christ for us. Christ over us. And you plan that for all your people.
