investing in Jesus

The Word for today:
Jeremiah 32, 33

mark this: Jeremiah 32: 8b-9 --
I knew that this was the word of the LORD; so I bought the field at Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel and weighed out for him seventeen shekels of silver.

Today we hear the story about Jeremiah, the real estate investor!

Many people thought that Jeremiah did a foolish thing when he agreed to buy the land. After the fall of Jerusalem and the exile of many people, the value of the land would drop to almost nothing.

How crazy was it for Jeremiah to buy a field where and when he did? It was insane, except for one thing--God told him to do it:
I knew that this was the word of the LORD; so I bought the field at Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel and weighed out for him seventeen shekels of silver.

Jeremiah explained the reason for his purchase: he was making an investment in a future that God had promised. Someday exiled survivors of the destruction of Judah would return, and worthless land would again become productive and valuable. Jeremiah had already predicted that the exile would last for seventy years (25:11-12; 29:10), so his purchase was a declaration of faith in the LORD's plan for restoring his people.

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I want to speak directly to a few of you out there--maybe just one--who have given everything you have as an investment of faith in Jesus Christ.

You've given your money to back the program and plans of Jesus Christ. You gave 'til it hurt.

You've given your time. So soon the hours turned into years, the years into decades.

You brought your whole heart to the battle. And you'd do it all again, though few notice or care.

I'm looking you straight in the eye now and with all that I can summon, I'm saying thank you. Somehow, in a way that only the Spirit can sort out, you were the one whose testimony saved me. You are the one whose dollar the Spirit will use to save my kids.

I'm under duress right now. The hours are long and the ideas aren't instantly forthcoming. I question what and how and why I'm doing this and that and the other.

But I don't question Jesus, and I don't question you. He called you the light of the world, sharing his very own title with you (1). May I echo his commendation: You are the light of the world.

Every year my daughters give me a verse-a-day calendar for Christmas. Though they have grown up and live far away and I seldom see them, every morning I think of them when time is new again.

This morning the verse was this:
Therefore...stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:58)

I'm dedicating that verse to you prayer warriors and care warriors; you dear warriors who've fought, who've fought to win.

I am here to testify that you are more than victors. You are the body of Christ, the only Jesus I have ever seen.

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(1) Matthew 5:14; John 8:12