Great and Mighty Things

I suppose at some point in our lives we would all like to see “Great and mighty things.” This is something that Yahweh promised to Jeremiah.

3  ‘Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’ Jeremiah 33:3 (NKJV)

At first glance this can seem like a promise we can just reach out and claim. However, context is always important. In this case Jeremiah would never see the ‘great and mighty things’ referenced in this verse. It was about the return of a remnant of the nation of Israel to rebuild Jerusalem, after 70 years of captivity in Babylon.

This brings us to something we rarely reference in the Western church. Jeremiah, like most OT prophets, was living for something beyond himself. The tagline I have on my blog and in my home email signature is, “An Eternal Perspective: Living in Time, Preparing for Eternity.” Easy to say, not always so easy to do. Living this way requires regularly stepping back and gaining perspective. Am I willing to invest my life in people and things when I may never see the fruit of them this side of the grave? Yahweh was inviting Jeremiah to stand in the gap and intercede for things he would never see. Doing this requires faith.

This past spring I was in Europe. I remembered hiking up a hillside by the Danube to an old cathedral. Interestingly I think the cathedral could have held the entire population of the town. The main doors were about 10 metres high and the huge pillars about 30 metres high. As impressive as it was the most impressive building I saw was the ornately carved parliament building in Budapest. What is notable about these buildings is that the stone masons who began the work would never see the culmination of their efforts, perhaps their grandchildren would. In the same manner, Jeremiah would never see what he was to intercede for and I think the Holy Spirit regularly invites us to pray into or invest our lives in things that have significance far beyond ourselves. Are we responding and investing in our own ‘great and mighty things?’

 

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Randy

I have been walking with Jesus since 1985. I am currently retired from my career in the helping professions but still focused on ministering to others. I completed a Doctorate of Philosophy in Apologetics in September 2020.

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