I will give them hearts that recognize me as the LORD. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me wholeheartedly. — Jeremiah 24:7
Declaration: Lord, thank you for giving our pre-believers hearts that recognize You as the Lord. We declare that they will be Your people and You will be their God, for they shall return and turn to You with their whole heart. In the Mighty name of Jesus, amen!
Please read and pray into this. And more importantly pray this declaration above over your pre-believer as often as you feel led. I am committed to praying it over our community daily.
How God Revealed His Word for Us
Ask me and I will tell you remarkable secrets you do not know about things to come. — Jeremiah 33:3
SUMites, as we prepared for our 2016 Prayer & Fasting, I began asking God for specific words and/or impressions from Him for my family. As I listened for His heart I heard a very clear word and realized this was not just for me. I believe God gave me a corporate word for us all for 2016.
That word is SALVATION.
And the accompanying Scripture is Jeremiah 24:7:
I will give them hearts that recognize me as the LORD. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me wholeheartedly. — Jeremiah 24:7
Praying for Figs
As I prayed for understanding and wisdom as to what this word means for us, Holy Spirit kept taking me to Jeremiah, a very challenging book to read in the Bible. But thankfully His intentions became clear as I came to chapter 24:
After Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had taken into exile from Jerusalem Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, together with the officials of Judah, the craftsmen, and the metal workers, and had brought them to Babylon, the Lord showed me this vision: behold, two baskets of figs placed before the temple of the Lord.
One basket had very good figs, like first-ripe figs, but the other basket had very bad figs, so bad that they could not be eaten.
And the Lord said to me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?” I said, “Figs, the good figs very good, and the bad figs very bad, so bad that they cannot be eaten.”
Then the word of the Lord came to me:
“Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Like these good figs, so I will regard as good the exiles from Judah, whom I have sent away from this place to the land of the Chaldeans.
I will set my eyes on them for good, and I will bring them back to this land. I will build them up, and not tear them down; I will plant them, and not pluck them up.
I will give them a heart to know that I am the Lord, and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart. — Jeremiah 24:1-7
Holy Spirit impressed upon me that our pre-believers are like those good figs and then He showed me how we are to pray for them in connection to our word, salvation. I believe that this year's most important mission for us each is to "plump" our pre-believers up with our love, the love of Jesus.
My friends, let's determine to walk in faith that God's will and purpose for our pre-believers will be done.
Lord Jesus, set Your eyes on our pre-believers for good. Bring them to the land of faith. Build them up and plant them with deep roots. Give them a heart to know You are the Lord. Fill us with Your love in great abundance so that we can pour that love into our pre-believers so they will be plump figs for Your harvest.
Lord, we declare that __________ will be Your people and You will be his God, for they shall return and turn to You with their whole heart. In the Mighty name of Jesus, amen!
Praying for Peace and Prosperity
During the week, Holy Spirit had revealed more of Abba's heart for us through Scriptures in Jeremiah. More specific than I anticipated so I asked Him to please confirm that I was hearing Him correctly.
Sunday morning I went to church and the pastor of my church was speaking on the EXACT same Scriptures and message that Holy Spirit had shown me for our community. My friends, I can only imagine what I looked like as I sat there with my eyes bugging out and my mouth hanging open.
Simply put, God's message for us is Jeremiah 29:11, a verse we know very well. But He showed me what He asking us to do as we wait for the salvation of our pre-believers.
“Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” — Jeremiah 29:5-7
The Lord was instructing the Israelites through Jeremiah to thrive and prosper in the place they were in. Let me clear that Holy Spirit isn't saying that we have been exiled in our marriages. And also let me clarify too that if you read Jeremiah in its entirety you will see that God instructed them to do this in order that they may live and not die. His plan most likely made little sense to them from a human perspective—to go into exile as captives to another country, yet God's plan was for them to grow, thrive and prosper.
Our circumstances do not often reveal the plans and purposes of God, but they will reveal His presence at work if we seek Him and seek to obey what He is asking us to do in that moment or place in our timeline.
"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." — Jeremiah 29:11-13
My dear SUM family, God spoke this to my heart: "Steward well what I have given you."
Lord, we come before you in great humility, recommitting our marriages to You. We stand as Your faithful SUMites ready to steward well our marriages and our families as You are calling us to do. We trust you, Lord, to provide all that we need to do this and to inspire us with great knowledge and wisdom to love our pre-believers with the love of Jesus. Today we declare as a community that our marriages will be places of peace and prosperity for the glory of Jesus Christ. In His amazing name and love we pray, amen!
The Promise of His Covenant
The rest of Abba's message for us is in Jeremiah 33. I am sharing here only the key verses so read the entire chapter if you can and seek God to bring this promise into your heart and home.
Then this city (our homes) will bring me joy, glory, and honor before all the nations of the earth! The people of the world will see all the good I do for my people, and they will tremble with awe at the peace and prosperity I provide for them. — Jeremiah 33:9
The joyful voices of bridegrooms and brides will be heard again, along with the joyous songs of people bringing thanksgiving offerings to the Lord. They will sing, ‘Give thanks to the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, for the Lord is good. His faithful love endures forever!’ For I will restore the prosperity of this land to what it was in the past, says the Lord. — Jeremiah 33:11
And this will be its name: ‘The Lord Is Our Righteousness.’ (Yahweh Tsidqenu) —Jeremiah 33:16
(Prophetic reference to 2 Cor. 5:21: We are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus)“This is what the Lord says: If you can break my covenant with the day and the night so that one does not follow the other, only then will my covenant with my servant David be broken. Only then will he no longer have a descendant to reign on his throne. The same is true for my covenant with the Levitical priests who minister before me." — Jeremiah 33:20-21
(The covenant with David was the prophetic word and promise of Jesus coming.)
My friends, as I read this part, Holy Spirit whispered John 3:16 to my heart. We know this verse well...
“For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him. — John 3:16-17
And this is God's reassurance that He will do what He has said. My friends, I hear God speaking this to us right now, that He is faithful and nothing will stop or hinder the promise He has given us.
But this is what the Lord says: I would no more reject my people than I would change my laws that govern night and day, earth and sky. I will never abandon the descendants of Jacob or David, my servant, or change the plan that David’s descendants will rule the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Instead, I will restore them to their land and have mercy on them.” — Jeremiah 33:25-26
SUMites, this is a powerful promise. Jesus is the final covenant. For two weeks now 2 Peter 3:9 has shown up over and over again. Our God has not been slow to answer our prayers for our pre-believers. He's just been setting things up for the right time so the revelation of His covenant (Jesus) to our pre-believers would be so full that they would turn to Him with their entire hearts (wholehearted!), just as He said in Jeremiah 24:7.
I will give them hearts that recognize me as the Lord. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me wholeheartedly. — Jeremiah 24:7
I know without a doubt that our God is at to work in our marriages and that 2016 will be a year of salvation and the beginning of a great harvest in our community. I have walked this path of the mismatched for 20 years and have prayed as faithfully as I could each prayer that Abba has given me to pray over my hubby. And now I am beginning to see the harvest of the seeds I have planted. Even others are noticing this shift.
SUMites, lets not give up when we are on the verge of such a stunning breakthrough. Abba is asking us to seek the peace and prosperity of our marriages in a whole new way. And the key ingredient to this is love. To love with the heart and passion of Jesus Christ flowing through us. That is what I have witnessed most powerfully in my marriage, and I am now convinced it is foundational to thriving and planting seeds in our marriages. To transformation and salvation!
My dear friends, I love you so much. I am looking forward to walking, waiting and thriving in 2016 with you! I believe with my whole heart that time is now, SUMites. It's our harvest time! Hallelujah and Praise Jesus! Amen!