“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”
-Jeremiah 29:11–13
This is a promise clearly from God to His people in Jeremiah 29:11–13 that says, “I’m going to bring you back to me, for those who turn from sin and trust in me, I will restore you. I desire your good, and I have plans for your welfare, not for evil. I want you to have a future and a hope with me, calling upon me, praying to me, being heard by me.
God has plans for your welfare. This plan is for you to follow Christ, seeking first the kingdom of God.
You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” So we see this clear promise and that context in the book of Jeremiah, and then we think about the new testament and one, how Jesus makes this possible, how Jesus makes it possible for us to have a future and a hope through paying the price for our sins.
There’s only one way to know God, to come to God, to be heard by God, to seek after and find God, and that is through Jesus, through trusting in Jesus, through following Jesus. And as followers of Jesus, what do we do? Think His words in Matthew 6:33, “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. Seek me.” In a way we’ve seen in the Old Testament, in the Psalms, Psalm 27, “You have said, ‘Seek my face.’ Your face. Oh Lord, I will seek.”
This is possible through Jesus. So we pray right now. And I just want to encourage you to pray with me. God, we seek you. We praise you for the reality that right now we are being heard by you. Oh, just let that soak in. God, we praise you. That you, the God of the universe, the creator of all, ruling and reigning over the whole world right now, you are listening to me, to us as we pray. We come to you, and you hear us.
Jeremiah 29:11–13 Teaches Us To Seek God With All Our Hearts
We pray to you, and you hear us. We seek you, and we find you when we seek you with all of our hearts. So, God, help us. Help us to seek you with all of our hearts. God, we want to know you more. We want to love you more. We want to obey you more, to honor you more, to glorify you more.
God, may this be the constant cry of our hearts. We know, God, that you desire our good, good for us, our welfare, not evil, future and hope for us, and we praise you for that reality. Oh, God, we shudder to think of what it would be like if you were not a good God, if you did not desire our welfare, if you desired our evil, if you didn’t want to give us a future and a hope. How horrible would that be? Oh, God, we praise you for the future and hope you have promised us that is available to us in Christ.
We have security, and we rest in. And so God, we seek you. We seek you right now. Help us to seek you all day long. Help our attention, our affection to be just constantly fixed on you. May this be the Christian life we experience, a life of seeking and finding you as we’re seeking you with all our hearts and experiencing your good plans for our lives in the process, the future, and the hope that we have in this world. Oh, God, we seek you, our hope. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.
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David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
