October 29, 2025

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“‘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)

TODAY’S REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

I just read the following: There is no longer the need to get people to believe the lies; only that they no longer believe in the truth. That was the model of corruption which Satan used in the Garden. His words to Eve, with Adam listening from the bushes, invoked this pattern of defeat saying, “God didn’t mean you would really die, did He?” Inviting the possibility of an optional reality, the battle became one between opposing truths. Satan proposed an alternate reality. He never had to tell a lie. He only had to present the consideration that there was a truth equal to the one that had originally been issued. Humankind has been battling for all the alternative realities in an effort to deny the inevitable truth. The day will come when the only truth, not the only truth that matters, will be acknowledged by everyone. Paul wrote to the believers in Philippi, “On that day when Christ returns every knee shall bow and every tongue will confess that He is Lord of all.” (Philippians 2.11) Every other “truth” will become insignificant. The lies that the enemy proposed and those which were created under his influence by people who desired “anything but God as the creator of life,” will become like vapor and disappear. Those who propped themselves up with those “truths” will collapse. They will essentially become spineless because what they had built up as reality will be seen for what it is- a lie.

As God spoke to the Jerusalem exiles in Babylon via the word given to and delivered by Jeremiah, this reality was laid out as the ultimate truth. Those in leadership of the Temple and of Israel, who were in Babylon, had attempted to create that “alternative reality.” They had decided what God’s plans were for Israel. They had redefined God’s will so that they people would believe “their” truth more than God’s truth. They presented themselves as, using the words Jesus offered to His disciples to describe Himself, “the way, the truth and the life” by which the blessings of God could be accessed. They knew God better. They knew the right interpretation of God’s Word for the sake of righteousness. They knew what God meant when He said “I will be your God and you will be My people.” They made themselves the sole source of truth and by doing so they compromised the truth with what amounted to “a lie.” Yet, it was God’s final word, not the last word because He still had more to say, when He declared, “For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” In truth, it could only be God who knows the plans for every life. There could be only one just as it says in His first of ten commandments, “I AM the Lord your God and you shall have no other gods before Me.” Even Satan has no hold on that information. So what is left for him, as it is for all others who say they know but don’t, is to create an alternate reality based upon themselves as the sole source of information. They put themselves as the center of that “alternative universe” they want people to believe in more than they would be in God’s universe. Sadly, many people want to be in that alternative because it fosters the idea of “whatever goes” as the defining truth. It is a truth which proposes life without consequences. It will deny consequences when they happen as the fault of others who will not live in the truth of their alternative. Everyone spends so much time being the “god” of their truth that they become blinded to the only truth that will matter. And it is the “only truth.”

The benefit of God knowing is that God is committed to sharing. He desires our health and wellness not for a day or a month or a year but forever. He leaves it to us to decide if we will allow that truth to become our own. He leaves it for us to trust in Him who has put His trust in us. It comes with the Holy Spirit whom He has entrusted to us. The Holy Spirit shows us “the way, the truth and the life” so we can recognize it and follow it all the days of our lives. And when we put our truth in that, having faith in the One who has faith in us, then we will find that God has not only heard our prayers but has been listening the whole time. And listening, as I have practiced in teaching the concept, is hearing with the intent of providing a mutually beneficial response. When we focus on God, then the answers become clear that there is a truth meant for us and no other. What it takes is recognizing it and aligning ourselves to it. Makes sense, right? It is hard to “listen” when our focus is on something else that we are choosing to listen to simultaneously. We can truly only listen to one thing at a time. It seems that paying attention to God in all things, whether in word or deed, will reveal the greatest blessing of truth we could possibly imagine.

TODAY’S PRAYER IN RESPONSE TO GOD’S WORD:

Father, in these days we are finding the need to believe even more than ever before. We all have known trouble, some in greater ways than others, but You are offering us the assurance that we will not be consumed by it forever. Regardless of the “time” we are in and the “time” we have been given, we ask for Your Holy Spirit which Jesus asked You to share with us, to lead and guide and direct us in the paths we should go. Teach us what we still need to learn. Empower us to put that learning into action. Bless our actions not as a works righteousness but as righteous works of faith, hope and love in Jesus’ name. AMEN.