October 30, 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:

Do we actually know what it means for God to say “with your whole heart“? We may know what it feels like to love deeply, love sincerely and even to love just enough. Do we truly know what means to love, or in the words given to Jeremiah for the sake of the exiles “seek,” with our whole heart? Perhaps it is helpful when we know that the mention of “the heart” of a person or of a people in scripture that it comes with a sense of the very soul of that person and those people. It is not just the organ in our chest which pumps blood throughout the body to keep it alive with the necessary nutrients and oxygen. It is not just that the flow of blood coursing through our arteries and veins provides the simple reminder to all it touches that the person is meant to be alive. (That also demonstrates the danger of clogged arteries which limit the flow. When blood can’t get to a place in the body, that part begins to wither and die. It dies from the inside out.) We are meant to be an “alive” people from the inside out. It is the priority which God purposed and intended. It is a truth which is expressed in the creation story. For the first five and a half days, God spoke over the elements that had once been in chaos and disorder. It was as if He breathed His holy breath upon each particle like we blow across a lit candle and see the flame bend away from us. Blow too hard and the flame is extinguished and the candle is “dark.” Blow too little and the flame barely moves as if nothing was happening at all. Blow just right and the flame is oxygenized and grows brighter and burns more hotly consuming the candle more quickly. God blew His holy breath across the whole of creation. He gathered the elements together. His breath, His ruach, gave life from the outside in.

On the last half of the sixth day, however, God changed what He did. He not only blew His breath over the heavens and the earth gathering elements together to form a man and a woman, but, as we read in Genesis chapter 2, He breathed into them. They became alive from the inside out. He gave to them what nothing else in creation had- a soul. (I know some will argue this point because they want to believe that other things have a soul. Perhaps it is true, and if I am wrong, I am.) This made humanity so much different from all of creation. It set them apart with a purpose and an identity that could not and cannot be duplicated. (Yes, cloning is only the gathering of materials to mimic the real thing but no one can duplicate the “breath of God.” Just because a thing exists does not mean it truly lives. As in the words of Paul, “It is not me who lives but Christ in me.” (Galatians 2.20) That “truly lives” aspect means “a soul.” When Ezekiel cries out “Remove this heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh,” it was his way of asking for God to revive his soul so that he might come alive again. The things of the world, the false pursuits of humanity, can so isolate the soul that it loses contact and becomes out of touch. It is encased in worldiness. It cannot die because it is not fed by the world. It is the “sole” providence of God and what makes us truly come alive. It is probably better to say “heart and soul” and in our mind see “the two as one.” Yes, it gives us an insight as to truth of our humanity where our greatest purpose and identity comes from the union of “two becoming as one.” I believe this is the power of the story of creation found in Genesis 2. There, the two as one become “two to be one.” There are so connected internally that though they are externally different the desire is to be as one again. True love happens when two people see themselves as one heart and soul. More can be said on this and should but not here. I hear the echo of Ephesians 4.4f, “one Lord, one faith, one birth. just as there is but one body and one Spirit which calls us to one hope.” The call of life is to be as one. This is the true reflection of the image in which we are made. It makes sense then when Jesus answered the disciples’ request “Show us the Father and that will be evidence enough” with “If you have seen Me then you have seen the Father and that is enough; the Father and I are one.” Jesus would go further to speak of this unified relationship by adding, “As the Father and I are one, so you and I are as one.” That would become true for the disciples on the day of Pentecost when the promised Holy Spirit would descend from Heaven and dwell on them and they would become like the flames of a candle. Their heart and His soul, His heart and their soul. In their loving and faithful obedience it would be impossible to tell the difference. They would become a type of incarnation of “the Word made flesh.” The true test of oneness and identity in Christ comes with the authenticity of their love for Him, others and one another. He said to them, “By this the world will know that you are My disciples if you love one another.” (John 13.35) He would raise the bar of that understanding of love with the teaching of His new commandment, “No greater love is there than this that one would lay down His life for another.” (John 15.13) This is what Jesus did. He gave His life, heart and soul, for the sake of our salvation. He did so by seeking to fulfill God’s will for us “with His whole heart.“

This is the kind of effort that God said would truly define the Jerusalem exiles as God’s people and not just the people of God. They had not given of themselves, nor those before them, in the full pursuit of “knowing” God. They dabbled. They were half-hearted. They were reserved in that they only gave a part of themselves. They were “hedging their bets” so that just in case there wasn’t a God they still had something to hold on to. That is not faith. Who of us has that kind of faith that we would be willing to “not count the cost” and simply lay down our lives for another so they would be saved? To give “our whole heart” meant and means the orientation of all that we are towards God. As in Colossians 3.17, “In all you say and do, by word and deed, bring glory to God.” We hear this from Proverbs 3.6, “In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.” He was saying to them and to us, “If you really want to see Me and know that I AM true, then really want to see me with everything you are. Give your entire self to the effort of seeking Me and loving Me and you will find and experience what it is that you truly want.” He wasn’t talking about the wants of this world but the want of the “heart and soul.” There is the longing for reunification of the “creature with the creator.” It is the longing we all feel inside that drives us day after day to be fulfilled. It can happen in no other way than to seek Him. I know that sounds like asking a lot but what we desire is eternity, so it is worth it, right?

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.