Good Morning Everyone,
Our theme for this month: “Trust”
Our Bible verse for today: “In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, the word of the Lord spoken through Jeremiah was fulfilled. The Lord put it into the mind of King Cyrus to issue a proclamation throughout his entire kingdom and to put it into writing …” Ezra 1:1 (HCSB)
Our thought for today: “God is always at work behind the scenes.”
At the time of the opening chapters of the book of Ezra the nation of Israel had been in captivity for 70 years. However God had previously promised, through the words of the prophet Jeremiah and recorded in Jeremiah 29:10-14, that at the end of the 70 years He would deliver His people from their captivity and allow them to return home to Jerusalem. Now that was about to happen.
Interestingly, God used a pagan king to accomplish His purposes for His people. It was King Cyrus who felt led to begin the process of sending the Jews home and he was the one who put it into motion. As it turned out, during all those years of misery and deprivation while they were in captivity, God had been quietly working behind the scenes to orchestrate His next round of blessings for His people. And He used one of the most unlikely sources of all to accomplish it, a pagan king.
The fact is that God is always at work behind the scenes, working to accomplish His purposes for His people. And like a master chess player, he strategically moves pieces and orchestrates strategies, sometimes over very long periods of time and using unlikely people and situations, to ultimately bring about His purposes.
It’s true on a large scale in terms of nations and churches, but it’s true in individual lives too. It’s true in your life too. Don’t ever doubt that God is at work behind the scenes patiently moving the pieces and setting things up to accomplish His intended purposes for you. Even if current circumstances are difficult and confusing, (as was true for the Jews in the years preceding the book of Ezra), God is there nonetheless and He is at work on your behalf.
If you doubt that, or if you simply need to be reassured, there are multiple stories in the Bible you could refer to where you will see God at work in that way in the lives of other people. Joseph in the book of Genesis would be a good one to look at. The book of Job shows us another powerful example of that truth. As does the story of Esther, not to mention what we read about in Ezra and Nehemiah. Those stories are in the Bible as examples for us of how God works in the lives of His people.
Think of Him as the Cosmic Chess Player if you will, but don’t doubt that He is patiently at work behind the scenes in your current life situations working to bring about His desired purposes in and through and for you.
God Bless,
Pastor Jim
Oak Hill Baptist Church 