Captivity

Daily Reading: 1 Chronicles 3

And the sons of Jeconiah, the captive... (1 Chronicles 3.17)

Devotional Thought:  1 Chronicles 3, long lists of names and numbers, can be a bit tedious to read, but the long and painful history of the nation of Israel is shrouded in these lists.  We know from Old Testament history that this people suffered through war, famine, exile, and displacement, but also experienced the saving power of the Lord’s restoration.

One of the names mentioned here, and also mentioned in the Matthew 1 record of the genealogy of Christ, is Jeconiah.  We know little of this person other than what we read here:  he was a captive.  He had lost his rights of freedom, independence, and self-direction.  Yet God had a purpose for this man’s life that extended far past his captivity… through him would come the Messiah, long promised to Israel.

Perhaps some of us can relate to Jeconiah’s circumstances, what little we know of them.  The bonds of slavery are invisible but clearly felt in our lives as we battle addiction, materialism, greed, and selfishness.  Or maybe we are fighting despair and hopelessness as we fight to swim upstream against a culture that is increasingly at odds with what the Bible teaches us about morality.  As long as we are living in this broken world and in our broken humanity, we can expect to feel this way to some extent  The Apostle Paul wrote, "Creation waits with eager longing ... [to] be set free from its bondage to corruption" (Romans 8.19, 21).  Jesus even tells us we should expect it!  “In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart!  I have overcome the world” (John 16.33). 

In spite of our captivity, we can have peace in Him.  The Lord will continue to work His purposes, for the glory of His Kingdom.

Jenny

Prayer:  Lord, we know to expect trouble in this world, yet it still hurts when we face trials and tribulation.  Help us to set our gaze on Your Kingdom, and seek You above all else.

Psalm of the Day: 31.8-13

8 and you have not delivered me into the hand of the enemy; you have set my feet in a broad place.

9 Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am in distress; my eye is wasted from grief; my soul and my body also.

10 For my life is spent with sorrow, and my years with sighing; my strength fails because of my iniquity, and my bones waste away.

11 Because of all my adversaries I have become a reproach, especially to my neighbors, and an object of dread to my acquaintances; those who see me in the street flee from me.

12 I have been forgotten like one who is dead; I have become like a broken vessel.

13 For I hear the whispering of many-- terror on every side!-- as they scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life.