We Need Restoration
It is hard to deny the fact that you and I live in a world that desperately needs to be restored. Just look at your media feed, or recall the sad things that have happened in your lifetime. The apostle Paul writes that we live in a world that is groaning, waiting for redemption (Rom. 8:22–23). You groan when you’re in pain; you groan when you’re tired; you groan when you’re disappointed; you groan when things around you seem irreparably broken. Such is the state of the world in which we live. The violence around us takes your breath away. The moral degradation of the culture seems to go on unabated. The witness of the church often seems compromised. Marriages break apart, and parents throw up their hands in frustration at their children. Entertainment media have ceased to be a safe place of escape. Even the physical world around us groans. The world today is not as God created it, and it does not function as God intended.
Paul David Tripp offers 30 selected readings for Easter, adapted from his book Everyday Gospel, with questions to help readers reflect on and celebrate how the resurrection of Jesus Christ radically changes life today.
We sometimes cry out, “God, are you there? Do you see what is happening? Do you hear our cries for help? Have you abandoned what you have made?” We feel weak and powerless, unable to bring about the massive change that is needed. And so we pray and hope. But prayer is not a final act of desperation by people who don’t know what else to do. The Bible is punctuated with promises of restoration. These promises should remind you that God hasn’t abandoned his creation. They have been recorded and preserved so that you would know that your prayers are not in vain. They assure you that restoration is written into God’s unshakable redemptive plan.
We find such a promise in Jeremiah 50. It comes at a time when it looks as though things couldn’t get any worse for the children of God. It is a shining light of hope in the darkest of times, sent by a God of love to comfort his children down through the ages:
Israel is a hunted sheep driven away by lions. First the king of Assyria devoured him, and now at last Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has gnawed his bones. Therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I am bringing punishment on the king of Babylon and his land, as I punished the king of Assyria. I will restore Israel to his pasture, and he shall feed on Carmel and in Bashan, and his desire shall be satisfied on the hills of Ephraim and in Gilead. In those days and in that time, declares the Lord, iniquity shall be sought in Israel, and there shall be none, and sin in Judah, and none shall be found, for I will pardon those whom I leave as a remnant. (Jer. 50:17–20)
God will crush evil and restore and purify his people. Evil will not win. Renewal is on the way. There’s reason for hope.
This article is adapted from Everyday Gospel Easter Devotional by Paul David Tripp.
