Our Faithful GodSampel

New Life

We see examples of God’s ability to bring new life through­out Scripture, even in places where it might seem unlikely.

In the book of Ezra, God’s people have been in exile in Babylon for seventy long years, the result of their choice to mock God and turn from Him. Yet the Lord loves them! It is the desire of His heart to bring His people back to Himself, for those who “go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them” (Psalm 126:6).

Years before Ezra was written, both Isaiah and Jeremiah (see Isaiah 44–45 and Jeremiah 29) prophesied that God would indeed rescue His people—and He did, by soften­ing the heart of an unlikely, unbelieving King Cyrus.

God will have mercy on His people. God will accomplish His purposes.

From the moment God breathes the world into being in Gene­sis through the repeated rescuing of His people in the Old Testa­ment, from the birth of His only Son sent as a human baby, to the promise of the Holy Spirit as Jesus is taken up to heaven, God re­mains faithful to fulfill His promises and is merciful to use all things for His pleasure, for His people, for the glory of His name.

This is our God. Always coming near, bringing light, growing shoots out of the black of the earth, breathing life into dry bones, making a way in the wilderness and streams in the des­ert, and ultimately raising life out of the death of the tomb. He takes our little and He makes it much. He takes our not-good and makes it His very-good.

As we look through His Word, as we look back over our own lives, and as we look to the promises He has made us for a future with Him, both here and in eternity, we can trust that He will res­urrect all our dark, dead, and dry places so they bear fruit that draws us to Himself and brings Him glory and praise.

In His mercy, He is using all things to grow us to new life.

Consider the places in your life that feel dead and dry (from yesterday’s devotion). What would it look like to surrender those things to God today, trusting that He will make something out of nothing, as He did throughout Scripture?