Jeremiah 31:16 This is what the Lord says:
“Restrain your voice from weeping
and your eyes from tears,
for your work will be rewarded,”
declares the Lord.
“They will return from the land of the enemy.”

Verse 15 is famous because it is quoted by Matthew in relation to the killing by Herod of all the boy babies in Bethlehem, (Matthew 2:18) but we see here in context that it was spoken in relation to the Jews being carried off into exile. The thing is, the Bible speaks many times about our work being rewarded. The two passages that jump out at me are, “You know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free,” (Ephesians 6:8) and, “So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.” (Hebrews 10:35) We can’t “work our way into heaven,” but that doesn’t mean our work is meaningless. To emphasize, this isn’t the same as salvation. Paul spoke to this very clearly to the Corinthians: “If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.” (1 Corinthians 3:14-15) We sometimes have trouble balancing it all out in our minds. How much is it our faithfulness? How much is it God’s grace? To be honest, I don’t think we will know the answer to that completely until we stand before God’s throne, but I don’t think we need to be anxious about it. As it says in Hebrews, we will be richly rewarded! The point is to remember that in the middle of all the trials we encounter, because as Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble.” (John 16:33, emphasis added)

This feels very “up close and personal” right now. We will shortly be celebrating 40 years since the founding of this church, and our attendance has shown wide swings throughout that time. Sometimes it really does feel like we are building sand castles, and the waves keep crashing in. When we celebrated our 25th anniversary, within a couple of months many in our congregation had left! The devil is working overtime to tell us the same sort of thing is going to happen now, but he’s no match for the Holy Spirit who is in us. God’s plans are going to be fulfilled! Our former members are scattered literally around the world at this point. Those who left for work reasons we generally have good communication with, courtesy of the Internet, but the ones who left disgruntled are often much closer by. God hasn’t forgotten them, either! We don’t know when or how God will draw those people back to Himself, or whether that will involve us, but we can safely leave it in His hands. What we are to do is recognize the task at hand and do it with our whole heart, as unto the Lord, (Colossians 3:23) knowing that we will be rewarded in His time.

Father, thank You for this reminder. It’s important! Thank You for being able to meet up with our missionary friends yesterday, and for the huge encouragement that was. They too are facing “terminal issues,” and they have gone through very similar things as we have. I pray Your encouragement for them and for all of Your faithful servants in this nation in particular, that we may never lose hope, but rejoice to trust You who alone are totally faithful. Thank You. Hallelujah!