Daily Affirmations - Day 5 - The True Vine - Broken Cisterns
Day 5: Broken cisterns
“My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken Me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water” (Jeremiah 2:13).
Heavenly Father, God of amazing plan, purpose, and precision, we marvel at the breadth, scope, and magnitude of Your grand design. From the dawn of creation You set Your sustaining power in motion to care for all that You would make.
Before a drop of rain had ever fallen on the earth You created, streams (mist) came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground. Even then, You were preparing for the shrubs that had not yet appeared..., the plants that had not yet sprung up, and the people that had not yet been created to work the ground (Genesis 2:5-6).
But in Your garden You would plant them all— the shrubs, the plants, the people. Your river would flow through the garden (Genesis 2:10), and they would be nourished and watered in the paradise of a gracious, attentive Master Gardener.
And when the people— the man and his wife whom You had drenched with Your tender, intimate, love and care— when they took the word of a malevolent enemy over Your infallible truth (Genesis 3:1-6), even then You had already planned and prepared according to Your good and perfect will. You had already provided the lamb slain from the creation of the world (Revelation 13:8).
We who are constrained by the limits of time and human intelligence cannot grasp the intricacies of Your marvelous and mysterious ways, but Your infinite eyes cast their view from everlasting to everlasting (Psalm 90:2). And down the centuries of human time, You saw, and still see constantly repeated in humanity, the same rebellion from Eden— the rejection of Your divine source and the futile attempt to create human substitutes (Genesis 3:6-7, Jeremiah 2:13).
Yet in love and grace You unfolded Your plan for rebirth, for replanting, for earth-shaking resurrection from the decimation and death caused by sin. And in Your Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, was fulfilled the promise of the One who would come from the bloodline of King David: A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit (Isaiah 11:1).
God of love, Your Messiah came. He lived among us. He was crucified on a Roman cross to bear the penalty for our wrongs and our rebellion. He was buried in a tomb. He rose again. All in fulfillment of Your promise and Your plan.
And in fulfillment of Your promise and Your plan He will return to establish forever His kingdom of peace. For those who embrace that kingdom now — in all its radical differences from this world.
All You ask is that we accept Him as the True Vine. That we remain in Him. That we come with our parched souls to the spring of living water, and away from the world's broken cisterns that cannot hold water (Jeremiah 2:13).
Thank You for Your mercy Lord. May we gratefully walk through Your open doors of grace.
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