Pray to the Lord for the peace of this city
Author
Andrés Cisterna
Summary: The speaker shares a portion of the book of Jeremiah, urging people to seek shalom (well-being, justice, mercy, and goodness) for their city or country. They encourage prayer to God for this peace, rather than just seeking help from political leaders. The speaker believes that if people seek and promote shalom, God's blessing will come upon the city or country. They also remind listeners that as children of God, only He has dominance over them and they should serve His creation. The speaker ends with a prayer for shalom to be present in people's lives and in the world.
I want to invite you to read a portion of the word of the Lord, a portion that has had an impact on my life for many years. The book of Jeremiah says, chapter 29, verse 7. I just want to leave this reflection in your heart, because there is a response from the Lord, but in that response from the Lord there is a conduct that his people must begin to practice and propose in this country, in this nation. Says so:
“…And seek the peace of the city to which I had you transported and pray for it to the Lord because in its peace you will have peace, and seek the peace of the city to which I had you transported through it because in its peace you will have you peace…”
Verse 11, “… For I know the thoughts that I have about you, thoughts of peace and not of evil – listen carefully – to give you the end you are expecting. Then you will invoke me – how many are invoking for what we are doing? – and you will come and pray to me and I will hear you, and you will seek me and you will find me because you will seek me with all your heart…”
Here he is talking about shalom. When we read this portion of the word, let's not just read the word peace as a concept, peace for us means being free from any type of conflict, peace for us is not having problems, peace for us represents a partial state in our way of living. , sporadic states but the word he's using here is shalom, and when he's saying 'and procure the peace of the city' he's saying, 'and let us procure the shalom of this city.' Let us not only seek peace but let us seek well-being, let us seek mercy, let us seek benefits, let us seek justice, let us seek goodness, let us seek all those things that are going to make this city, this state, this country, a better place.
The context is a people in slavery. Here the Lord is speaking to a people that is marked by a context of slavery and many of our brothers today feel somewhat slaves to a system that does not allow them to open up, but the Lord is telling us, do not accumulate resentment in your heart Do not accumulate hatred, do not accumulate resentments, promote shalom so that I bless the city where you are, promote shalom so that my blessing falls on where you are.
And let us pray to the Lord, let us not plead with the president first, let us not plead with the senators, that is fine, but before we go to them, let us bend our knees, let us raise our heads high and say, Lord, you who are in the high, you are the help that comes from high and above, there in heaven, there in your presence my response will descend.
And when I get up from that prayer, then I can walk to the representatives, to the political power and tell them, I demand that the Lord's response be manifested through each one of you. There they will have peace but not that human peace, not the peace that the world gives, says Jesus Christ, I give a different kind of peace where everything is in harmony, where everything goes well.
Pray to the Lord for the peace of this city. Do you know why? Because when the Lord's response comes, look, I imagine the Lord's response for 12, 13 or 15 million, the truth is that the millions are not so important, but rather the consequence, the result that will be in this nation, shalom of God is going to descend and the blessing that has been withheld from this nation there, that wants to descend and does not descend, is going to begin to descend completely for this nation.
And don't think that there will be no work, there will be work, there will be justice, there will be health, it will be the land of dreams and realities, it will be the place where many will reconcile with the Lord because the peace of the Lord, the shalom of God will flood every area in this nation.
We are children of God, we are his creation and when you look at it that way, no one has dominance over you, only God, only God. We are the church of the Lord. Let's get up to serve God's creation in this world, for that the Lord put his church here and let us recall a phrase that the Lord uses for Joseph there in the book of Genesis.
He knows that Joseph was the cause of blessing for those around him, says the word of the Lord, because of Joseph all those who surrounded Joseph were blessed, all of them, because of the children of the Lord in this nation, in this state, In the city where you live, everyone around you is blessed because of you. For one reason only, because God loves us, because God loves his creation. He is faithful, he is faithful.
So we are going to pray for peace on this earth, we are going to pray for God's shalom to be with each one of us at every moment of our lives and at every moment of this struggle. Close your eyes for a moment.
Thank you, Lord Jesus, thank you, Lord Jesus. Thank you Jesus. Thank my Lord. Holy Spirit brings the shalom that your church needs to experience and that this world needs to see your shalom through a church that shows the values of the Kingdom in our city, in our streets.