“My people will be filled with my bounty,” declares the Lord. (Jeremiah 31:14)
Just like our cars need to be filled with gasoline to keep running, we too must be filled with God’s bounty — His fuel — to keep doing what He has called us to do. How is it with you? Are you filled with the bounty of the Lord? Or do you feel like you are running close to empty?
Notice that the Spirit of God inspired the prophet Jeremiah to use the word “my” twice in today’s verse, and these two words are as encouraging as they are equipping. First, the Lord speaks to “my people” in Jeremiah 31:14; these are the people God has claimed as His own, those whom God sought, caught, and bought with His precious blood. Moses wrote, “The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession” (Deuteronomy 7:6).
Is that you today? It certainly is if you have believed and received the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. When you, by God’s grace, through faith, recognize that you cannot possibly save yourself and transfer your trust from yourself to your Savior, you become one of those whom God calls “mine.”
Next, Jeremiah 31:14 promises that God’s people will receive “my bounty.” He is not speaking of the bounty of this world, which is rooted in power, prestige, prosperity, and pleasure. God’s bounty is rooted in God Himself. When God refers to “my people,” He is saying we are His portion, and when He speaks of “my bounty,” God is telling us that He is our portion. Thanks to Christ’s atoning sacrifice, God is satisfied with us, and we are to find our satisfaction in Him. We are to look to God to find everything we need. God is our faithful “Filling Station,” and you can be assured that He will never be closed or run out of the “gas” we need to fill us to do what He has called us to do.
Think about it this way: God has promised to fill us with His bounty. If the bounty offered to us by the Sovereign Lord of all the universe will not satisfy us, what possibly can? Now, I am painfully aware that there are times when we all run to things smaller than God to find our filling. But I also know that experience has taught us all that we are left more empty after our wanderings than we were before. No matter how many times we seek refreshment from the wells of this world, we are never filled to satisfaction. And each time we try to get filled apart from God, it takes more and more to reach the previous level of filling.
May this year be different than last year. May we rest in God’s first “my,” knowing that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. And may we also rest in God’s second “my,” knowing that our God has promised to meet our every need in His glorious riches of Christ Jesus.
There is only one faithful Filling Station for the people of God: our Faithful Savior.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Grace for the Race 