My new perspective of a popular scripture:

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
(Jeremiah 29:11)

This passage is popular for encouraging people that the LORD will bless them somehow.  But it recently struck me that these "plans" are exactly what we are called to conform our own plans to.

This is the very definition of love:  "plans to prosper and not to harm you".  As Paul says, "love does no harm to its neighbor".

Everything we say and do springs from a motivation.  In man, this fountain is corrupt with self-interest.  We have plans to prosper and not to harm ourselves.  But the Creator God has eternally been this pure, unselfish fount of motivation:  "plans to prosper others and not to harm others."  

That is the only motivation worthy of our good opinion.  That is the only motivation worthy of a high reputation.  That is to say that it is worthy of glory.  Consider the value of the motivation to prosper and not harm others.  

Maybe we should capitalize "Motivation To Prosper And Not To Harm Others" for the same reasons we capitalize the words "Lord" and "God".  Chew on that.  I don't say it flippantly without having meditated on it with a love of truth.

If I want to be of any use in this, my only shot at life, I will dethrone my self-interested motives and properly estimate the value of (glorify) this pure motive:

" Prosper Others.  Do Not Harm Others."  (Maybe all the letters should be caps!)

or as Paul said:

"...only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs so that it may benefit..."

So while quoting Jeremiah 29:11 to people may have some encouraging value, it seems far more beneficial to them if my motivations toward them are conformed to the image Jeremiah 29:11 conveys.

Suddenly I am thinking of this in light of the following passage:

Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
(James 2:15-17)

If I quote Jeremiah 29:11 to someone to encourage them that God plans to bless them somehow, I am in a sense telling them to keep warm and well fed (faith not accompanied by action).  If I become Jeremiah 29:11 by personally planning, speaking and acting to prosper them and not to harm them, I have faith accompanied by action.

So let me conform to the image of the son of God.  Let me become one who plans, speaks and acts to prosper others, to build them up according to their needs.  Let me never plan, speak or act with a harmful motive or result.  Let me behold the glory (consider and properly estimate the high value) of the Lord, being transformed into the same image, from one degree of glory to another.

Perhaps these thoughts wander in different directions.  I actually meant to briefly document something akin to the first three or four paragraphs, but it turned into a lengthier contemplation and study (for me).  As Bunyan said, "He that liketh it, let him receive it; and he that does not, let him produce a better."