Surrender
Day 378, Sunday, Aug. 24
Jeremiah Chapters 37 and 38
Surrender is not an idea we take to easily. Something in the human spirit wants to fight on as long as possible.
But surrender is exactly what Jeremiah says the Israelites need to do in the face of the Babylonian siege. For both the common people and the king, Jeremiah says that those who surrender will protect their lives and be taken into exile, while those who stay in Jerusalem and fight on will suffer greatly and be killed.
In 38:2 we read, “Whoever stays in this city will die by the sword, famine or plague, but whoever goes over to the Babylonians will live. They will escape with their lives; they will live.”
In this case, the Babylonian king is implementing God’s justice through defeating Israel. To fight him is to fight God.
We don’t face the question of military invasion, but we also have to consider that sometimes surrender is what God requires of us—in our case surrender to Jesus Christ, giving up our will and our wants.

-Rev. Mark Fleming

Sunday meditation

Job 25:1-6
Then Bildad the Shuhite replied: “Dominion and awe belong to God; he establishes order in the heights of heaven. Can his forces be numbered? On whom does his light not rise? How then can a mortal be righteous before God? How can one born of woman be pure? If even the moon is not bright and the stars are not pure in his eyes, how much less a mortal, who is but a maggot—a human being, who is only a worm!”

Prayer focus
Lord, we surrender all we have and all we are to you.