August 22 (Jeremiah 21, 22, 34, 32, 33)
Right off the bat ... I find our order of the reading interesting. Now on to more meater things ...

King Zedekiah decides that it's time to seek the Lord - that's because the Babylonians are about to blow them away. After years of evil living and evil leading, this King turns to God and what he finds out is startling: God isn't interested. The Lord says even I will be fighting against you in this battle!

Here's the key for me as I read this: too often we wait to call on God until we are desperate. We do everything on our own strength until we see nothing but doom around us and then we call on God to act ... enough of that! We should cling to the Lord EVERYDAY for EVERYTHING and then His love and protection will be with us. We should never expect that we can live our normal selfish and Godless lives until the news is bad and then turn to God ... He may not be found.

Now, the beauty of God is seen that He does provide a way out for His people ... surrender. They must throw themselves at the mercy of the Babylonians if they want to live. THIS IS PROFOUND! If we are serious about seeking the Lord; if we are genuine in our desire to recieve His rescue; if we are truthful about calling on His name to save the day ... then we must SURRENDER. We must humble ourselves. We must get our eyes off of our possessions and our life and put our attention on HIM.

I'm going to preach on this passage some day ... this is good stuff.

The commentator in this Bible uses a word that we don't often use in the Nazarene Church to describe what is going on for Israel ... "penitence." I think of the Catholic faith when I hear this word but I think it's quite acurate for this period of time. Israel will go through a period of discipline and mourning for their evil ways (their sin - their lack of dependence on God) and then God will restore them. I wonder if this practice would be good for us today ... a designated time of grieving our sins, and then a wonderful celebration of restoration. Now that would be a parrr-tay!!