Friday, September 3, 2021

FMF: City

“Also tell this to the people of Jerusalem: ‘This is what the Lord says: I will let you choose to live or die. Anyone who stays in Jerusalem will die in war or from hunger or from a terrible disease. But anyone who goes out of Jerusalem and surrenders to the Babylonians who are attacking you will live. Anyone who leaves the city will save his life as if it were a prize won in war."
(Jeremiah 21:8-9, NCV)


Surrender!  This was essentially the message given to the believers in Jerusalem from God.  I'm sure it must have made little sense to them.  Why would God want them to leave their city?  This was the land that God had given to them.  It was where they had raised their families, and where generations before them had also raised their families.  It was where the temple was, and so it was where God was.

But God told them to choose: stay and die or go and live.

God sometimes presents us with options we don't like.  They don't make sense and, sometimes, seem totally counterintuitive.

Like those early believers, God is destroying old ways for new ways.  The coming exile would help the believers refocus their beliefs.  If you read the other prophetic writing from this time, you will learn that the believers weren't behaving the way they were supposed to.  In fact, at one point, God tells them they are worse than their non-believing neighbors.  Ouch!

So what are the cities that God is asking me to abandon in my life?  What things I have always done that somewhere along the line warped into something ungodly?  I'm sure I can't fully investigate that in the five minutes I am spending here today, but I pray God always give me enough wisdome and faith to choose life.



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This post is a prompt from Five Minute Friday
and was written in approximately five minutes.
For more information, visit fiveminutefriday.com.
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1 comment:

  1. Oh, I LOVE the perspective you took on this post! "What are the cities God is asking me to abandon?" This question has started my prayerful pondering this evening. Thank you, Amie! (Karen, FMF #5)

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