JULY 23, 2014
Waving
The White Flag
Read: Deuteronomy
6:1-9
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the
Lord your God. —Deuteronomy
6:4-5
Recently, while
watching a video of a church service held in South America, I noticed something
I had never seen before in church. As the pastor passionately called his flock
to yield their lives to Jesus, one of the parishioners took a white hankie out
of his pocket and started waving it in the air. Then another, and another. With
tears running down their cheeks, they were expressing full surrender to Christ.
But I wonder if there
was more to the moment than the flags of surrender. I think they were waving
flags of love to God. When God told His people to “love the Lord your God”
(Deut. 6:5), it was in the context of His urging them to surrender their lives
to Him.
From God’s point of
view, life with Him is far more than just trying to be good. It is always about
relationship—relationship in which surrender is the way we express our grateful
love to Him. Jesus, in amazing love for us, surrendered Himself on the cross to
rescue us from our helpless bondage to sin and set us on a journey to all that
is good and glorious.
We don’t have enough
words to tell God how much we love Him! So, let’s show Him our love by
surrendering our hearts and lives to follow Him.
Lord, take my life and
make it wholly Thine;
Fill my poor heart
with Thy great love divine.
Take all my will, my
passion, self, and pride;
I now surrender,
Lord—in me abide. —Orr
Surrender is God’s
love language.
Insight
Deuteronomy 6:4
contains the Shema (or Shema Yisrael). This affirmation of the oneness of God
(“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one!”) is the centerpiece of
the morning and evening prayers of observant Jews. The title Shema comes from
the Hebrew term for the first word in the verse, hear.
Source:
Our Daily Bread 2012