Posts that reference the book of Ezekiel

Inquiring of the Lord

When you present your gifts and offer up your children in fire, you defile yourselves with all your idols to this day. And shall I be inquired of by you, O house of Israel? As I live, declares the Lord GOD, I will not be inquired of by you. Ezekiel 20:31

God doesn’t mince words in Ezekiel.
The time for subtlety has passed.
Judgment is falling.
His people still don’t get it.

The elders go visit the prophet
To ask for a word from the Lord.
The same routine they’ve kept up for years.
The same formality and insincerity.

But they were still sinning.
Grievously.
Shamelessly.
With a complete lack of self-awareness.

God has nothing to say to them.

Surely we never behave like the people of Judah did.
We would never give our time and energy to everything BUT God.
We would never represent Him so poorly that people question His existence.
We would never prioritize fitting in with the culture.

So God will surely answer when we call on Him.

Won’t He, Ezekiel?

Our Mission

By Paula

“Your mission, if you choose to accept it . . .”

Most of us don’t consider ourselves special or notable. Changing diapers, doing laundry, or paying the bills are certainly not our typical idea of significant work. We are faces in the crowd, numbers on a list. One of Satan’s great weapons is getting us to forget who we are, to embrace this idea that we are nothing and nobody, incapable of doing much or leaving much of a mark.

The truth is, at the moment of salvation, Christ blessed us with “all spiritual blessings” (Ephesians 1:3) including eternal life! He also gives us the fruit of the Spirit- love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Our familiarity with the fruits may cause us to dismiss them. The fact is, all of these ‘powers’ are supernatural in origin and exercise! They are the proof of the presence and actions of the indwelling Holy Spirit.

God called us as His own and He equipped and empowered us for a Kingdom work, a mission.

So what’s our mission?

Jesus spells it out at least four times in the New Testament.

(Matthew 28:18-20) Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

(Mark 16:15-16) He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.

(John 21:15-17) When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you truly love me more than these?” “Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my lambs Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you truly love me?” He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.” The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.

This commission embodies the essence of Christianity, calling us to share the love and message of Christ with others. The charge to Peter to “feed my sheep” underscores our ongoing duty to care for each other.

(Acts 1:8) But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

A witness is someone who tells what he knows. We don’t need lots of experience or training to tell what we know.

How did Jesus change my life?
Why He matters to me?
How are my daily activities different because of Jesus?
How is my outlook affected?
What difference does He make?

Our great responsibility

(Ezek 33:8) When I say to the wicked, ‘O wicked man, you will surely die,’ and you do not speak out to dissuade him from his ways, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood.

The character of God hasn’t changed. If He held an Old Testament prophet responsible for not doing His job, we can expect He’s going to hold us accountable as well. But it’s extremely important to understand, our responsibility is limited to the “speaking out” part. We ARE NOT held accountable for someone’s rejection of the warning.

We have a tremendous responsibility and privilege to fulfill this mission. We are empowered by the Holy Spirit to accomplish it. We can rely on God’s guidance, strength, and grace as we spread His love, share His truth, and make a positive impact in the world around us.

Let’s embrace this mission wholeheartedly.

Christmas with Paul: The Panacea

By Paula Wiseman

When we think of Christmas, we think of the gospels or maybe the Old Testament prophecies that told of Christ’s coming. This Christmas season let’s dig a little deeper and see what the Apostle Paul said about Christ’s birth. While Paul never wrote at length on the subject, he does tell us some things that are critical to understanding who Christ is and why He came. Galatians is one of Paul’s earliest letters. In it he tackles some major doctrines including Christology (who Christ is) and soteriology (what salvation is). Toward the end of the book, he explains Christ’s birth, His coming in the flesh, was the panacea, the cure-all, the solution, to our greatest problem.

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
Galatians 4:4-5

The Problem

Exclusion – Ever since that day in the Garden, when mankind, through Adam, rebelled against God’s most basic command, we have been excluded. It began as Adam and Eve were excluded from His presence in Eden. It continues to eternal exclusion from His presence in hell.

Edict – God decreed that anyone who ate of the tree in the center of the garden would die. (Gen. 2:17) Later, He reiterated the soul that sins, it shall die (Ezek. 18:4, 20). We are under a decree of death.

Enemies – Not only that, but because of our rebellion, we have made ourselves God’s enemies. (Col. 1:24, Romans 5:10).

To put it bluntly, we were hopeless. We can’t undo our sins. We can’t do enough good works to pay for them. Unless God Himself took action we had no way out of the mess we were in.

But God took action. Substitutionary atonement on a breathtaking scale.

The Panacea

Paul says God sent His Son. Better than His personal representative, because of the triune nature of God, He came Himself to do what we could not — to redeem those under the curse because of the law of God.

The punishment wasn’t erased, mind you. God’s justice was satisfied. His holiness and righteousness were maintained. The penalty was paid. We were set free.

And then it gets better.

So complete was God’s solution to our problem, His cure for situation, that He then adopted us into His family. Think of it. When felons are released from prison in our society, they are given the most meager resources to start anew. A few dollars. Perhaps a change of clothes. Maybe a bus ticket.

Not so with God! He opens His arms and welcomes us as lavishly as He welcomes His Son. We can respond like John: Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! (1 John 3:1).

Before we were even aware of our desperate state, Jesus worked out our redemption and salvation.

This panacea, though, would not be available if Christ had not been born of a woman, born at Christmas!

A Holy Priesthood: Obedient

By Paula Wiseman

Peter says believers are a holy priesthood (1 Peter 2:5), drawing parallels with the priesthood established under the Law. Peter packs a lot of information and theological truth in that one metaphor. So let’s take a few posts to break down what Peter wants us to understand. The first thing is God has cleansed us from our sin. We are specially clothed. We are anointed for service. As we serve, we must remain obedient.

Old Testament priests were expected to obey God’s commands

We don’t know how much time passed between the ordination and installation of the priests in Leviticus 8-9 and the beginning chapter 10, but it was relatively soon after. Moses records

Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took their respective firepans, and after putting fire in them, placed incense on it and offered strange fire before the LORD, which He had not commanded them. And fire came out from the presence of the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD. Then Moses said to Aaron, “It is what the LORD spoke, saying, ‘By those who come near Me I will be treated as holy, And before all the people I will be honored.'” So Aaron, therefore, kept silent.
Leviticus 10:1-3

Nadab and Abihu were Aaron’s two oldest sons. In Exodus 24:1. They were privileged to be called to an intimate meeting in God’s presence with the elders of Israel on Mt. Sinai. They had been through extensive preparation for their roles just like Aaron their father had been. And they knew what was expected of them. In spite of that, they were disobedient and disrespectful. This was a capital offense. Aaron, even in his shock and grief, understood.

Later in the Old Testament, the prophets, especially Jeremiah and Ezekiel, denounce the priests who have completely abandoned the role and charge God entrusted them with. Consider these pronouncements in Ezekiel:

Her priests have violated My law and profaned My holy things; they have not distinguished between the holy and unholy, nor have they made known the difference between the unclean and the clean; and they have hidden their eyes from My Sabbaths, so that I am profaned among them. … Therefore I have poured out My indignation on them; I have consumed them with the fire of My wrath; and I have recompensed their deeds on their own heads,” says the Lord GOD.
Ezekiel 22:26, 31

Obedience is the mark of believers

A follower of Christ is one who obeys His teachings and commands and imitates His life. It is preposterous to suggest we can believe Christ for salvation and then reject everything else He said. Hearing and doing are irrevocably tied together. At the end of Luke 6. Jesus tells a parable about a wise builder and a foolish builder. The key difference? The wise builder hears Jesus’s words and obeys them. Later in Luke 17, in a parable about a servanthood, Jesus tells His followers:

“So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do.’ ”
Luke 17:10

It is our duty to do what we have been commanded to do. And in the Great Commission, Jesus further says, we must teach new believers to obey His commands. The New Living Translation puts it simply.

Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
Matthew 28:20

If we don’t obey, are we in danger of being consumed by fire? That’s the wrong question. We have a completely different motivation as believers. Paul explains (in one of my favorite verses) in Galatians

I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
Galatians 2:20

The life I now live is one of faith in Christ and constant recognition of what He has done for me. Obedience flows naturally from that. If we are struggling to obey, we need to revisit Christ’s sacrifice for us and what He saved us from.

Next up, we’ll begin looking at what we as believers do as part of a holy priesthood.

The Power of His Words

By Paula

I’m a writer, so I appreciate the power of words to move us emotionally, to encourage and uplift us, to convict and admonish us. Words can paint a picture in our minds. They can make us empathize with a range of experiences. Words can move us to action or stop us in our tracks. That power is just a shadow of the power in the words of our Creator. Everything we see and know exists because God spoke. Our redemption was made possible through His word. That power, the power of His words, sets Him apart from everything and everyone else.

“For the word of God is living and powerful …” Hebrews 4:12

God’s words create
By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth. Psalm 33:6

God’s words guide
Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” whenever you turn to the right hand or whenever you turn to the left. Isaiah 30:21

God’s word accomplish
So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it. Isaiah 55:11

God’s words revive
Again He said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord!’” Ezekiel 37:4

God’s words cleanse
You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. John 15:3

God’s words sanctify
For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer. 1 Timothy 4:5

That’s just a start. But as I consider the words of God, I can’t help but go back to the early ones, “Let us make man in our image.”
If I am made in His image, shouldn’t it follow that my words model His?
My words can’t create out of nothing, but shouldn’t they be used to for His glory?
My words can’t sanctify someone else exactly, but shouldn’t they set me apart as His?
Shouldn’t my words revive and encourage?
Shouldn’t my words be effective and not empty?

Ultimately, shouldn’t my words point others to the power in His words?

Jesus and Women: The Canaanite Woman

By Paula

Then Jesus answered her, “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed instantly. Matthew 15:28

One of the things that set Jesus’s ministry apart was the way He interacted with women. Each encounter teaches us something about Jesus and our relationship to Him. It is important to notice in each case, Jesus treated these women with dignity and respect that was unheard at that time and in that culture. That in itself is instructive as we interact with people now.

So far we have looked at an exchange between Jesus and His mother at the wedding celebration in Cana of Galilee, His conversation with the woman from Sychar who had come to draw water from the well and a woman who reached out to Him in a crowd. This week we’ll consider His exchange with a Canaanite woman.

At the end of Matthew 14, Jesus is in Gennesaret, on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee. After a confrontation with the Pharisees in the beginning of chapter 15, Jesus and his guys slip over to the area around Tyre and Sidon for a break. (Incidentally, if you check the map, both of these cities are Mediterranean port cities, that is, beach towns. I can totally understand why Jesus would head here for a quick respite.)

A woman from that area approaches Him in desperation and calls Him by His messianic title. The woman is not Jewish. Matthew calls her a woman of Canaan. This would have triggered many cultural memories in the minds of his Jewish readers. She was one of the wicked people who forfeited the Promised Land, whom God judged. Jezebel was from Tyre, after all. Ezekiel tells us the king of Tyre exulted in the destruction of God’s people. Mark calls her a Greek, a Syro-Phoenician, tipping off His Gentile readers that she was one of them.

The Canaanite woman begs for mercy, and for healing for her demon-possessed daughter. Jesus’s reputation had spread beyond the borders of Israel. Whatever the woman may have known about Jesus, she at least knew He was her only hope. The Sidonian gods brought no help or relief.

Jesus did not respond. Sometimes silence teaches as much as words. In this case the silence reveals the hearts of the woman and of the disciples.

Do we typically see God’s silence as an opportunity for us to examine our hearts before Him?

Finally the disciples respond, “Send her away. She is annoying us. She is interrupting us on our day off.” Jesus says He was sent to the lost sheep of Israel. This ties the encounter to the most recent debate with the Pharisees and it forces the disciples to consider who is worthy of salvation and, by extension, His intervention. Is it a matter of genuine faith or of national heritage?

Do we ever determine some are worthy of salvation, while others are not?

The disciples would one day carry the gospel throughout the world. Right now, they can’t see past their deeply rooted prejudices. The Canaanite woman, watching this exchange, senses that in spite of the words spoken, she still has hope. She throws herself down at Jesus’s feet and begs for His help.

Jesus responds to her plea with a parable, but I believe He says it more for the disciples’ benefit. It is not right to take the children’s ( that is, the Jews’) bread and give it to the dogs (that it, the Gentiles). Jesus doesn’t use the common pejorative Jews used for Gentiles, but the point is unmistakable. “We can’t take precious ministry energy, reserved for our people and spend on people like this, right guys?”

Is the kingdom of God only for those in a certain race, or class, or station? Or is it open for everyone who seeks it?

The woman, understands the question. Her answer is, in essence – the kingdom of God is for those who draw near to receive it. “Bingo!” Jesus replies. Well, something close to that. He praises her great faith, and with that her persistence and humility.

Do we ever stand in the way of those who are seeking the kingdom? Are our prejudices and preconceptions off-putting rather than welcoming?

Jesus heals the woman’s daughter and then spends several days in the Gentile region healing and teaching, including a miraculous feeding of 4000 Gentiles mirroring the feeding of the 5000. It all began with this Canaanite mother helped Him demonstrate to His disciples what true faith looks like.