Tag: Ezekiel

Devotional 220: To Seek and Save the Lost

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Matthew 18: 10-11 The Parable of the Lost Sheep

10 “Take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that in heaven their angels always see the face of My Father who is in heaven. 11 For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost.

Luke 19:8-10 Jesus Comes to Zacchaeus’ House

8 Then Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold.”

9 And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham; 10 for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

Galatians 6:7-8

7 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. 8 For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.

  The purpose of Jesus’ descent at the Father’s command was not to “hang out” with the lost, continuously dispensing grace to them while they indulged their vices, just like it wasn’t the job of a shepherd to walk with the lost sheep as it meandered, not finding its way back, and putting itself and the shepherd in danger since it had no idea it was lost and in peril.

  His purpose was to cleanse us of sin, the way a found sheep must be bathed to have the dirt of the world removed from its wool so that what it produces will be valuable. It must also be returned to the flock because it isn’t whole without one.

  Too many who have no real relationship with Jesus assume a familiarity with Him they don’t have or seek. They erroneously take for granted that He places no conditions on their redemption, when in fact, it the seeking of Him that will bring them to G-d.

  “Come as you are” does not mean “Stay as you were.”

  Circumstances improve, and people change for the better in the presence of Jesus. He’s always with us, and since He paid the blood price, that means after being grafted in, we will face the hardships He did, up to and including dying while still believing.

  He tells the Jews of Israel that He didn’t come to abolish the law and negate the prophets (Matthew 5:17).

  He tells those who are grafted in that He did not come to bring peace, but division, even into the same household among family.

  We can’t forget that Jesus and the Father are not in competition, and in the end, the Son will purge the Father’s kingdom of His enemies, because He has been found worthy, and the Father has given Him all authority (Matthew 28:18) They are of one mind to remove the scourges of sin and death for all who choose to believe, follow, and do the work of the kingdom.(John 10:30) (Phillipians 2:12-13)

  So to those who are searching, seek Him while He may be found (Isaiah 55: 6-7). And to those who already believe, let us continue to work alongside Him while there’s light. (John 9:4)

 Therefore I pray:

   Lord Jesus, today I confess I have been in remiss in following my Good Shepherd.

   The things and cares of this world catch my eye and fill my imagination, distracting me with thoughts of myself and and that which brings me worldly comfort, and not the security of eternal salvation.

   The rod and staff brought no comfort because I wrongly believed they were to strike me for my errors and rebellion, not to protect me and gather me back to You, to be under Your protection and love.

   Even knowing You, sealed by the Holy Spirit, and written in the Book of Life, I still stray, indulge, and sin. How much more so then, for those who don’t know You at all.

   So today, from the spiritual distress in my soul, I bleat my prayer for You to save me once more, cleanse me once more, and restore me to fellowship and the kingdom once more. Let me plead the blood of the Lamb, that I might be spotless and blameless, humbled and shamed, broken and contrite, before my Father’s throne.

  Rejoice over me with singing as You a give me a heart of flesh, and renew a right spirit within me. (Ezekiel 36:26)

   May it be done to me as You have said.

   Amen.

Devotional 205: A Foolish Persistence

Our current world is becoming more self indulgent by the day, as in days past, and the Father’s wrath is indeed gathering once more. To persist in the way we’re going is foolishness, and will be punished accordingly.

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Judgment on Persistent Unfaithfulness

Ezekiel 14:12-14

12 The word of the Lord came again to me, saying: 13 “Son of man, when a land sins against Me by persistent unfaithfulness, I will stretch out My hand against it; I will cut off its supply of bread, send famine on it, and cut off man and beast from it. 14 Even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they would deliver only themselves by their righteousness,” says the Lord God.

In a nation whose imperfect, bloody founding was based on a concept of independence and freedom from tyranny, in the hearts, minds, and times of the founders it was already steeped in pride and hypocrisy.

Yet the Lord heard their prayers in despite their sins, and blessed the nation so that it might be a light to others in showing reconciliation and brotherhood, and for a while, as the Word took root here, He was given His due in the daily lives and routines of most.

Though they twisted His Word as the Pharisees did to justify their sins, praying was part of their daily routine. But then, as now, it seemed the Holy Spirit did not come to convict them of their wrongdoing.

Those they enslaved and abhorred came to know the Gospel of Christ despite the racist interpretations used and preached to them for all of the wrong reasons, as the Pharisees did to the nation of Israel.

So despite its terrifying beginning, modern America prospered and grew.

Today, it is no longer the case that G-d, in His true nature of including all who believe on His Son, is part of the fabric of everyday life. Indeed, He’s being daily relegated to the status of a byword, or some pagan representation of a vague source of power that doesn’t acknowledge sin, so benevolent is its nature.

His Word is not welcome, and His very existence inherent in the design of humanity and His universe is denied by those He created to worship Him for eternity. (Ps 14:1, Rom 1:20)

Now a nation of extremes, both perceived and actual, we have uncoupled the vainglorious attitudes of men now have no counter in the substance of the Father’s commandments:

  1. Love G-d with all your heart, soul, mind, and spirit,
  2. and Love your neighbor as yourself.

The issues with having a nation that has declared itself free and independent, full of rights with no responsibilities, is that the blessings it bestows on itself are only seen now as deserving by the groups that claim them.

If all lives matter, they can’t be selected if the will of the Father we claim to love, worship, and obey is that all should come to repentance and none perish. That is not the call to chaos it is made to seem, for He is still a G-d of order.

As fellowship occurred in the Book of Acts, the Apostles appointed those found to be of willing natures, intelligence, and integrity to see to the distribution of things that would meet the needs of those not able to fully participate, and in so doing freed themselves to the purpose to which they were called. (Acts 4:32-37)

We must rid ourselves of divisive labels: ‘socialism’ would be called loving kindness, ‘redistribution of wealth’ would be called sharing blessings with from the Lord with a joyful heart.

The Lord does not call us to give ourselves into poverty, starvation, and destitution, but to help relieve others from it if we are capable of doing so, for that is the Father’s will to do good that we might glorify Him, and to love justice and give mercy. The widow’s mites were noted by Jesus because she gave out of her own lack, so how much more our offerings from His blessings.

Stop hiding the sin of political power in His Name. He is the the all-mighty, and you are dust.

Stop hiding the sin of pride, immorality, and unbelief in idols and nothingness, for without His Name covering yours, the Book of Life is denied you, and hell waits to destroy your soul. Don’t point to others for your faithlessness; in the day of judgement, it will be you and Jesus, face to face, and no one else standing beside you.

Therefore I pray:

Father in Heaven,

Forgive us the sin that when we meditate on Your Word to us in 2nd Chronicles 7:14, we do so not as an act of repentance and reconciliation to You and our brothers and sisters we’ve wronged, but for You to smite the nation in Your wrath, and to continue to prosper us in spite of our false pride, arrogant independence, and sense of entitlement that only this nation alone is to be blessed by Your hand, whether or not we believe on Your Son.

As You rebuked and admonished Your own chosen, telling them through the prophet that only three in all their history would be delivered from Your anger, we must now realize that if all nations are grafted into the covenant of grace, none will be spared for their faithlessness.

We are nation founded on genocide, bondage, and even child labor to serve the needs of the few, and in spite of being blessed through Your long-suffering grace, have refused to acknowledge in our independence and freedom, even from You, that the time of self-rule and governance has ended in failure, as all endeavors not rooted in You must. We’ve built the house of a great nation on sand, and no longer abide in the Vine, apart from whom we can do nothing. (John 15:5)

Men and women of selfish, petty, and fearful hearts have been voted in by people of the same.

So today, let the righteous prayers of the remnant, if they have found favor in Your sight, be counted worthy as Moses, Noah, and Job were in those days to stand in the gap and ask that the land be healed to proclaim Your glory to the faithless, that the Earth, and all that it contains, is Yours. (Psalm 24:1)

In the Name of Jesus we ask, believing we have received.

Amen.

Devotional 139: New Hearts, Right Spirits

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Ezekiel 36:26

26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

What we consistently fail to understand about the Father’s will to cleanse us is that it is as uncompromising as it it unwavering, though it does not come without requirements.

People who claim the Word is contradictory have been blinded, given hearts of stone, and ears that cry out for tickling, adapting the infinite, glorious, majesty of G-d to their limited knowledge and puffy intellects.

They place Creation under the tangible but cloudy lenses of ‘Science’ and ‘Evolution’, which has theories it takes just as much, if not more faith, to believe in. But the know there’s no G-d. They are, at best, houses built on shifting sand, and such believers in it are willing to go with it as their source.

And yes, they have their time and place, for He gave us a mind to establish dominion over the earth and subdue it, but they don’t replace Him. It is simply that they can’t fathom the mind of G-d, but the Father is not inconsistent in dealing with His creation.

The matter of hearts and spirits is like a ‘pop-up’ ad throughout Scripture, perhaps the most known of them being this verse:

Psalm 51:10

10 Create in me a clean heart, O God,
And renew a steadfast spirit within me.

    Repentance is the cornerstone of renewed fellowship with G-d, just as faith was the cornerstone of Christ’s miracles manifesting themselves in the lives of those who sought Him.

G-d is not ignoring our sins because we make them legal, and nothing is being done unseen before His eyes. Those things He’s called abominations have only morphed into more forms of spiritual confusion and deception.

The tide of faithlessness is rising, and the current of persecution disguised as legislation moves more swiftly, yet the questions remain the same: “Where is your G-d?”  “Why doesn’t He just save us/ purge evil?”   “You really believe that nonsense?”

Yet Christ tells us:  We will suffer for our faith (Matt: 24:9) The love of many will grow cold (Matt: 24:12) False christs shall rise (Matt: 24:24) He will come at an hour we don’t expect (Matt: 24:44) Not all who call on His name will enter into His rest (Matt: 7:21)

Right hearts and renewed spirits, then, have become things we can’t do without in these times. Peter tells us:

Acts 3:19-21

19 Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, 20 and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, 21 whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began. 

Are we prepared for the unexpected?

Therefore I pray:

Father in Heaven,

It is no small thing to walk behind our Shepherd through the valley of death’s shadow.

The path is narrow and steep, and the unholy line both sides of it, waiting for the weak to fall, the foolish to stray from under the protection of His rod and staff, for the inattentive to lose their way, the tired for fall behind, and the fearful to turn back.

Our enemy speaks to us, as he did in Eden, of the fleshly good of Your creation, tempting us with pretty things, and planting seeds of doubt about what You’ve said to us: Did G-d really say…?

He proclaims to us in moments of spiritual fatigue and moments of crisis: All these things I will give to you…

So Father, today we repent of our sins, we confess them to You that we may be cleansed of all unrighteousness, all doubt and uncleanness, all fear and sorrow. Renew our hearts, Lord G-d, and refresh our spirits.

Restore us to fellowship with You, and each other.

Keep us from invoking Your heavenly Name to justify our earthly evils.

We present ourselves before the throne of grace and judgment. We come to You in our filth, with wretched hearts, weak flesh, tired minds, blind eyes, and hard hearts, that You might send the Son to us again to bring us back to You.

We say to Him today, in Your sight and by Your grace:

“Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.”

May it be done to us as You have said.

Amen.