every word: how blunt truth turned an S.O.B. into a son of God

The Word for today:
Ezekiel 16

Shelley wondered the other day whether we should warn some of our young, impressionable readers about some very graphic anatomical descriptions which we will encounter in Ezekiel.

I replied with the standard line: "Nothing they haven't heard on the school bus already."

We don't need to warn people about God's Word, when God's Word is the warning the people need! We have to expose our young readers to every word that proceeds from the mouth of God (1).  No less an authority than Jesus Christ said so.

The graphic anatomy encountered in Ezekiel is nothing compared to the scathing denunciations we hear:
Your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite (Ezekiel 16:3).
I've never been called a son of an Amorite or Hittite, but on numerous occasions I've been called a son of something else. Same difference.

Should such language be in the Bible? I refer you to that well-known authority, Jesus Christ, who once informed the people that their father wasn't God at all but the murdering and lying Satan:
You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. (John 8:44)

I think I'd rather be called a son of an Amorite than a son of that.

Your Bible has some harsh things to say, things that you'll never hear in church, among the 'proper' people there. Because many a smiling preacher, more concerned for his popularity than the truth, hasn't got the backbone to look sin in the eye and call it exactly what it is.

The greatest indictment of the biblical false prophet is this oft-repeated line:
They will say, "Peace, peace," when there is no peace (2).

I grew up with the secular "Peace, peace" crowd. They had no explanation for the world as I knew it to be. They told me I was OK, and that they were OK. But we were not OK.

After dumping the "Peace, peace" crowd, I spent some time with the religious "Lord, Lord" crowd. They were as clueless and insipid as their secular counterparts. They didn't know Jesus, 'cause he didn't know them:
"Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?'
And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you.' " (Matthew 7:22-23)

I never met anybody who truly knew what was going on in my heart and in this world until I read the book of Matthew. I remember my eyes growing wide with wonder, shock and awe as I read this point-blank assessment of me and my vaunted generation:
From within, out of the human heart, come evil ideas, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, evil, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, pride, and folly. (Mark 7:21-22)
"O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I bear with you?" (Matthew 17:17)

I--son of an Amorite, son of Satan, and (so I've been told) son of your dog Lulu--had finally met someone who knew. Not only that, but he cared enough to speak harsh words of truth.

We live by his every word. Never withhold even one of them. Even if the bus driver objects.

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(1) Matthew 4:4; (2) Jeremiah 6:14; Ezekiel 13:10

Then you shall know that I am the LORD.

The Word for today:
Ezekiel 14-15

mark this: Ezekiel 14:8b
"Then you shall know that I am the LORD."

Want to live life as it was meant to be lived? If you do, then here's how to do it: Stand in the Rain every day.

"Stand in the Rain," an image borrowed from Isaiah 55:10-11, means to let the Word of God fulfill its purpose in your life.

So what is the purpose of the Bible? The purpose of the Bible is to know God. Not only is that the purpose of the Bible, it's the purpose of existence! Being the purpose of the Bible and the purpose of existence, it's not surprising that knowing God is also the theme of Ezekiel.

The expression "Then they will know that I am the LORD" (and variations of it) occurs 70 times in the book of Ezekiel (which is near the middle of your Bible).

Near the beginning of your Bible is the book of Exodus. Typing Ezekiel's thematic phrase into my electronic concordance, I found out that "Then they will know that I am the LORD" appears in Exodus 6:7; 7:5, 17; 8:10,22; 10:2; 14:4,18; 16:6, 8, 12; 29:46; 31:13.

The gospels are near the end of the Bible. John 20:31 tells us that the gospels (and by inference the entire Bible) were written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (John 20:31)

"That you may have life" might just as well be written "that you may know God"--because they mean the same thing. The Bible defines life itself as a relationship with God. (Conversely, "death" in scripture doesn't mean you stop breathing. It means you are separated from God.)

So Bible reading (getting to know God) is nothing short of life itself.

If you really want to be alive, don't miss a day in the "rain."

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What are you doing?

(written by Vickie)

The Word for today: Ezekiel 12 & 13

mark this verse: Ezekiel 12:2
"...They have eyes to see but do not see and ears to hear but do not hear for they are a rebellious people."

The witnesses could not give an account of the story that unfolded before their eyes. They were unable to hear over the dialogue in their own ears, they were unable to see because of the illusions that played out in their mind's eye. Being vaguely aware that something wasn't quite right, that something didn't sync in their perceptions, they chose to turn all the more vehemently toward the illusion and familiar voices.

Ezekiel spoke the vision the LORD had given for His remnant but they could not understand. Israel didn't have a sensory deficiency, they had a heart problem.

Again, Israel doesn't get it. God calls them, once again, a "rebellious people." I love the persistent father love of the LORD. He never gives up in extending Himself to restore the broken relationship with His children.

So, God invites them all to a theatrical presentation.

Ezekiel, in a solo performance, executed a drama according to God's specific instructions. He played his role perfectly while Israel watched. All day, before a reluctant audience he acted out his part, revealing God's message. A day long performance while Israel looked on, questioning, "What are you doing?"

I know that question too. Many times I have looked up to the heavens and asked, "What are you doing God?" Like Israel I've not always liked God's answer and I've had my own bouts of "rebellious heart" disease. But in those times of questioning, I have experienced the gift of clarity, a chance to readjust my perceptions. Even the direction of my questioning giving testimony to what my created self knows--that only God can make sense of our lives.

God delivers truth and adds grace to the mix. He invites us to receive His salvation. For the day we first received Jesus Christ as our Saviour and and all the days after, "The name of the LORD is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe." (Proverbs 18:10)

Israel got some hard prophesy that day from Ezekiel. Unfortunately, a day of theater did not turn into a a day of repentance. At the end of the chapter, Israel discounts the urgency of Ezekiel's message. They missed out on the salvation that God was holding out to them for that day.

This is a hard lesson for us too. God doesn't always offer salvation from our consequences or life's trouble, but He is holding out His saving power to you today. This same power that brought Jesus Christ out of the grave gives us the ability to rise above all of our trouble and to live in safety, free to come into His presence!

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so soft, your goodbye

The Word for today:
Ezekiel 11

mark this: Ezekiel 11:22-23
Then the cherubim spread their wings with their wheels alongside them while the glory of the God of Israel hovered above them.
And the glory of the LORD rose up from within the city and stopped over the mountain east of it.

There are moments in the Bible that we try to bury too deep for memory to find.  But the deeper down we dig, the more indelible these moments become. The reluctant withdrawal of the Shekinah glory from the temple is one of these moments.

The glory departs. But the memory won't leave you alone. It doesn't intend to. It was written to resurface, and even to haunt.

***

Knowing that when the door shuts behind him the song won't ever sound the same, the Presence of the LORD lingers until he can no more. So soft, his goodbye.

He's loyal, God. You have to want him gone for him to go. Then he shuts the door so silently that his parting seems never to have happened; that upon your awakening his going away will have gone away, like a dream returned to its genesis in your dark imagination.

But beside you, nothing. No number, no forwarding address, no note, no pin.

***

God's Presence--this time as Immanuel, emptied of Shekinah--would not return for 700 years. Once again he was not wanted. Once again, just before leaving, he lingered over a city whose moment was slipping away:
Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, saying,
"If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.
For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation." (Luke 19:41-44)

***

Each of us knows a song we will never hear again.  We might play it again, but we will never hear it again, not the way it was before.

This is your last best shot at love.  Stand between him and the door.  You never want to hear how soft his goodbye.

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glory, glory, sayonara? (Pt. 1)

(by Pastor Joe)

The word for today: Ezekiel 9 & 10

With all due respect to Julia Ward Howe, here is a less than Grammy-worthy interpretation of the beloved Battle Hymn of the Republic:

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the departure of the Lord (ch. 10 & 11)
He has wrecked me by the river where His visions left me floored (ch. 1 & 3)
He has shown me the depravity of those who break His Word (ch. 8)
His glory’s marching on

Glory, glory sayonara
Glory, glory sayonara
Glory, glory sayonara
His glory’s marching on

The book of Ezekiel is about the Glory of God. And this pitiful little paraphrase seeks to memorably communicate a little of what has happened in Ezekiel.

It starts with his initial call and that amazingly complex vision in chapter one where Ezekiel is utterly dumbfounded by the Glory of God (v. 28).
In chapter three, Ezekiel is so wrecked by the Glory of God, that he does nothing but sit overwhelmed for a week (v. 15).
In yesterday's reading (chapter 8), God in His Glory (v. 4) reveals to Ezekiel the rampant sin and idolatry in the Temple, a kind of twisted tour of depravity.

In today's chapters, we are once again centered in on the Glory of God. But these are not triumphant pages, they are in fact some of the saddest in all of Scripture. We have the slow, sad departure of God's glory as He moves from the Holy of Holies (aka Cherubim) to the threshold (9:3). Later the glory of God departs from the threshold (10:18). Tomorrow we will see God's glory head from there to the Mount of Olives (11:23), but I'll leave that for tomorrow's blogger!

Suffice it to say, God's Glory leaving is NEVER a good thing. But the tricky part in the whole matter is that no one every notices His absence until it's too late. The entire nation of Israel is painfully unaware of any kind of departure. Ezekiel alone is given insight to what the rest of the Israelites miss.

Consider Samson, champion and judge of Israel who, despite all of God's victories through him, found himself so far from God that he "did not know that the LORD had left him." (1)

Consider the sad tale concerning the death of the high priest Eli. Because of his spiritual blindness and obesity (mirrored in his real life by his actual physical condition), one tragic day left Israel with out the current High Priest (Eli), the future High priests (Hophni & Phineas), and the famed Ark of the Covenant. The only survivor in the whole mess from Eli's family is rightfully name Ichabod or "no glory." (2)

Consider the Son of God, the Glory of the One and Only Jesus Christ, who came to us in flesh, full of grace & truth (3). And yet the greatest revelation of God's glory was not even received by His own people (4).

Consider yourself, and how quick you, like the rest of humanity, are to ignorantly miss out on the very presence of the Living God. It's only from that place of rightfully weakness and humility were we can begin to avoid the same pitfalls.

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(1) Judges 16:20 (2) 1 Samuel 4 (3) John 1:14 (4) John 1:11

some Spring-cleaning of our own

The Word for today:
Ezekiel 8

Yesterday we saw that the Bible pictures idolatry as spiritual adultery, and that God takes this unfaithfulness personally:
I was crushed by their adulterous heart which has departed from Me, and by their eyes which play the harlot after their idols. (6:9)

Today, as we tour the Temple with Ezekiel, we are saddened to see the various idols that had taken God's place in Israel's hearts:
the idol that provokes to jealousy (8:3);
seventy elders of Israel, each at the shrine of his own idol (8:12);
twenty-five others, probably priests, with their backs turned toward God as they bowed down to the sun (8:16), and literally thumbed their noses at the LORD (8:17).

***

Idols often take more subtle forms today. They can be hard to identify. Anything that we place above God is idolatry, spiritual adultery. It might be a relationship which, according to the evidence of our lives, we prize more highly than our relationship with God. It might be a lifestyle, or a goal -- anything that, according to the evidence of our lives (real things like checkbooks and appointment calendars) has become a higher priority than God.

If God were to tour the chambers of your heart, what would he see there? Would he see someone else--or something else--in his place?

Above all else, guard your heart (1). Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you? (2) The temple of God cannot have any agreement with idols (3).

God took your place on the cross. Don't let any other take his place in your heart. We saw Jesus cleanse the Temple, turn the tables, and kick the money changers to the curb. It may be time for some Spring-cleaning of our own.

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(1) Proverbs 4:23; (2) 1 Corinthians 3:16; (3) 2 Corinthians 6:16

What does he see in me?

The Word for today:
Ezekiel 6, 7

mark this: Ezekiel 6:9
Then those of you who escape will remember Me among the nations where they are carried captive, because I was crushed by their adulterous heart which has departed from Me, and by their eyes which play the harlot after their idols.

Some people, when reading the Bible, are startled by verses like this one:
"Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." (Romans 9:13; see Malachi 1:2-3)
They want to know how it could be that God hated Esau.

I am startled by that verse as well, but for a different reason: I want to know how it could be that God loved Jacob!

Because I am Jacob. I can say with authority, as Jacob did, that
"Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life." (Genesis 47:9)

I have been blessed with a very real sense of my own sin.  Maybe it's because I came to faith in Jesus relatively late in life--after a lot of muddy water had passed under the bridge--but I've never had to struggle with the idea of my own righteousness or the sufficiency of my own good works. I know that the only thing standing between me and hell is when Jesus Christ took my place on a cross meant for me, and for Jacob, and for Barabbas.

I will never quite understand just what he sees in me. Ruth couldn't understand what he saw in her, either:
"Why have I found such favor in your eyes, that you should take notice of me?" (Ruth 2:10)

So when I read how God is crushed by our infidelity, I don't get it. But I am bound to believe it:
"I was crushed by their adulterous heart which has departed from Me." (Ezekiel 6:9)

When we are unfaithful to God, or apathetic towards him, it's more than a biblical law we are breaking.  We are breaking a heart.

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