Saturday, April 23, 2011
Christophobia: Dead Man No More
Christophobia: Dead Man No More: "Before I knew it, my entire household was around me. News travels fast over some kind of metaphysical network in a loving nuclear family. '..."
Swallowing Your Pride
Dear Suzanne, Rebecca, Anna, and Mikayla,
Chapters 4 and 5 were action sermons...chapters 6 and 7 are real sermons. You know...like the kind you get in church. Ezekiel tells the people that it was the end. Jerusalem would be destroyed and the people with it. Warren Wiersbe speaks of these chapters in terms of "R's" ....ruin, repentance, and repayment.
Ruin...it was the end. Destruction was coming.
Repentance...There would be a remnant spared that would remember Him and repent of their sins. God's mercy is always displayed in the believing remnant.
Repayment...God says I will repay four times. None of the things that the people trusted in would not help them. The end had come.
The words that spoke to my heart are in Chapter 6 because they depict God's mercy in judgment and reveal to us His Father's heart which is broken when we walk away from Him and go our own way.
"Yet I will leave a remnant, so that you may have some who escape the sword among the nations, when you are scattered through the countries. 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; they will loathe themselves for the evils which they committed in all their abominations. And they shall know that I am the LORD; I have not said in vain that I would bring this calamity upon them." --Ezekiel 6:8-10
God was crushed by His children's disloyal hearts which had departed from Him. An alternate meaning for the word crushed is broken. Girls, God is our Father. He loves us and His heart is crushed when we depart from the good and right path that He has mapped out for us. Our God who always remembers mercy, says they would remember Him among the nations where they would be carried captive and then they would loathe themselves for the abominations and the evils which they had committed. They would turn to Him broken and grieved for their sin and would bring God glory in their turning. This would only occur, sadly, after some very difficult pain filled lessons and even among the remnant few would be saved.
Sometimes God has to break us and bring us to the end of ourselves in order to bring about true repentance. How much easier would it be for us if when we were in sin and had walked away from our Father, if we would just come back. Put aside our pride and turn. Take ourselves off the throne and put God back in His rightful place. How much easier for us...how much easier for God...how much better for those around us.
Swallowing your pride gets easier and easier the more you do it. It gets harder and harder the more you put off doing it. When you put it off the lump you need to swallow gets larger and larger and looms hugely in front of you gathering ammunition whenever and wherever it can to fortify its own position. Don't be its victim. The answer is simple...just go back...face your own sin...God's love and forgiveness will be there and make the crooked places straight again. Cut your losses and put aside your pride. As you move and do this by faith, God's grace will be there...the balloon of self will burst and you will see the Father's love for you with eyes no longer obstructed by your pride...turning will bring the peaceable fruit of righteousness. If you have never done this...do this today. Our pride is the biggest obstacle between us and God...it is the difference between an eternity spent in hell and an eternity spent in heaven with Jesus. Acknowledge your sin...acknowledge your need for Him and come to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that you can ask or think.
Read Chapter 7...see the judgment God brought upon them for their sin and remember how different things could have been had they just remembered Him...remembered that He was the Lord and they were not... on their own earlier when He drew them with His gentle cords of love.
Love
Mom
Moreover the word of the LORD came to me, saying, "And you, son of man, thus says the Lord GOD to the land of Israel: 'An end! The end has come upon the four corners of the land. Now the end has come upon you, And I will send My anger against you; I will judge you according to your ways, And I will repay you for all your abominations. My eye will not spare you, Nor will I have pity; But I will repay your ways, And your abominations will be in your midst; Then you shall know that I am the LORD!' "Thus says the Lord GOD: 'A disaster, a singular disaster; Behold, it has come! An end has come, The end has come; It has dawned for you; Behold, it has come! Doom has come to you, you who dwell in the land; The time has come, A day of trouble is near, And not of rejoicing in the mountains. Now upon you I will soon pour out My fury, And spend My anger upon you; I will judge you according to your ways, And I will repay you for all your abominations. 'My eye will not spare, Nor will I have pity; I will repay you according to your ways, And your abominations will be in your midst. Then you shall know that I am the LORD who strikes. 'Behold, the day! Behold, it has come! Doom has gone out; The rod has blossomed, Pride has budded. Violence has risen up into a rod of wickedness; None of them shall remain, None of their multitude, None of them; Nor shall there be wailing for them. The time has come, The day draws near. 'Let not the buyer rejoice, Nor the seller mourn, For wrath is on their whole multitude. For the seller shall not return to what has been sold, Though he may still be alive; For the vision concerns the whole multitude, And it shall not turn back; No one will strengthen himself Who lives in iniquity. 'They have blown the trumpet and made everyone ready, But no one goes to battle; For My wrath is on all their multitude. The sword is outside, And the pestilence and famine within. Whoever is in the field Will die by the sword; And whoever is in the city, Famine and pestilence will devour him. 'Those who survive will escape and be on the mountains Like doves of the valleys, All of them mourning, Each for his iniquity. Every hand will be feeble, And every knee will be as weak as water. They will also be girded with sackcloth; Horror will cover them; Shame will be on every face, Baldness on all their heads. 'They will throw their silver into the streets, And their gold will be like refuse; Their silver and their gold will not be able to deliver them In the day of the wrath of the LORD; They will not satisfy their souls, Nor fill their stomachs, Because it became their stumbling block of iniquity. 'As for the beauty of his ornaments, He set it in majesty; But they made from it The images of their abominations— Their detestable things; Therefore I have made it Like refuse to them. I will give it as plunder Into the hands of strangers, And to the wicked of the earth as spoil; And they shall defile it. I will turn My face from them, And they will defile My secret place; For robbers shall enter it and defile it. 'Make a chain, For the land is filled with crimes of blood, And the city is full of violence. Therefore I will bring the worst of the Gentiles, And they will possess their houses; I will cause the pomp of the strong to cease, And their holy places shall be defiled. Destruction comes; They will seek peace, but there shall be none. Disaster will come upon disaster, And rumor will be upon rumor. Then they will seek a vision from a prophet; But the law will perish from the priest, And counsel from the elders. 'The king will mourn, The prince will be clothed with desolation, And the hands of the common people will tremble. I will do to them according to their way, And according to what they deserve I will judge them; Then they shall know that I am the LORD!' " --Ezekiel 7
Chapters 4 and 5 were action sermons...chapters 6 and 7 are real sermons. You know...like the kind you get in church. Ezekiel tells the people that it was the end. Jerusalem would be destroyed and the people with it. Warren Wiersbe speaks of these chapters in terms of "R's" ....ruin, repentance, and repayment.
Ruin...it was the end. Destruction was coming.
Repentance...There would be a remnant spared that would remember Him and repent of their sins. God's mercy is always displayed in the believing remnant.
Repayment...God says I will repay four times. None of the things that the people trusted in would not help them. The end had come.
The words that spoke to my heart are in Chapter 6 because they depict God's mercy in judgment and reveal to us His Father's heart which is broken when we walk away from Him and go our own way.
"Yet I will leave a remnant, so that you may have some who escape the sword among the nations, when you are scattered through the countries. 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; they will loathe themselves for the evils which they committed in all their abominations. And they shall know that I am the LORD; I have not said in vain that I would bring this calamity upon them." --Ezekiel 6:8-10
God was crushed by His children's disloyal hearts which had departed from Him. An alternate meaning for the word crushed is broken. Girls, God is our Father. He loves us and His heart is crushed when we depart from the good and right path that He has mapped out for us. Our God who always remembers mercy, says they would remember Him among the nations where they would be carried captive and then they would loathe themselves for the abominations and the evils which they had committed. They would turn to Him broken and grieved for their sin and would bring God glory in their turning. This would only occur, sadly, after some very difficult pain filled lessons and even among the remnant few would be saved.
Sometimes God has to break us and bring us to the end of ourselves in order to bring about true repentance. How much easier would it be for us if when we were in sin and had walked away from our Father, if we would just come back. Put aside our pride and turn. Take ourselves off the throne and put God back in His rightful place. How much easier for us...how much easier for God...how much better for those around us.
Swallowing your pride gets easier and easier the more you do it. It gets harder and harder the more you put off doing it. When you put it off the lump you need to swallow gets larger and larger and looms hugely in front of you gathering ammunition whenever and wherever it can to fortify its own position. Don't be its victim. The answer is simple...just go back...face your own sin...God's love and forgiveness will be there and make the crooked places straight again. Cut your losses and put aside your pride. As you move and do this by faith, God's grace will be there...the balloon of self will burst and you will see the Father's love for you with eyes no longer obstructed by your pride...turning will bring the peaceable fruit of righteousness. If you have never done this...do this today. Our pride is the biggest obstacle between us and God...it is the difference between an eternity spent in hell and an eternity spent in heaven with Jesus. Acknowledge your sin...acknowledge your need for Him and come to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that you can ask or think.
Read Chapter 7...see the judgment God brought upon them for their sin and remember how different things could have been had they just remembered Him...remembered that He was the Lord and they were not... on their own earlier when He drew them with His gentle cords of love.
Love
Mom
Moreover the word of the LORD came to me, saying, "And you, son of man, thus says the Lord GOD to the land of Israel: 'An end! The end has come upon the four corners of the land. Now the end has come upon you, And I will send My anger against you; I will judge you according to your ways, And I will repay you for all your abominations. My eye will not spare you, Nor will I have pity; But I will repay your ways, And your abominations will be in your midst; Then you shall know that I am the LORD!' "Thus says the Lord GOD: 'A disaster, a singular disaster; Behold, it has come! An end has come, The end has come; It has dawned for you; Behold, it has come! Doom has come to you, you who dwell in the land; The time has come, A day of trouble is near, And not of rejoicing in the mountains. Now upon you I will soon pour out My fury, And spend My anger upon you; I will judge you according to your ways, And I will repay you for all your abominations. 'My eye will not spare, Nor will I have pity; I will repay you according to your ways, And your abominations will be in your midst. Then you shall know that I am the LORD who strikes. 'Behold, the day! Behold, it has come! Doom has gone out; The rod has blossomed, Pride has budded. Violence has risen up into a rod of wickedness; None of them shall remain, None of their multitude, None of them; Nor shall there be wailing for them. The time has come, The day draws near. 'Let not the buyer rejoice, Nor the seller mourn, For wrath is on their whole multitude. For the seller shall not return to what has been sold, Though he may still be alive; For the vision concerns the whole multitude, And it shall not turn back; No one will strengthen himself Who lives in iniquity. 'They have blown the trumpet and made everyone ready, But no one goes to battle; For My wrath is on all their multitude. The sword is outside, And the pestilence and famine within. Whoever is in the field Will die by the sword; And whoever is in the city, Famine and pestilence will devour him. 'Those who survive will escape and be on the mountains Like doves of the valleys, All of them mourning, Each for his iniquity. Every hand will be feeble, And every knee will be as weak as water. They will also be girded with sackcloth; Horror will cover them; Shame will be on every face, Baldness on all their heads. 'They will throw their silver into the streets, And their gold will be like refuse; Their silver and their gold will not be able to deliver them In the day of the wrath of the LORD; They will not satisfy their souls, Nor fill their stomachs, Because it became their stumbling block of iniquity. 'As for the beauty of his ornaments, He set it in majesty; But they made from it The images of their abominations— Their detestable things; Therefore I have made it Like refuse to them. I will give it as plunder Into the hands of strangers, And to the wicked of the earth as spoil; And they shall defile it. I will turn My face from them, And they will defile My secret place; For robbers shall enter it and defile it. 'Make a chain, For the land is filled with crimes of blood, And the city is full of violence. Therefore I will bring the worst of the Gentiles, And they will possess their houses; I will cause the pomp of the strong to cease, And their holy places shall be defiled. Destruction comes; They will seek peace, but there shall be none. Disaster will come upon disaster, And rumor will be upon rumor. Then they will seek a vision from a prophet; But the law will perish from the priest, And counsel from the elders. 'The king will mourn, The prince will be clothed with desolation, And the hands of the common people will tremble. I will do to them according to their way, And according to what they deserve I will judge them; Then they shall know that I am the LORD!' " --Ezekiel 7
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)