Reading Chapter 40-43 in Ezekiel was hard. So many details….so many details that I do not know or understand the significance of. The city of Jerusalem had been obliterated. The temple was gone. The people were dead, scattered or exiled. To put it mildly, it was a very bleak time. God understood this so in His mercy and compassion for His disobedient people, he gave Ezekiel a vision of the future city and temple. In Chapter 11 Ezekiel depicted God’s glory leaving the temple. In Chapter 43, verses 1-5, Ezekiel talks of His glory returning. This verse kept coming to mind as I read.
There is hope in your future, says the LORD, That your children shall come back to their own border.—Jeremiah 31:17
And this one…
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.—Jeremiah 29:11
In times of trouble, trials and difficulties, God wanted His people to know that life would not always be this hard and this hopeless. He wanted them to turn from their sin and repent knowing that His plans for them was to give them a future and a hope. (See Ezekiel 43:7-11 at the very bottom of this devotional)
For me reading the details of the temple was, sad to say, tedious. I am sure, however, that it was not for the heartbroken, exiled people of God at that time. I am sure they not only understood the details that Ezekiel presented but were comforted and encouraged by them.
Similarly, as I see evil waxing worse and worse in the world around me, I am nevertheless, still comforted and very encouraged because through it all, I see the truth of God’s word coming to fruition before my very eyes.
Ezekiel’s words allowed God’s people to look ahead with hope. One day they would be regathered. One day the beauty of their nation would be restored. All would be made new. If they repented, they as a people would serve God with cleansed and undefiled hearts.
Beloved…It is the same for us. Focus your eyes and your heart on the eternal rather than the temporal. Dwell on the sure and certain hope we have in Jesus. Dwell on the glories of heaven where we will live and reign with Him forever and ever.
Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil, where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus, having become High Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.—Hebrews 6:17-20 (emphasis mine)
Our spirits, as believers, have been quickened and are now the temples of the living God. Remembering and meditating on our future in heaven with God should not only comfort and encourage us in our trials but it should also make a difference in our behavior. Without the Spirit of God living within us we could do nothing good. Today, despite our trials and despite our heartbreaks, we, who have this treasure in our earthly vessels, can shine the hope of the glory of God to those around us.
For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus' sake. For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.—2 Corinthians 4:5-6
Here are some verses that remind me of the glories of heaven even in the midst of the darkness of this world.
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,
To the pilgrims of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ:
Grace to you and peace be multiplied.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith—the salvation of your souls.—1 Peter 1:1-9
And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.
"Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.—John 17:22-24
Ezekiel 43:7-11
And He said to me, "Son of man, this is the place of My throne and the place of the soles of My feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel forever. No more shall the house of Israel defile My holy name, they nor their kings, by their harlotry or with the carcasses of their kings on their high places. When they set their threshold by My threshold, and their doorpost by My doorpost, with a wall between them and Me, they defiled My holy name by the abominations which they committed; therefore I have consumed them in My anger. Now let them put their harlotry and the carcasses of their kings far away from Me, and I will dwell in their midst forever.
"Son of man, describe the temple to the house of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities; and let them measure the pattern. And if they are ashamed of all that they have done, make known to them the design of the temple and its arrangement, its exits and its entrances, its entire design and all its ordinances, all its forms and all its laws
