Would You Serve A God You Can't Tame?

When I was a child, I lived next door to my aunt, uncle, and cousin, Kimberly. It was like having a sister--Saturday morning omelets, trips back and forth between our houses, late night rounds of my uncle cheating at Monopoly, and too many sleepovers to count. Then, baby Allison was added to their family. Now, I would have two sisters to share everything with!

But, suddenly, our close-knit world was rocked when my aunt and uncle felt God calling them to be international missionaries. They then accepted that calling, leaving behind careers, family, and friends to become missionaries on the island of St. Maarten in the Caribbean…and taking with them my two “sisters.”

After that, our families came together maybe once a year. We were still close, but it just wasn’t the same. Many years into their ministry, they rode out a very serious hurricane that destroyed much of the island. While their lives were spared, our church had to send a team to help repair/rebuild their home.

What kind of God asks His people to leave their family? Stable jobs? Country? What kind of God puts those same people who are obediently serving Him in the path of a killer storm?

Yahweh. The God of Moses, Abraham, and Isaac.

Scripture gives us several examples of God asking His people to give up everything to serve and obey Him. One such man was Ezekiel, a priest whom God called to prophecy to an exiled Israel: “Son of man, I am sending you to the sons of Israel, to a rebellious people who have rebelled against Me; they and their fathers have transgressed against Me to this very day. I am sending you to them who are stubborn and obstinate children…” (Ezekiel 2:3-4).

Ezekiel wasn’t a Jonah. He didn’t run the other way or ask God to send somebody else. Instead, even with God continuously reminding him that his prophesies wouldn’t result in Israel’s repentance or turning from its sin, Ezekiel was obedient in doing what the Lord asked of him.

And then in the midst of that obedience, God required Ezekiel to make yet another sacrifice, which would serve as a sign to a rebellious Israel of Jerusalem’s coming destruction: “And the word of the LORD came to me saying, ‘Son of man, behold, I am about to take from you the desire of your eyes with a blow; but you shall not mourn and you shall not weep, and your tears shall not come. Groan silently; make no mourning for the dead Bind on your turban and put your shoes on your feet, and do not cover your mustache and do not eat the bread of men.’ So I spoke to the people in the morning, and in the evening my wife died. And in the morning I did as I was commanded” (Ezekiel 24:15-18).

What!? Did I read that right? God required Ezekiel to not only lose his beloved wife but to also not publically mourn her death? Yes. And Ezekiel obeyed.

How? Why?

Because Ezekiel knew the God he served. He knew of God's mercy and His judgment.  He also knew God’s kingdom agenda was more important than one man or one woman.

In our modern culture, I fear we are just the opposite--we don't really know the God we serve.

When we hit those passages in Scripture that are disconcerting, that depict a God who doesn't jive with the image in our head of the one we serve--that's when we attempt to tame God.

Sometimes, in our attempt to tame Him, we ignore the mystery.  We simply don't read those parts of Scripture we deem "inexplicable," confusing, or just too hard, such as the book of Revelation.  We believe the lie that only scholars have a chance of really understanding, so we lay persons shouldn't bother.  It's not a mystery if we refuse to accept it as such, so we stick our heads in the sand and stop up our ears.

Then, there are the times we take the mystery and try to nail it down on all four corners, to explain it all away with such conviction and certainty that we grow angry or defensive when anyone suggests our interpretation of Scripture could be incorrect.  Here, we reject the mystery and insist there can only be one interpretation, one spiritually-gleaned conclusion drawn from our reading of God's Word.  If you think differently, you obviously weren't led of the Spirit to your conclusion.

While some things are black and white in Scripture, there are too many that are not.  Brilliant scholars fall of both sides of several theological issues, which should warn us against this type of taming God.  When we attempt to explain everything away with such certainty and allow that certainty to be divisive in the family of God, we forget the words of the prophet Isaiah: "'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,' declares the Lord. 'As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your  ways and my thoughts than your thoughts'"(Is. 55:8-9).

Other times, we tame God by refusing to read entire sections of the Bible because they "don't apply" to our modern society.  Using this logic, we excuse ourselves from trying to come to grips with a God who ordains murder, who condoned mass genocide of entire people groups.  In other words, we explain away any Old Testament characteristic of God that depicts anything other than a kind, good, merciful God such as Christ shows us in the New Testament.  And in doing so, we think we have such a good grasp on who God is that, at times, we believe we can even speak for Him, like we're best chums.  Yet, in truth, we haven't even begun to understand Him.

Although we may not like to think of God as one who requires such large sacrifices of his obedient servants, such as the earlier example of Ezekiel, that doesn’t mean we can ignore Scripture that tells us otherwise.  Although we may not be comfortable with what the Word says about who God is and what He has done throughout the course of history, we still must accept every part of who Scripture says God is...or not accept Him at all.

Likewise, although we may not understand every Scripture, that doesn't excuse us from not trying.  Yet, when we try, we must leave room for those who may draw different conclusions, for who knows if ten years from now, the Spirit may reveal that we were wrong all along.

God is and always will be a mystery to us.  If you're serving a God who can be graphed in black and white on a piece of paper, then you're not serving the God of the Bible.  Your God isn't big enough.

The God of The Bible is one who cannot be tamed.  He will not be watered-down.  He cannot be placed in a box.

He is The mystery of mysteries.

If we have Jehovah God all figured out, then we're not serving Him but a false God of our own making.

Why We Read Every Last Page

I'll admit I have my favorite passages, those stories from my childhood that I am drawn to because I can visualize them (usually with Charlton Heston playing the part of Moses).  Then, there are those verses and books that are difficult, the kind that make me run rough hands through unruly curls, rub my throbbing temples, and sigh at the ceiling.

When it comes to the pages of Scripture, we all have our favorite and our not-so-favorite chapter and verse.  My father loves Revelation and anything prophetic.  I, on the other hand, am a people person and cultural analyst at heart, so I prefer the histories found in the Kings and Chronicles.

Yet, even though we have our favorite passages, that doesn't mean we're excused from studying the entire Word of God, yes, even if we think some passages are "too hard" or not really pertinent to us since God was speaking to the Jews and not us Gentiles.

Our perception of The Bible is often times warped.  Looked at one way, the tome does seem pretty big.  In fact, if a person were to drop a Bible on his toe, he you might think God sure said an awful lot.  But if one stops to consider that God fit the history of several thousand years into the Old Testament alone and then skipped 400 years between testaments before presenting the life of Jesus and the early church in the New Testament, well, that reveals a pretty small book, considering, an author God who just gives the highlights.

The Bible does mince words. Thus, when we pick and choose which passages we would like to study and ignore the rest, we don't know what we're missing out on.

My studies just this past week reminded me of how important it is for me to let Scripture interpret Scripture, to continue building a knowledge base of each book so I can better understand the other books, whether individually or in their totality.

Back in September of 2011, I was studying the book of Ezra.  In one post, I wrote on the exiles who rebuilt the temple, then celebrated after the new temple's foundation was built.  In the midst of that celebration, the returned exiles who had seen the former temple wept: "Yet many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers' households, the old men who had seen the first temple, wept with a loud voice when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, while many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the shout of joy from the sound of the weeping of the people" (Ez. 3:12-13).

While some of the weeping was due to happiness over this restoration, many tears were because of how ordinary this temple foundation was in comparison to the luxurious original built by Solomon and because even when physically restored, God's presence was not residing within the holy of holies as He once had.

This concept of disappointment is confirmed when later at the temple's completion, God spoke through the prophet Haggai: "'Who is left among you who saw this temple in its former glory? And how do you see it now? Does it seem to you like nothing in comparison?'" (Hag. 2:3).

This is what I understood at the time.  But because I had not yet studied the book of Ezekiel in depth, I missed another important reason why these exiles may have been crying. 

In the latter half of Ezekiel's prophecy, God gives a vision of His glory returning to a future temple.  In chapters 40-42, He even takes Ezekiel on a guided tour of that temple, wherein a man with a measuring rod reveals the height, width, and length of each wall in intricate detail, describing the gates, windows, courts, chambers, rooms, etc.  This future temple would be a huge complex, much larger than even Solomon's temple in all its glory.

Then, after receiving this blueprint, God says, "As for you, son of man, describe the temple to the house of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities; and let them measure the plan. If they are ashamed of all that they have done, make known to them the design of the house, its structure, its exits, its entrances, all its designs, all its statutes, and all its laws. And write it in their sight, so that they may observe its whole design and all its statutes and do them" (Ez. 43:10).

Here, God invites Ezekiel to share this vision of the "new temple" with those exiles who are with him in Babylon, those who have yet to be released by King Cyrus to go back home. 

Surely, some of these same people who heard of this future temple expected that this prophecy would be fulfilled in their lifetime.  Surely, when Cyrus allowed them to return to Jerusalem and gave orders for the temple rebuilt, they believed the temple built with their hands would be the magnificent one from Ezekiel's vision.

Yet, it wasn't.  Clearly.  In fact, it wasn't even as big as the temple King Solomon had built.  And so, they wept.

As such, their tears were not merely because they were looking back in sorrow over what once was and was no longer but also because they were looking forward in sorrow.  Anyone who had heard the detailed blueprint in Ezekiel's prophecy would immediately realize that this smaller temple could never be the one in the vision that saw God's glory return, never to leave again.

And so, their weeping was in the knowledge that God's promise to dwell with them forever was still far off because of their sin.

This revelation may not seem earth shattering, maybe not even important.  But, it spoke to me of how we should mourn.

Presently, Christians seem to want to mourn our present state by looking backwards to the "good ole days."  We mourn a country, a people who aren't as holy, as God-fearing as they were "back then."  Yet, instead of looking backwards all the time, I believe we should be looking forwards and mourning because of the holiness to come promised through the prophets, a time that seems so far from us at times.  

Both types of mourning require us to look at our sin, repent, and look to Christ.  However, looking backwards tends to focus more on people and their accomplishments as we wish we could be more like they were whereas looking forward tends to keep our focus more on God, His perfection, and His promises to come.  Whether we keep our hope in the past or in the future is important.

Had I said the book of Ezekiel was too difficult, too controversial, or too elusive to grasp completely, I would have missed the simple message God had planned for me.  It's a word of encouragement to all of us.  Even though we may prefer to read something else, God says to study His Word, and that means all of it.  

Who knows what simple truth He may have hiding for us in those favorite passages, perhaps little nuggets of life-altering wisdom that we'll never receive unless we veer from the well-worn path into the wilderness of those unknown books.  We may just find a missing piece we never knew we were looking for.


Image: from Derek Griz' blog, calling to Christians to read the Bible through in one year.

Has God Turned His Back on Israel?

During the Holocaust, "some Jews were marched into gas changers under signs that read, 'You are being killed in the name of Jesus Christ.'"1  Before that time, the Middle Ages found Crusaders "massacr[ing] Jewish communities" as they marched across Europe to Jerusalem.  Likewise, during the Spanish Inquisition, Jews were "forced by the edge of the sword to convert to Christianity or be killed."2

History is ripe with examples of so-called Christians persecuting the Jews.  In our present-day American society, this anti- Semitism seems less pervasive than in the past, but still, there is an attitude in the Christian church that we Christians are simply better than the Jews are.

I personally remember shaking my head when reading those New Testament passages that show Jesus fulfilling one of hundreds of Old Testament prophesies, asking myself just how God's people who knew the Scriptures better than I did could do anything but see Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah.  Just how stupid were they!?

The problem with such an attitude is that it leads to a feeling of superiority over the Jews, a "Look at us!  We Gentiles accepted Jesus as Messiah when 'those Jews' didn't!  Who's the chosen people of God now!?"  And with this superiority comes what is called "Replacement Theology," an idea that Christians have "replaced" the Jews as God's chosen people.

This could not be further from what God has in mind.  If anything, we Christians should feel nothing but gratitude, love, and thankfulness for the Jews. And what's more--we should be concerned about the state of the Jewish nation's souls. Why?

To understand, we need to look to the Old Testament, which repeats the pattern wherein the people of Israel turn their backs on God, repent, then turn their backs again.  Each time, God begs them to return and repeatedly warns them through His designated watchmen of His wrath to come.  When they don't listen, He finally does turn His back on them, removes His holy presence from the temple at Jerusalem, and allows His holy city to be burned to the ground while His chosen ones are ripped away from the Promised Land of covenant and scattered around the globe in exile.

This break in communion between God and His people ushered in the age of the church, Christianity, and the age of the Gentiles, the time in history we are living in presently when God is extending His offer of grace, mercy, and salvation to the world--to YOU and ME so that we can make our place in God's Kingdom.


Yet, in Romans, Paul warns us as Christians against pride over our salvation.  To do this, he uses a metaphor of the olive tree wherein the Jews are the "natural branches" and and we Christians are "wild olive shoots" grafted into the tree.

Paul warns against our arrogance and pride towards the Jews: "But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches; but if you are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports the root, but the root supports you...Do not be conceited, but fear; for if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you, either. Behold then the kindness and severity of God; to those who fell, severity, but to you, God’s kindness, if you continue in His kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off. And they also, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these who are the natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree?" (Rom. 11:17-24).

The Jews were cut off so that we Gentiles might have a place in God's Kingdom.  The Jews' hardness of heart concerning Jesus was God-ordained as an expression of God's "kindness" so that we might be saved.  Paul repeats again that the Jews' rejection of Jesus was our only chance at salvation: "their rejection is the reconciliation of the world" (Rom 11:15).  He then implores Christ followers to understand "that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; and so all Israel will be saved" (Rom. 11:25-26).

In other words, the age of the Christian, of the church, isn't going to last forever.  We Christians are not the end of it all.  Instead, God still has His eye of what He refers to throughout the Old Testament as His "remnant," Jews who will be saved and grafted back into the kingdom of Christ. 

History isn't going to just end with Christianity apart from the Jews.  Instead, Scripture records that there is still a remnant of Jews that God is gathering back to the land of promise, gathering back to Himself.  The Kingdom of God, the church of God, is to be composed of both Gentile and Jew, together serving God the Father.

In Jonathan Bernis' new book, A Rabbi Looks at the Last Days: Surprising Insights on Israel, the End Times and Popular Misconceptions, he speaks to Christians, begging them to take a second look at what Scripture says about the Jews, about Israel as a nation, and about the church's role in evangelizing the Jewish community.

Bernis argues that the Christian Age is quickly coming to a close, as is evidenced by Jews beginning to be saved in large numbers.  He says, "Fifty years ago not a single Messianic Jewish congregation existed anywhere (there were only a handful of Hebrew Christian groups), and very few Jews professed faith in Yeshua--several thousand at best.  By 2012, more than 500 Messianic Jewish congregations existed around the world, including at least fifty in Israel...Conservative estimates indicate the number of Jews who believe in Yeshua...range somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 in the United States and 250,000 to 500,000 worldwide.  An estimated 20,000 Messianic Jews live in Israel today"3.


Christians have not "replaced" the Jews as God's chosen people.  Yes, we have been grafted in to the body, but God remembers that the children of Israel are His people. He still both remembers and honors His covenant with Abraham.

All one need do is look at the end of each Old Testament prophecy to Israel to see God concluding with a word of prophetic hope that He will keep His covenant and save a remnant, which will rise up in the last days.   Ezekiel, Daniel, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi--their endings all look to Israel's restoration.  (See my article "Happily Ever After" for a look at these prophets' final outlook for Israel in Scripture). 

As Christians, this knowledge should shape our attitude towards any Jewish persons we know and towards Israel as a nation in general.  Let us not be prideful of our position in Christ.  Let us not write off the Jews around us as "blowing their chance."

Instead, let us learn how best to evangelize the Jewish community.  Let us pray for Jews to come to know Jesus as their Messiah and Savior.  And let us not be prideful over our salvation but rather be humbled by the thought that, as Paul says, some Jews were allowed to fall off so we could be grafted in to God's kingdom.


(**If you only read one book other than The Bible this year, I recommend it be Jonathan Bernis' new release, A Rabbi Looks at the Last Days.   Not only does Bernis give an intriguing look at the history of Christianity and the Jews, but he also explains signs of the Last Days from the standpoint of a Messianic Jewish Rabbi while giving Scripture to back up everything.  What's more, he also gives a wonderful few chapters on "how to" share Jesus with a Jew, explaining how the usual Christian lingo means something different to a Jew and how to avoid inadvertently building up those walls when sharing Jesus with them.)





1.  Bernis, Jonathan.  A Rabbi Looks at the Last Days.  Minneapolis: Chosen, 2013. (p. 159-160).
2.  Rose Price, A Rose from the Ashes: The Rose Price Story.  San Francisco: Purple Pomegranate Productions, a Division of Jews for Jesus, 2006 (p. 81).
3.  Bernis (p. 73-74).

Never Too Late for a U-Turn

How often have you heard the phrase "it's too late for him" or "she'll never change."

Human beings in general have a bad habit of giving up on others around them.  We grow impatient, weary at the lack of progress, and express dismay or despair over friends and family walking a toxic, destructive path.  Even within the church, the general consensus is that the bulk of mankind has already passed the point of no return and is heading downhill to certain destruction.

We sigh.  We shake our heads.  Sure, we want to have hope, especially with that person keeps a permanent residence in our hearts.  Still, the mustard seed of faith doesn't match up to the words on our lips--totally devoid of hope, no chance left, not worth my time, why bother.

Or perhaps that person is even closer.  Perhaps you are the one who believes you've gone too far and God could never have a place in His kingdom for someone like you.

God's Word begs to differ.

In a Bible that covers thousands of years, God minces words.  Still, sometimes, he repeats the same concepts over and over (and over) so hard headed humans like us get the point.

One such repetition is of the word "turn."

The prophet Ezekiel uses the word "turn" twenty three times.  The prophet Jeremiah uses the same word, "turn," twenty seven times.  That means not even looking into the other sixty-four books of the Bible, the word "turn" appears in just these two books a whopping total of fifty times.

Its placement on these particular pages is vitally important to anyone who thinks he is beyond God's grace.  Jeremiah and Ezekiel were writing to such a people as this, those who had endured (and were still enduring) God's seventy-year judgment for their disobedience to God's commands.

In the midst of the judgment, though, God used these two men to also prophesy a hope of restoration for the remaining remnant.  The key to such a restoration?  The word turn.

Jeremiah prophesied from 627 to 574 BC, before and during the three waves of exiles sent to Babylon.  Ezekiel's prophesies overlap Jeremiah's, his from 593 to 559 BC, before the last wave of exiles was sent from Jerusalem after the final destruction of the temple.

Living in exile, the remaining Israelites thought God's judgment of them meant all was lost.  Some said, "'Surely our transgressions and our sins are upon us, and we are rotting away in them; how then can we survive?'" (Ez. 33:10).  Others said, "'Our bones are dried up and our hope has perished.  We are completely cut off'" (Ez. 37:11).

God's chosen people felt defeated, without hope, worthless.....beyond redemption.

Yet God tells Ezekiel, "Say to them, 'As I live!' declares the Lord God, 'I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live.  Turn back, turn back from your evil ways!  Why then will you die, O house of Israel?'" (Ez. 33:11).

The word "turn" correlates with repentance, which is more than mere sorrow over sin.  It also denotes turning one's back on that sin and doing it no more.  In other words, there was still hope for even those people who were feeling the sting of God's judgment.  All they needed to do was repent of their sin, their wicked practices, their unrighteousness and turn back to God.

As God later said, "'For, behold, I am for you, and I will turn to you, and you will be cultivated and sown..." (Ez. 36:9, my italics).

This God who sent His own precious people into exile, who allowed thousands to be slaughtered by the sword of the Assyrians and the Babylonians, who poured out his full bowl of judgment and wrath upon an entire nation that defiled His holy name...this is the same God who sent prophets to speak to the remnant still living in captivity.  This is the same God who says, "I want you to live!"  The same God who says even today, "I am for you."

As long as there is a person has breath in his/her body, there is still hope.  Even if we or those we know are currently experiencing the lash of God's judgment, even if that same person feels abandoned by God...we must know the truth of Scripture that any judgment is for the purpose of purification, for causing us to turn from our sin and back to Him.

We serve a God who is for us, a God who longs for us to turn from evil and embrace Him with our everything.  Praise be to His name.

The Bandwagon of Popular Christianity

It sounds wrong to put those two words together in one sentence.  Popular.  Christianity.  In one sense, it's an oxymoron seemingly so contradictory as to be easily dismissed. 

Yet, the rise of the mega church in America hints at a truth to be found in such an incompatible phrase.  To be considered a mega church, 2,000 people must attend services there each week.  These numbers seem almost impossible considering the national anti-Christian trend across America, especially in the political arena.

Yet, according to Forbes, "Churches across America--like shopping malls, houses, corporations, hospitals, schools and just about everything else--have erupted in size in the last few decades. The number of mega churches in the U.S. has leaped to more than 1,300 today--from just 50 in 1970."  Of those mega churches, 9 out of 10 have "more than doubled in size between 2002 and 2007."

While not all mega churches are the same, the spike in attendees in these type churches along with the continued increasing failure to line up our personal morality with the Ten Commandments shows there are two types of Christianity at play in our nation.

There is a true Christianity that leads to salvation and individuals becoming more like Christ and, then, there is a popular Christianity wherein the hearer is drawn to the Word but stops short so that there is no fruit in their lives as evidence of salvation.

This may seem to be a modern problem, but it's anything but.

In the book of Ezekiel when the children of Israel were living in exile within Babylon, God says, "But as for you, son of man, your fellow citizens who talk about you by the walls and in the doorways of the houses, speak to one another, each to his brother, saying, 'Come now and hear what the message is which comes forth from the Lord.' They come to you as people come, and sit before you as My people and hear your words, but they do not do them, for they do the lustful desires expressed by their mouth, and their heart goes after their gain.  Behold, you are to them like a sensual song by one who has a beautiful voice and plays well on an instrument; for they hear your words but they do not practice them" (Ez. 33:30-32).

This passage describes God's people as desiring to hear His Word.  It's an "everybody's going to see the prophet" type mentality.  They were drawn to the beauty of Ezekiel's voice as one would be drawn to a beautiful song heard on the radio today.  Although the passage doesn't say so directly, I believe God's people were also drawn in by the beauty of God's Word, itself.

Yet, when it came down to it, the Word of God literally went in one ear and out the other, not staying long enough to penetrate and change their hearts.  The result was continued moral decline as is represented by their repeated greed, idolatry, and pursuit of their own "lustful desires."

This was a perfect example of a popular faith versus a faith of the heart.

Such is the case today with popular Christianity.  The masses are drawn in by the eloquence and popularity of the speaker, perhaps even by the beauty of God's Word spoken from the pulpits.  But when their feet leave the arena, their lives, for the most part, aren't changed by the Holy Spirit.

Some may argue the problem of popular Christianity is caused by the mega churches preaching only a popular gospel with a great big hole in the middle of it, that they only preach positive, humanistic messages to edify and uplift while avoiding messages concerning sin and judgment. 

Granted, this mis-defining of what it means to be a Christian is a definite problem.  Yet, I have heard half-gospel messages preached from both the mega church and the small church pulpit.  The size of the platform doesn't secure a listener from a false Christianity. 

So, what can we do to ensure we are not guilty of being merely a popular Christian? 

First, we can examine the Word of God, ourselves--in its entirety--to ensure we are receiving Godly instruction from our pastors.  If the preaching we sit under each week isn't lining up with the God we read about in Scripture, then we have a problem.

Secondly, we can follow James' advice.  He warned, "But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves" (Jas. 1:22).

In other words, we must realize it is easy to delude ourselves into believing that just because we know the Word of God that we also do the Word of God in our day to day lives.  Then, we must examine our own practices and ask ourselves if Scripture is directing our every action and life choice.

In the end, anyone can be guilty of being a popular Christian.  We want to belong to something greater than ourselves.  We want to feel good, uplifted, inspired...something a worship experience can grant us.  And, as a general rule, we still want to be morally upright people.

We must choose a faith not that is popular and that simply feels good but rather a life-altering faith that consumes our thoughts moment by moment as we seek with all our heart and soul to become more like Christ.

Being a Sign to Others: When Your Family Doesn't Celebrate Christ in Christmas

A single day remains before we gather round friends and family to celebrate Christmas Day.  Most of us have plans of exchanging gifts as well as shared meals, laughter, and joy.

We will linger long over pie and coffee, say our good bye's more than once before we finally tear ourselves away from each other and part ways, all knowing that these few precious moments may be the only ones throughout the whole year when we will sit in the same room as our loved ones.

Perhaps some of these friends and family do not celebrate Christ's birth, deny his deity, or simply  deny Him as master over their lives.

We know they are lost, that need to claim Him as Savior and Lord.  Yet, we don't want to beat them over the head with the gospel each time we meet together, especially when they have heard the Word of God and have made it clear to us they don't want us "preaching" to them.

What can we do? When we are given this opportunity to meet with them face to face, one that we may not have for another 365 days.  Or maybe never again.

Do we hold our tongue? Hesitate to mention Christ at all because we fear offending others?

I'm not advocating starting a confrontation or family feud at your Christmas gathering.  Yet, a Christian can still use the opportunity to act as a sign to others.

The book of Ezekiel takes place approximately 593 years before Christ's birth.  In its pages, the Lord makes Ezekiel mute unless the prophetic word comes directly from above and out his human mouth.  Ezekiel's very life was to be a sign to others through his actions.

Honestly, Ezekiel's actions seem really odd.  Even to those in his day when allegories and living metaphors were more easily understood, I'd be willing to bet he got some really strange looks and his name mentioned more than once behind closed doors.  Still, he obeyed God and lived his life as a sign.

For example, in Chapter 4, Ezekiel creates a model of Jerusalem, builds a siege wall, and begins using battering rams against it.  As the Lord says, "This is a sign to the house of Israel" (v. 3).

Later, the Lord says, "Load the baggage on your shoulder in their sight and carry it out in the dark.  You shall cover your face so that you cannot see the land, for I have set you as a sign to the house of Israel" (Ez. 12:6).

In both instances, Ezekiel uses his life, his actions as a testimony concerning Jerusalem's pending destruction at the hand of Babylon.

Several chapters later, God takes Ezekiel's wife but commands him not to mourn her death.  The Lord says, "Thus Ezekiel will be a sign to you; according to all that he has done you will do; when it comes, then you will know that I am the Lord God" (Ez. 24:24).

The chapter ends with God telling Ezekiel he will regain his ability to speak when the prophecy of Jerusalem's destruction is fulfilled and captives come from Jerusalem: "On that day, your mouth will be opened to him who escaped, and you will speak and be mute no longer. Thus you will be a sign to them, and they will know that I am the Lord" (v. 27).

And in those two preceding verses is the key to why Ezekiel's actions are so important--you will know that I am the Lord God.

Ezekiel's actions were to act as a sign for all others to see in the hopes that they would see the truth, turn from their wickedness, repent, and truly know Him as their Lord.

Likewise, our family and friends need to see Christ in us who claim Him as Savior and Lord.

Even if we never open our mouths to speak one word of Scripture to "preach at" them, on Christmas day and throughout the year, our family should be able to see Jesus in our actions, hear our personal love for Jesus always spilling from our very lips.  When asked about our past year, we should be prepared to give God the glory for all He has done, all He has brought us through.

Even if our families won't listen to the plan of salvation, we are still given an opportunity to share Christ with our very lives, our words, our gestures.

It's an opportunity on Christmas Day and every other day of the year.  It is a lifestyle of godliness, holiness, and purity to point a lost World to Him who can save them.

We must decide.  Are  we prepared to be a sign to others?  Are we prepared to live a life that testifies to the entire world that God does require a different standard of living?  Are we willing to make that level of commitment?

Or will we simply compromise when our friends ask us to, stay completely silent for the sake of political correctness?

What Happens to a Stubborn Nation?

Thirty million Christians did not vote in the last presidential election in 2008.  That number just astounds me.  But this isn't a post about why you should vote or who you should vote for this coming Tuesday.  There have been enough heavyweights weighing in with the call for Christian men and women to cast their vote.

Instead, I want to look at what Scripture says about the destiny of a land that refuses to be refined by God.

When God tests a nation, gives it a chance to repent, what happens when that land refuses the purification process? When it flagrantly insists on clinging to wickedness and persistently, continuously defiling God's laws?

Throughout Scripture, God speaks of Himself as a silversmith, one who stands before a furnace of intense flames and works to melt the rough silver, bring the impurities to the surface, and then skim this "dross" off.  The divine metal worker repeats the process again and again until that silver is purified to the point where He can see His reflection in the melted metallic pool.

The Psalmist explains that the Father seeks to purify all men in this way: "For You have tried us, O God; You have refined us as silver is refined" (Ps. 66:10). Such a refining process may be accomplished through the refining Word of God (Ps. 12:6) or through trials where "the Lord tests hearts" (Prov. 17:3).

Yet, it is possible for individuals and nations alike to refuse to be cleansed by the refining process.  They may, instead, cling stubbornly to their impurities, refusing to be separated from what is not holy and pleasing to God in their own lives.

The nation of Israel did just this.  As a result, the Lord said, "the house of Israel has become dross to Me; all of them are bronze and tin and iron and lead in the furnace; they are the dross of silver" (Ez. 22:18).

In this passage, Israel had become not the purified silver but the dross, the part composed of nothing but worthless impurities that were destined to be skimmed off and discarded. In short, Israel had become unrefineable, irredeemable. 

The nation's problem was that she had refused to be purified by the refining process.  No matter how hot God made the testing and trials, Israel was "a land that is not cleansed or rained on in the day of indignation" (Ez. 22:24).  No amount of heating over intense flames had caused (or would cause) her to relinquish her death grip on idolatry, harlotry, wickedness...her sin.

The Lord gives a similar image of Israel's stubbornness through the prophet Jeremiah:

"The bellows blow fiercely,
The lead is consumed by the fire;
In vain the refining goes on,
But the wicked are not separated.
They call them rejected silver,Because the Lord has rejected them." (Jer. 6:29-30)

Here, the image is of a workman pumping up and down on the bellows, forcing more and more air into the furnace, thereby increasing its temperature.  The hotter the fire, the more the impurities would be released to rise to the surface as dross to be removed.  

Yet, again, no matter how hot God caused the fire to become for the nation of Israel, it has all been "in vain." Israel refused to let the trials sent by God separate it from its wickedness, and as such, God had no choice but to reject what would not be purified.

This is where I believe our nation stands today, as liquid silver in the crucible of the heavenly refiner.  Every Supreme Court decision, every election of a public official, every citizen's choice to uphold or trample upon God's Word in his / her personal life---no matter how large or small these choices may seem, each one is a choice to submit to the refiner's fire or cling to impurities. 

Tuesday's presidential election is one of those choices. 

No matter the results, though, the prophet Zechariah speaks hope to those of us who have submitted to the refining process and allowed our hearts to be purified:

“And I will bring the third part through the fire,
Refine them as silver is refined,
And test them as gold is tested.
They will call on My name,
And I will answer them;
I will say, ‘They are My people,’And they will say, ‘The Lord is my God.’" (Zech. 13:9)

If we are breathing, we can choose to keep a death grip on our sin or let it go and be purified.  It is not too late.  Praise God, in Christ, there is hope.

Why Not Fifty Shades of Gray

My mother-in-law loves cats.  My father-in-law is a dog person.  

Like oil and water, the two simply don't mix.  They may appear to come together for a brief moment, but wait a few minutes, and they're back on their side of the beaker.

When Opa is working in one of the barns or taking his morning walk down the length of our quarter-mile driveway, his pack of five large dogs follows him away from the house, making room for Oma's seven cats to freely walk in the open without the fear of being chased (or worse).

Yet, as soon as the dogs return, the cats scatter, some high atop the red Dodge farm truck, some to the pump house, and others into the woods.  

Even though they've all lived on the same farm for years, they still can't co-exist together, at least not in such a great number.  It's always one or the other greeting me when I walk down, never both.

This is the image that came to mind when reading Ezekiel 8 this week, the chapter where God explains why His presence is leaving the temple in Jerusalem.

Even though "the glory of the God of Israel was there" still in the temple of Jerusalem, those left behind after the deportation and exile to Babylon hadn't learned their lesson.  Instead, they ignored God like never before, worshipping their own idols and defiling His holy sanctuary (v.4).

Ezekiel states, "Then He said to me, 'Son of man, raise your eyes now toward the north.' So I raised my eyes toward the north, and behold, to the north of the altar gate was this idol of jealousy at the entrance. And He said to me, 'Son of man, do you see what they are doing, the great abominations which the house of Israel are committing here, so that I would be far from My sanctuary?'" (v. 5-6). 

This idolatry, this sin was causing God to "be far from" His people.   

It wasn't a foreign power, not King Nebuchadnezzar and his mighty armies.  No.  Sin was expelling God from His holy sanctuary just as sure as sin expelled the people from the land of Israel.

Holiness simply cannot continually dwell in the presence of evil. 

In the rest of the chapter, God outlines the abominations of Israel.  There is an idol at the temple court's entrance, idols worshipped in secret, idols carved on the walls, women worshipping a false god, and even men turning their back on God's holy place to worship the sun in the temple's inner court.

This wasn't just one who had turned from God.  All had sinned.  All were worshipping other idols.

Yet, God saw what idols they had carved in their inner closets, those hidden behind secret panels that no one else could find.

God knew.  And God still knows today.

The sin that separated Him from His people back them still separates Him from you and me until we are covered by the blood of Christ.

His presence cannot reside where continual sin flourishes and thrives, unashamed, unchecked, unrepented.
 
Two chapters later, Ezekiel describes God slowly leaving the temple until "The glory of the LORD went up from the midst of the city and stood over the mountain which is east of the city" (Ez. 11:23).

That was it.  God's holy presence would no longer reside with sinful man until the time for Christ would be come.

Sin is that serious.  Even what we may rationalize away as "little white sins" are that divisive.

This side of the cross, Christ resides in the hearts and souls of men and women versus a physical temple.  Still, though, Paul repeatedly tells us in Romans that holiness and sin cannot dwell together.   We can either worship in spirit or in flesh, serve one master or another (Rom. 6).

If our lives are characterized by continuous sin and worship of anything that causes us to compromise God's holy standards, we need to really examine our hearts to see if we have ever truly repented and turned to serve Christ.  Yet, even if we are sealed by the Holy Spirit, continuous, unchecked sin in our lives can still divide us from the power of Christ within us.

It's time to look at our souls as oil or water, black or white, not fifty shades of gray.


Image: Cool science experiment found here. 

What Does a Watchman Really Do?

Thoughts of an old graduate school friend have consumed me of late.  He is the "one that got away," but not in the way you might think.

Of all my friends from that part of my life, he is the only one whom I spent hours with, having  serious, consistent conversations about God.  I stumbled over myself at every turn, and I knew it, but I never gave up hope, never stopped praying that one day, God would move his heart, help him get past the intellectual stonewall of rationalism and accept Christ and the Bible by faith.

It never happened.  

That was thirteen years ago.  And the state of his soul still haunts me like my shadow tall beside me each morning.

The last time my friend and I met for coffee, I was newly married, teaching, and putting my husband through law school.  I learned he had moved back from Chicago after a failed stint in film school and a failed long-term relationship.  His brother had recently died.  Suicide.  His sister was still absorbed in dance.

I cried after we parted that day.  All the old defenses, all the intellectual banter to keep me at a distance were still there.  Visiting with him was just so...sad. 

Wherever he is, he is in his early forties, closer each day to meeting his maker.  Every now and then, I still awake from a dream of rounding a corner and bumping into him again, of trying once more to share the love of Christ with him.  But it's only just a dream.

What do you do, then, when someone from your past burdens your heart? When you want more than anything to share Christ with them, but time, distance, or the unknown separate you?

And what of the Great Commission in Matthew 28 that tells us to "go and make disciples of all nations" (v. 19)?  Sometimes, the going is made impossible by responsibilities that keep us firmly planted here at our specific latitude and longitude.  What then!?

Are we still called to be God's watchmen who stand upon the wall?

In the book of Ezekiel, God reveals a great deal about being God's watchman, not "to the remotest part of the earth" where I tend to think is most important but "both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria" (Acts 1:8).

I'm speaking of being God's messenger at home. 

When God appointed Ezekiel as a watchman, He described one part of the prophet's job description: just speak: "Son of man, I have appointed you a watchman to the house of Israel; whenever you hear a word from My mouth, warn them from Me" (Ez. 3:17).

This doesn't sound anything out of the ordinary--to speak the Word of God, all the Word of God, leaving nothing out.  The prophet Jeremiah was admonished in the same way.

But then God goes further, explaining, "Moreover, I will make your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth so that you will be mute and cannot be a man who rebukes them, for they are a rebellious house.  But when I speak to you, I will open your mouth and you will say to them, 'Thus says the Lord GOD'" (Ez. 3:26-27).

Some scholars believe Ezekiel literally became a mute, unable to speak unless God placed words within his mouth.  If true, it's a poignant lesson for us about what we should say and not say--God's Word and His Word alone.

A few verses earlier, God gives a second job description: "He spoke with me and said to me, 'Go, shut yourself up in your house'" (Ez. 3:24).  GO HOME.

What?  Weren't watchmen to go out, stand on the highest wall, maybe wait for an audience, and then spill forth God's Word?  How else was Ezekiel to warn others if he was sitting at home!?

Yet, go home, Ezekiel went.  And the people began coming to him.  In chapter 8, Scripture records, "I was sitting in my house with the elders of Judah sitting beside me" (v. 1).  In chapter 14, Scripture says, "Then some elders of Israel came to me..." (v. 1).  And again, in chapter 20, "certain of the elders of Israel came to inquire of the Lord, and sat before me" (v. 1).

Again and again, God brings to Ezekiel those who need to hear the message.  God gives the Words. God opens Ezekiel's mouth.  All Ezekiel has to do is then speak.

Please understand that I'm not saying God doesn't expect us to share the gospel with the entire world.  Yet, sometimes, I think we get so caught up in the belief that we are only serving as good little watchmen for the Lord if we are spreading salt and light on foreign soil.  I think we get caught up in the belief that if we don't see thousands saved, we're doing a poor job.

Being a watchman means one thing--being God's messenger, sharing all the Word of God, both in and out of season, period.

Yes, it's antithetical to our American mentality of numbers, statistical analyses, and success at all costs, but if others won't listen, it matters not.  We cannot simply change the message to give it mass appeal.  A watchman is a messenger, not a savior. 

And if we are prohibited from going to those who need to hear, that fact does not inhibit God in the least.  God can and will bring them to us.

You and I who are in Christ must believe that.  We must start perceiving ourselves as important watchmen in our own Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria--our city, our state, our country.

Considering the reach of the Internet, radio, and television in our present time, being a watchman at home may be more important than ever before.

There's no telling what God can accomplish through you...all from your own doorstep.

The Dangers of Ear Tickling

We've all seen them on television, read about them on the Internet, perhaps even sat on a pew under their tutelage.  Whatever the circumstance, there is never a shortage of eccentric people claiming to be God's mouthpiece.

Some achieve notoriety, warning that the end of the world is coming on such and such a date.  Then, there are those self-appointed prophets who either twist the Word of God beyond recognition or lay it on the chopping block, choosing a positive self-help gospel of love and peace while discarding those hard passages that are perceived as "not pertaining to modern society" or just too judgmental.

Although many find humor in the ridiculousness of some of the prophesies, a false word of God is nothing to laugh about.

In the book of Ezekiel, God condemns Israel's false prophets for leading a nation of exiles astray.  The prophets would "prophesy from their own inspiration," saying "Listen to the word of the Lord!"; yet, it would be their own words, not God's, that would flow forth (Ez. 13:2).

Nobody wanted to hear of a seventy year exile.  Nobody wanted to hear about repentance and having to deny their flesh to change their hearts.  So, these prophesies chose to tickle the people's ears,weaving false words of hope and the quick restoration of Israel to her homeland. 

While it may initially seem almost harmless for these men and women to speak a false prophecy that would not come true, nothing could be further from the truth.

Ezekiel gives two reasons why false prophecies are so destructive.  First, he says, "You [prophets] have not gone up into the breaches, nor did you build the wall around the house of Israel to stand in the battle on the day of the LORD" (Ez. 13:5).

Simply put--God's prophets did not stand in the "breaches," the gaps in the spiritual wall surrounding Israel's people.  They failed to protect Israel, failed to fill in those gaps with the truth of God's Word and, thus, "build a wall," thereby shoring up the spiritual defenses the Israelites needed to face God's judgment to come.

Instead, the false prophets plastered over those gaps in the people's spiritual defenses with pretty whitewashed falsehoods of peace, hope, and a quick end to their sufferings.  The problem was that when the floods of God's wrath would come, the gaps would again be revealed, exposing how unprotected God's people truly were (Ez. 13:10-13).

The only way to prepare God's people for His judgement was by preparing their hearts, strengthening their spiritual defenses.  To accomplish this preparation, the people first needed to repent of their sin and accept the justice of God's judgment.  Yet, the prophets failed to encourage repentance.

As such, Ezekiel condemns them because they "have encouraged the wicked not to turn from his wicked way and preserve his life" (Ez. 13:22).  Without being presented with the truth of God, the wicked saw no need to repent and continued in their sin, which led to their eternal death.

While the prophet's falsehoods were devastating for the wicked, Ezekiel also states they were devastating for the righteous as well, condemning the prophets "Because you disheartened the righteous with falsehood when I did not cause him grief" (Ez. 13:22).

God's truth, then, is needed both for the unrighteous and the righteous.  

While we may want to discard these passages with the thought that prophets are merely those who look into the future, who receive visions or special revelation from the Lord, the various definitions of prophet imply that a modern-day prophet can be anyone who claims to speak for God, anyone who claims to proclaim the truths of God.

In the New Testament, Paul charged Timothy to "preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry" (2 Tim. 4:2-5).

From Ezekiel's day through the time of Jesus until now--people would rather hear messages that are encouraging versus ones that ask them to examine their own lives and turn from their sin.  The time period may be different, but human nature remains unchanged.

This is why we Christians must be so very careful in what we attribute to God, in how we use Scripture from God's Holy Bible. Otherwise, we, too, can be guilty of not preparing the people for God's wrath to come so they don't feel a need to repent and of discouraging the righteous.  

He's looking for just one person to stand firm.  For you, for me...to speak the truth of His word in and out of season.  To speak the truth of His word in love even if it's not politically correct, even if it costs us our lives.

May God not say of our world what He said of Israel: "I searched for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand in the gap before Me for the land, so that I would not destroy it; but I found no one" (22:30).

We must expose the falsehoods that exist in our culture, find the places where the gospel is needed, and stand there in the gap with the truth of God's word.



Image: C. Jeremy Price on Flick'r

Can America Learn from Israel's Mistakes?

Despite its economic woes over the past few years, America still ranks among the top ten wealthiest countries in the world.
Honestly? It's what Americans expect--to be the most powerful, the wealthiest, the most innovative. Even when the outlook looks dim, there always seems to be an underlying belief that things are destined to get better over time..."because this is America, the greatest nation in the world."

It wasn't too many thousands of years ago that another nation felt the same as many Americans--blessed, better than everyone else, undefeatable .

In the days of King Solomon, Israel was at the top of its game in terms of its economy, size, and military might. Scripture records that "all the kings of the earth were seeking the presence of Solomon, to hear his wisdom which God had put in his heart" (2 Chron. 9:23). With each visit, the foreigners added to Israel's wealth so that by the end of his opulent reign, "The king made silver as common as stones in Jerusalem, and he made cedars as plentiful as sycamore trees that are in the lowland" (2 Chron. 9:27).

God had blessed Israel beyond its wildest dreams, transforming the descendants of Egyptian slaves who had wandered aimlessly in the desert for forty years into the most powerful nation on earth.  

Through the prophet Ezekiel, God described all He had done to bless Israel as a nation: "I wrapped you with fine linen and covered you with silk. I adorned you with ornaments, put bracelets on your hands and a necklace around your neck. I also put a ring in your nostril, earrings in your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. Thus you were adorned with gold and silver, and your dress was of fine linen, silk and embroidered cloth. You ate fine flour, honey and oil; so you were exceedingly beautiful and advanced to royalty. Then your fame went forth among the nations on account of your beauty, for it was perfect because of My splendor which I bestowed on you" (Ez. 16:10-14).

Yet, the nation of Israel disregarded God's laws, "played the harlot" by worshiping other gods.  To add insult to injury, Israel used all those blessings God had given it to create idols: "You also took your beautiful jewels made of My gold and of My silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself male images that you might play the harlot with them.  Then you took your embroidered cloth and covered them, and offered My oil and My incense before them.  Also My bread which I gave you, fine flour, oil and honey with which I fed you, you would offer before them" (Ez. 16:17-19).

God repeats the word "My" throughout the passage to emphasize the fact that all the nation's wealth had come from Him.  Yet, all the gold, silver, cloth, oil and decadent foods--Israel used it to court not only the favor of false gods but to also court the favor of pagan countries like the Egyptians, Philistines, and Assyrians (v. 26-28).

A powerful, wealthy nation did not give God thanks for the blessings, but rather used those gifts for its own evil, wicked purposes as it turned its face almost entirely away from God--sound familiar?

History records that the Israelites did not repent and turn back to God.  Instead, they continued to think because they were God's chosen people, He would never turn His back on them.  Even when His blessings began to dry up like a raisin in the sun, they still believed they were immune from His judgment--because they were citizens of Israel, God's chosen nation, which made them the greatest--right?

Wrong.  God warned Israel time and time again that He would judge them for their worship of false idols, for their ingratitude, for their breaking of His holy law.  He warned He would "give you [Israel] into the hands of your lovers [the nations], and they will tear down your shrines...strip you of your clothing, take away your jewels, and will leave you naked and bare...they will stone you and cut you to pieces with their swords...They will burn your houses with fire" (Ez. 16:39,41).

Not too many years later, God did just that, giving Israel into the hands of its enemies, which stripped the nation of its wealth, massacred its citizens, and burned the city of Jerusalem with fire. 

As the old saying goes, "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it."  

America must not believe itself insulated from God's wrath just because it has received God's blessings all these years.  Instead, it must seek to learn from Israel's mistakes.  If not, it, too, will be doomed to walk this same road, repeating the mistakes of the too many proud nations that have come before us.

Before We Point Another Finger...

The government, the Democrats, the Republicans, Wall Street, Roe vs. Wade, our public school system, Feminism, divorce, materialism--

If I were to ask you what's wrong with our planet, would it be hard to point your finger at one or more of these as the root of all moral decline?

Or maybe it's something else you see when you turn on the 10:00 news, read a newspaper, or better yet, just take a walk through your neighborhood.

Most of us need not even open our eyes to find something, someone who would meet the qualifications of an abomination in Scripture. We Christians?  We're really good at finger pointing.

Still, you and I might shamefully yank our hands back to our sides if we truly understand how God's judgment works.

God's condemnation of sin?  His judgment?

It starts with His own people.

Scripture records the prophet Ezekiel's vision of God's coming destruction of evil.  Since Ezekiel and thousands of Israelites were living in exile in pagan Babylon at the time, one might expect God to be pointing His finger at King Nebuchadnezzar and that whole bunch of murderous idol worshipers who were mistreating God's chosen people, defiling His holy temple, and mocking His holy name.

Yet, that's not what happens.

Instead, after having a "man clothed in linen" "put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations which are being committed in [Jerusalem's] midst," He tells His executioners, "Utterly slay old men, young men, maidens, little children, and women, but do not touch any man on whom is the mark; and you shall start from My sanctuary.' So they started with the elders who were before the temple" (Ez. 9:4, 6).

Here, God's judgment starts in His holy city of Jerusalem. At His temple. With His chosen people.

God restates this concept in the New Testament when the apostle Peter says, "For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God" (1 Pet. 4:17).

Judgment of sin starts at the house of God.

Judgment of sin starts with the people of God.

What's even more condemning of a Christians's finger-pointing attitude is John's inaugural vision in the book of Revelation, a book that is often used on street corners to tout God's coming judgment of this whole sinful world. 

But before God describes all the woes coming upon the earth? Before He gives us a vision of the the final judgment and of unsaved being dragged down into an eternal pit of fire?

Like Ezekiel, he starts with God's people, the temple of God represented by the church: "I saw seven golden lampstands; and in the middle of the lampstands I saw one like a son of man" (Rev. 1:12-13).  Just so we don't miss the lampstand reference, John clearly states the "the seven lampstands are the seven churches" (Rev. 1:20).

What follows is two chapters chock full of both praise and condemnation of God's church for not being the pure, holy, passionate light to the world that God has called it to be.

Do you see the pattern?

All these passages show that God doesn't first point His holy finger at your unsaved neighbor, at the masses living a flagrantly sinful life.  Instead, He is pointing His finger at Christians like you and me in an attempt to purify us of all sin so that we can glorify Him as a light in the surrounding darkness.
 
Judgment begins at the house of the Lord, with the people of God.

So, before we wave that index finger too boldly, we must first look to God's word to see what finger He may be pointing at each of us. 



Image: Sculpture in Brisbane, Australia

Hope for the Unemployed

I've been there before, just another number among the ranks of the unemployed.

Even without children depending on me for their daily bread, it was a frightening place to be, a valley of indecision where I questioned every decision I had made thus far in my life.

How did I get here?  Had I missed God's calling on my life?  Did I make a wrong turn somewhere?

But no matter how many times I replayed a lifetime of videos in my head, I always came to the same conclusion--I knew I had followed God's will to this place.  So why was I here?

Years later, I asked the same question when husband lost not merely his job but his career.  I continue to ask the same question when I see friends and family without a job not for just a few months, but for years.

Why, Lord?

The pages of Ezekiel give a glimpse of one man who lost much more than one job.  He lost it all.

Scripture reads, "Now it came about in the thirtieth year, on the fifth day of the fourth month, while I was by the river Chebar among the exiles, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God....the word of the LORD came expressly to Ezekiel the priest, son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar; and there the hand of the LORD came upon him" (Ez. 1:1-3).

In this short passage, we learn Ezekiel was a "priest" from the tribe of Levi, which had been set aside by God to serve Him forever in His holy place.

To serve in the temple was Ezekiel's career, something he would have been trained to do since birth.  This was also Ezekiel's birthright, since a Levite was not given a portion of the promised land.  God was His portion.

But there was no temple to serve in.  It had been destroyed by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon.  Even if there had been a temple to serve in, Ezekiel was a prisoner living in exile.

In what must have seemed like an instant, Ezekiel was left with no lands, no inheritance, no temple, no career, no avenue of service.  

The earlier Scripture also references the "thirtieth year," which many scholars believe to have been Ezekiel's age.  Such an interpretation would coincide with the Old Testament rules about Levites starting to serve in the temple "from thirty years and upward, even to fifty years old" (Num. 4:3).

One can just imagine how Ezekiel felt.  He had finally achieved the age he dreamed about his entire life--the age when he could stop learning about being a priest and start being a priest, when he could  stop watching others from the sidelines and start serving in his own right.

Now, though, he was displaced, jobless, career-less, a prisoner, homeless, and all with a wife to support in a foreign land.   But although Ezekiel may have thought he could no longer serve God, none of these human factors stopped God from using Ezekiel.

When all seemed lost, Jesus came to Ezekiel: "on that which resembled a throne, high up, was a figure with the appearance of a man....there was a radiance around Him. As the appearance of the rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the appearance of the surrounding radiance.  Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. And when I saw it, I fell on my face" (Ez. 1:26-28).

God had a job for Ezekiel to do, an avenue of service--not the career Ezekiel expected for himself, but one God set before him anyway.

Had Ezekiel been serving comfortably in Jerusalem, he may not have been as open to God's career-change from respected priest to hated prophet.

These words should bring hope to the many who have lost their jobs, who have lost their careers.

You are not forgotten to God.  He still has a plan for your future.

It may not be in the job field you trained in.  It may not even be in a field you've ever considered.  Yet, sometimes, it takes losing it all for Jesus to show Himself to us in His glory like He did with Ezekiel.

A drastic, less-than-desired change, yes, but oh the glory He reveals to those of us who keep looking up through the trial.