daily java

Daily Java:

Then he added, Son of man, let all my words sink deep into your own heart first. Listen to them carefully for yourself. Then go to your people in exile and say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says!’ Do this whether they listen to you or not.’ (Ezekiel 3:10-11))

Let all that I am praise the Lord. (Psalm 104:1)

These two verses were in my Bible reading today and I realized they were talking about the same thing.

When the Lord gave Ezekiel the message he wanted him to give to God’s people, he gave it to him in the form of a scroll and he told him to eat it, in fact, to fill his stomach with it. When Ezekiel did so, he said it was sweet as honey.

Then the Lord said, let all my words sink deep into your own heart. In other words, make what I have to give you not only fill your stomach, but also fill you life. When people see you, they will see me. When people hear you, they will hear me. When you speak, I speak.

And when he gives that message, he will be filled with the absolute power of God. It will be like Psalm 104 says: everything he is will praise the Lord.

That’s hard. It is hard to live your life in such a way that when people see you, they see God. It is hard to live your life with God so in charge that when people hear you speak, they hear God speak.

Ezekiel had a vital message for the people of God. His message was that God wanted them back. And if they came back to him, he would take them back just as he had before.

God’s people were in exile, as a conquered people. They had disobeyed God so much, had turned to idol-worship, to immorality, to everything in fact but God. Now they were a broken people, nobody, no longer a nation as such, just a ragtag bunch of vagabonds living in exile.

And God still loved them. He used Ezekiel to say, Come back home. Come back home to me, to your home with me. You are still welcome. I still love you.

He knew that within them was still his praise, that they were still his people even though they had turned from him.

But before Ezekiel could tell them all this, first he himself had to be filled with God’s message. First he had to be the incarnate praise of God himself, full of the Spirit, full of grace, full of love, full of God.

When he was, and only then, could he really tell them what God had to say. After all, how can you preach what you do not know? How can you tell what you do not understand.

We are his praise when we live our lives for him. And when we tell others about him, we show them that praise.

But first that praise has to sink deep into our own hearts. And then we tell.

The sad footnote, however, is that they will not listen. God knew it and Ezekiel knew it. But he went anyway.

So do we. After all, God loves us. And it is deep in our hearts.

daily java

Daily Java:

This is what the Lord said to me: “Go over and speak directly to the king of Judah. Say to him, ‘Listen to this message from the Lord, you king of Judah, sitting on David’s throne. Let your attendants and your people listen, too. This is what the Lord says: Be fair-minded and just. Do what is right! Help those who have been robbed; rescue them from their oppressors. Quit your evil deeds! Do not mistreat foreigners, orphans, and widows. Stop murdering the innocent!

(Jeremiah 22:1-3)Sometimes you have to just walk up to bad and confront it. You cannot live a ways off and do things hoping that the evil situation will change. There are times when you have to just come up and say: You need to change!

The Lord told the prophet Jeremiah to go to King Zedekiah, a king who was cruel and immoral, adulterous and idolatrous – one not unlike a lot of government people – and tell him he was doing wrong.

This was hard for Jeremiah. It is easy to write articles or preach sermons to the church or even go on radio or TV and say stuff. But God said, go to the man himself and say: quit doing things that are wrong. Start doing things that are right. Quit sinning and start doing what God wants you to do. Lead your country in the right direction. Don’t just issue edicts and all but sit around doing the exact opposite yourself.

In other words, wise up. Turn or burn. Do what God says and quit being stupid.

People in authority rarely want to hear those kind of things. They surround themselves with people who will not tell them what is wrong or what they are doing wrong. They usually only want to hear that they are doing fine. That is why so many politicians, actors, wealthy celebrities have so much trouble. All they listen to is yes men.

And when everyone around you tells you that you are fine, then you, if you are smart, know you are in trouble.

Jeremiah was not appreciated for his hands on approach to prophetic utterances. It would not have been nearly as unappreciated if he had even just stood in the street, or rented a hall, or wrote a series of “scathing articles.” Those the king could have ignored.

But the problem then was that the prophet of God had the right to come in and tell the king stuff. And it was very rarely good stuff because most of the kings fell in this trap of only listening to yes men. Since they did that, they were almost always corrupt because they ended up doing what was right in their own eyes.

And they hated someone who didn’t say yes. Just like they do today.

Nobody likes to be told they are wrong. But sometimes we have to. Sometimes we have to speak up in a situation and say, No! This cannot go on. This is wrong.

Until we as Christians do so, our nation will continue to falter and founder in its own sin, just like Judah did them.

being suddenly noticed

I was sitting there in my chair and suddenly Ella’s cat looked at me. It was kind of strange. He (Mordecai was his name. He is gone now) was lying on the couch when he suddenly sat up and looked at me.

That is an odd moment of communication. Especially since I do not know what he was communicating. But I really saw him for a moment and we connected.

Maybe he wanted some milk. He could drink a lot if we gave it to him, but then so can I. Maybe he thought of something, except what a cat would think of with that clarity of perception, I cannot imagine.

Whatever it was he wanted, in a minute something else caught his attention and he went to do something else.

Sudden moments of being noticed are strange. It is like when you are walking down the street and there is a person looking at you, or watching your car. When someone is watching my car drive by, my first thought is something is wrong with the car. Sometimes I will even get out and walk around it looking.

I suppose they were just taken with the handsome man in the gold van. Yeah, that’s probably it.

If they are looking at me and smiling, it always bothers me. I tend to want to check my fly.

Things like that happen in a spiritual sense sometimes too. In Isaiah 6, the prophet Isaiah was standing around when suddenly the Lord appeared to him and Isaiah saw his glory, along with a lot of the heavenly glory.

Quite a startlement to Isaiah. The last thing he expected that day was the notice of God. And the Lord gave him his commission and told him he would probably fail at it because no one would listen anyway. The problem would be, no one would connect with him. Even though he spoke for the Lord.

Now mind you, I am not comparing my wife’s cat, Mordecai, to Isaiah. But still. It is funny sometimes when you see something so strong in something so daily and commonplace.

When God looks at us, we want to notice it. When he speaks to us, we need to listen. When he tells us what he wants us to do, we obey.

It would truly be a shame to miss an opportunity to receive something great from God because we were not paying attention.