SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/28/2014
9:19 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Accepting the Burden of the Lord PT-1
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ezekiel
2:1-2
Message of the
verses: We have now moved into the
second chapter of Ezekiel and also the second main point as we follow the
outline of Warren Wiersbe’s commentary on Ezekiel. There are four sub-points under this second
main point and we will look at the first one in today’s SD. We will first do a brief introduction to this
main point.
I am sometimes amazed at the timing of the Lord and how
wonderful and perfect it is for my life.
A few months ago I became burdened with our neighborhood and their need
for the Lord and so it seemed to me that God was pulling at the strings of my
heart to begin a Bible Study on the end times and so I wrote a short letter and
passed out twenty of them around our neighborhood choosing to have the first
study on the 28th of October, which is today. I have been praying that the Lord will bring
the people to this Bible study that He wants there. You see that a couple of years ago I prayed
that I will learn contentment in my life, but it seems the one thing that causes
me not to have contentment is the location where I live, and have lived all of
my life, but God burdened me for my neighbors and this is much more important
than just picking up and leaving my neighborhood just to be happier, but not
fulfilled. Now today in my Spiritual
Diary as I read about the commission of the prophet Ezekiel, and read the
introduction to this portion of Scripture that we will be looking at for the
next four days my heart rejoices over the timing of God to show me that what I
am doing is what God wants me to do. Dr.
Wiersbe writes “Ezekiel was now to receive his official commission as a prophet
of the Lord God, and the Lord told him he was facing a very difficult
task. Whether it’s raising a family,
teaching a Sunday School class, shepherding a church or evangelizing in a
distant nation, we have to accept people as they are before we can lead them to
what God wants them to be. God gave
Ezekiel four important commandments to obey.”
Now I am not saying that I am being commissioned as a prophet, but I am
doing what I believe God wants me to do, and I am finding contentment in doing
this.
Stand and listen (Ezekiel 2:1-2): “1 Then He said to me,
"Son of man, stand on your feet that I may speak with you!" 2 As He
spoke to me the Spirit entered me and set me on my feet; and I heard Him
speaking to me.”
From looking at the book of Ezekiel before and reading it
at least a half-dozen times I know that God calls him “son of man” but did not
realize that we will see this title 93 times as we go through this book.
Remember that Ezekiel was overwhelmed at the glory of the
Lord and had fallen on his face, which is where we left him in our last SD, but
now God tells him to stand up in this first verse of chapter two and so he has
the strength given to him by the Lord to stand up. Now it was almost ten years ago that I was
doing another end times Bible study in our home and the Lord blessed it beyond
measure as eventually there were over twenty people come to know the Lord
through this study. It was a week before
Thanksgiving on a Wednesday morning that I was awakened around four AM and I
know that the Lord was speaking to my heart and what He was saying to my heart
that it was not me who caused the people in our Bible Study to get saved, but
Him. I don’t remember exactly how many
who had gotten saved by this time, but at least five people. I am not a person who wants to go by “feelings”
but I have never felt like this before in my life as I was weak and crying
before the Lord, so much so that my wife even noticed it. Again I am not saying that what I felt was
like what Ezekiel felt when he saw the glory of the Lord, but I know that God
was speaking to my heart at that time ten years ago, and I will never forget
that as long as I live. My prayer is
that God will do another work through this Bible study that we begin this evening
that God will send people to it that He through His Spirit will call to
salvation.
By the way “son of man” is a messianic title and was also
given to Daniel in Daniel 8:17. The Lord
Jesus also applied this name to Himself over eighty times as seen in the
Gospels. Dr. Wiersbe points out that “in
the case of Daniel and Ezekiel, the title ‘son of man’ emphasized their
humanity and mortality. Ezekiel was
facedown in the dust when God spoke to him, reminding him and us of mankind’s
humble beginning in the dust (Gen. 1:26; 3:19).
‘For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust’ (Ps. 103:14
NKJV). God remembers but sometimes we
forget.”
God reminded Joshua that there was a time to fall down
and a time to rise up. “6 Then Joshua
tore his clothes and fell to the earth on his face before the ark of the LORD
until the evening, both he and the elders of Israel; and they put dust on their
heads. 7 Joshua said, "Alas, O Lord GOD, why did You ever bring this
people over the Jordan, only to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to
destroy us? If only we had been willing to dwell beyond the Jordan! 8 “O Lord,
what can I say since Israel has turned their back before their enemies? 9
"For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land will hear of it,
and they will surround us and cut off our name from the earth. And what will
You do for Your great name?" 10 So
the LORD said to Joshua, "Rise up! Why is it that you have fallen on your
face? 11 “Israel has sinned, and they have also transgressed My covenant which
I commanded them. And they have even taken some of the things under the ban and
have both stolen and deceived. Moreover, they have also put them among their
own things (Joshua 7:6-12).” It was now
time for Ezekiel to stand up and to do the work that God had for him to
do. We will see as we go through this
book that the Spirit of God will need to lift him up in order for him to
accomplish the things that He has for him to do.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: I pray that God
will bring the people to our Bible study that He wants there and that He will
lift me up with the words that He wants me to speak to those who He draws to
our study.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust that the Lord will bless our Bible
study.
Memory verses for the
week: Colossians 3:8-11.
8 But now you also, put
them all aside: anger, wrath, malice,
slander, and abusive speech from your mouth.
9 Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its
evil practices; 10 and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true
knowledge according to the image of the One who created him—11 a renewal in
which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and
uncircumcised, barbarian and Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all,
and in all.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
Question: “John Mark” (Acts 15:37-38).
Today’s Bible
question: “Which book records an army of
185,000 men destroyed in one night?”
Answer in our next SD.
10/28/2014 10:26 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment