Grains of Sand

Reading: Ezekiel 33-36 As is our nature, we believe that just about everything is all about us. To some extent that is true. Take, for example, this Biblical truth: Jesus died for our sins. Absolutely! That truth is certainly about us. Anyone who has had much experience with the church has memorized these famous lines: “ For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life ” (John 3:16, NV). God loves. He gives. He saves. That’s about us. But there is another factor here that comes into play. Behind the loving, the giving, the saving, is the glory of God. When the cycle of sin began in the Garden of Eden, God’s reputation was damaged. It wasn’t that He couldn’t have kept His Creation on the “straight and narrow.” He chose to give man the right to choose. But giving man that right to choose has always been viewed as a weakness in God. If He is God, He NEEDS to make people do what HE wants them to d...

Reading: 1 John 2 How can you tell when a person is a genuine believer? We all have our criteria, sometimes formed by what we want to believe about a person. This is especially true when it comes to those we love the most. John is fairly blunt about what the standard is, as was Jesus. He doesn’t claim that genuine believers are perfect. After all, he has just finished telling them that when they sin they can be assured that God will forgive when that sin is confessed (1 John 1:9). He begins chapter 2 with the same kind of idea. He acknowledges that believers sin, but the way he expresses himself leaves us with the feeling that he isn’t talking about habitual, deliberate sin. John writes: “ But if anyone does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One .” (2:1, NIV). John’s criteria for a true believer is obedience. If you believe in Jesus, you will try to place your feet in the marks left by His footprints. “ Whoever ...

Reading: Ezekiel 20-22; 1 John 1 The latter part of Ezekiel 22 always hits me hard. It’s not as though the message that the prophet delivers is any different from what he has said so many times before. It’s the statement at the end of the chapter that is so condemning. From verse 23 on, the word of the Lord that came to Ezekiel laid a heavy on the leaders of that time, and ours. The political leaders, the spiritual leaders, the public servants, all came in for their fair share of criticism. Nor did the common man-on-the-street escape being pointed out. Again the word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, say to the land, ‘You are a land that has had no rain or showers in the day of wrath. There is a conspiracy of her princes within her like a roaring lion tearing its prey; they devour people, take treasures and precious things and make many widows within her’” (22:23-25, NIV). Who makes the decision to go to war and who does the fighting and dying? ‘Her priests d...

Reading: Ezekiel 16-19, 2 Peter 3 For many years the hot topic of discussion among believers was the Second Coming of Christ. I still occasionally hear people refer to this or that event as being a “sign” of the end times. We’ve been waiting for a couple of thousand years for Jesus to return, but though that seems like a long time, the passage in 2 Peter 3 reminds us that: “ With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day ” (3:8, NIV). God isn’t in a hurry. 2 Peter 3 tells us that there were folks in Peter’s day who gave the young church a lot of grief because their Lord seemed to be taking His time at returning. Imagine what they would have said if they had lived in our time! Peter addresses the issue in this chapter, but he also explains why Jesus has delayed His return. Interestingly, the Old Testament passage in Ezekiel echoes what Peter says in the New Testament. “ The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understa...

Reading: Ezekiel 11-15 Poor Ezekiel was called upon to do some very strange things—a kind of living illustration of the judgment to come on God’s people. His message was not usually a pleasant one—as unpleasant as some of the drama he was instructed to perform to accompany it. But I was intrigued today by some verses from Ezekiel 14. The word of the Lord comes to Ezekiel and he is told to pronounce four judgments: sword, famine, wild beasts and plague. As each of the judgments is announced, the Almighty makes the statement that caught my attention. “ ’Son of man, if a country sins against me by being unfaithful and I stretch out my hand against it to cut off its food supply and send famine upon it and kill its men and their animals, even if these three men—Noah, Daniel and Job—were in it, they could save only themselves by their righteousness, declares the Sovereign Lord ” (Ezekiel 14:13, 14, NIV). Four times these three men are mentioned. There is a good supply ...

Reading: 2 Peter 1 “It’s a process,” I protest, “It takes time.” So you’ve had fifty years since you gave yourself to me. Practice doesn’t seem to be cutting it, does it? “But I’m only human,” I whine.   “You can’t expect me to be perfect.” No, I’m the only One Who’s perfect. But I gave you sufficient resources to have gotten better at imitating me by now. “It’s hard,” I reason. Of course it is. In fact, when you try to do it yourself, it’s impossible! “Sometimes it’s annoying to be surrounded by Someone who has all the answers.” Maybe if you paid attention to them…? “Did I miss something?” I’m going to forget you said that. But let’s not get sidetracked here. You’ve read, or heard someone preach on, 2 Peter 1:5-8 lots of times, right? But maybe that’s a problem. “How so?” Listen to it. I told Peter to say ‘…make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; a...

Reading: Jeremiah 36-39, James 5 This is another one of those times when the Old and New Testament readings assigned for today has curiously parallel thoughts. James carries the brunt of the message this morning. At the beginning of James 5, the writer warns his audience that taking advantage of poor, or of those over whom the rich have power, will not be tolerated. The consequences will be harsh. James writes: “ Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you ” (James 1:1, NIV). All that has been accumulated will be destroyed. It’s not because God doesn’t approve of people having money. It’s the injustice and inequality that bothers God to the extent that He uses harsh words and even harsher judgment against those who ignore what is right and just when it comes to the distribution of wealth. “ Look! The wages you have failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters h...