10/10/2007
Ezekiel 11:17 - 21 (HCSB)
17“Therefore say: This is what the Lord GOD says: I will gather you from the peoples and assemble you from the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel. 18“When they arrive there, they will remove all its detestable things and all its abominations from it. 19And I will give them one heart and put a new spirit within them; I will remove their heart of stone from their bodies and give them a heart of flesh, 20so they may follow My statutes, keep My ordinances, and practice them. Then they will be My people, and I will be their God. 21But as for those whose hearts pursue their desire for detestable things and abominations, I will bring their actions down on their own heads.” ëThis isû the declaration of the Lord GOD.
By the time Ezekiel receives this vision, Israel is in exile. Many believe they will soon return to their homes and lives in Israel, but Ezekiel has been warned that this will not be the case. Jerusalem will be sacked and the temple completely burned down. It is, as if the city were being purged completely.
Yet this message comes in the midst of the message of judgment against Israel.
Note that when God shows his favor on us, we have the obligation to “remove all detestable things” from our lives. In Ezekiel’s time, this specifically meant idols and altars to false gods. But we likewise have detestable things in our lives; perhaps not physical idols or physical altars, but if we harbor any ideas about God that are not true, or if we place ourselves at the helm of our own lives, then we have set up virtual idols and altars.
God’s desire is that we respond to him by keeping his statues and ordinances, and practice them – not just because they are there, but because we want to keep him as our God. In response to this, God declares: “I will be their God and they will be My people.”
What a wonderful thing it is, to be claimed by God as His people. We are not merely people here that God knows about—or people that he merely acknowledges, but we are a people He claims as His own.
Jeff Justus
Cleff Publishing
www.cleffpublishing.com
©2007 Cleff Publishing, all rights reserved.
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