Lord, Help Us Be Your People
Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers and those who step in as fathers as guides, nurturers and encouragers of the young people around them. God bless you! You know, it’s reunion season and a common question that gets asked at family reunions is “whose child are you?”. The answer to that question is important because it tells people something about you… good or bad! In Ezekiel 37:21-28, God told Israel that they were still His children, and He planned to give them good things. He would restore them into the blessed and covenant people He intended them to be. Instead of the idols they had worshipped, He alone would be their God, and they would be His people. And He would dwell among them forever in peace, in the place that He promised their ancestors. What a beautiful promise from our Father to His children! Father, our prayer right now is that we will remove anything that we have put ahead of you. We seek you alone to be our God. Father, help us to be your people! Amen
and say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I will take the Israelites out of the nations where they have gone. I will gather them from all around and bring them back into their own land. I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel. There will be one king over all of them and they will never again be two nations or be divided into two kingdoms. They will no longer defile themselves with their idols and vile images or with any of their offenses, for I will save them from all their sinful backsliding, and I will cleanse them. They will be my people, and I will be their God. (Ezekiel 37:21-23) Israel had turned away from God, been divided, scattered and taken into captivity away from the land that God had promised to their ancestors. They were living under the oppression of foreign kings. They felt that God had turned His back on them. So God told Ezekiel to prophesy to His people so that they would know that He planned to restore them to a great future. His plans for them were to (1) gather all the tribes of Israel from whatever nations they have been scattered across, (2) eliminate all their divisions and restore unity among them, (3) purify them so that they no longer worshipped idols and (4) establish one true king over them. Then, God would fully restore their relationship to Him. They would once again be God’s people and He would be their God!
“‘My servant David will be king over them, and they will all have one shepherd. They will follow my laws and be careful to keep my decrees. They will live in the land I gave to my servant Jacob, the land where your ancestors lived. They and their children and their children’s children will live there forever, and David my servant will be their prince forever. I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant. I will establish them and increase their numbers, and I will put my sanctuary among them forever. My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God, and they will be my people. Then the nations will know that I the LORD make Israel holy, when my sanctuary is among them forever. ’”. (Ezekiel 37:24-28) The prophesy that God gave Ezekiel to tell His people looked forward beyond the return of the captives from Babylonian captivity. The prophesy looked to the time where Jesus would reign. At that time, God’s people will live the way God intended them to live…in unity, in obedience, in covenant relationship, in peace and with God dwelling among them forever. The prophesy again repeats the end state that God promises not just Israel, but all who come to Him through faith in Jesus… “I will be their God, and they will be my people.”
Israel was living far from what God intended for them. Not just physically (captives in foreign lands) but spiritually (worshipping idols). As a result, they were living a lives with diminished hope. In fact many of them wondered if God had abandoned them. You may be feeling lost, alone, abandoned and as though God is far away. But He is still there calling you to draw closer to Him. In whatever way you can (through prayer, silence, service, meditation, fasting, etc.) seek Him in your moments of distress. Because God has always desired only one thing from His people… that He alone will be our God and that we will live like the kingdom people we are called to be, in the fullness of His blessings!
Blessings,
Rev. Glenn
