[DAY: 179] Ezekiel Chapter 10

👉 Being motivated to serve the Lord with zeal usually involves 2 factors:

1️⃣ A Picture of Who God is (what He is Like)
2️⃣ A Sense of God’s Purpose for Your Life.

⛓Judah is in captivity (conquered by Babylon);
⛓some Jews in Babylon (like Ezekiel), others still in Judah.

Why?
Sins of the people….wrath of God…
🔑So Ezekiel is being called by God to serve in rough, discouraging times…
🔑He’s being motivated to serve the Lord with zeal.

I. A Picture of Who God is, What He is Like

1. Ezekiel sees four cherubims (1-21)
   (1) What A Cherub is….see chapter 10:15.
   (2) The four faces….Man exalted above all creatures, eagle
   among birds, ox among domestic animals, lion among wild animals…
   (3) gyroscope like wheels with eyes: God sees all, is orderly and clear cut…
2. The Vision of God (22-29)
   1) an expanse (platform)–God separate from His creation…
   2) bright—light—holiness and purity (like a high temperature coal, etc.)
   3) rainbow–God is faithful to His promises (covenant with Noah)
3. Ezekiel’s response: to fall facedown (worship)
4. Few if any of us have experienced such a dramatic time with God.
   Have we ever taken the posture of a servant and said, “With your help, Lord, I’ll do what you want me to do?”
   If not, how about surrendering your will today?

II. A Sense of God’s Purpose for Your Life

1. After we come to submit to God, He empowers us with His Spirit (2)

📍If we have not surrendered ourselves to the Lord, the Spirit will not fill us.
📍When we sin, we grieve and quench the Holy Spirit in our lives…
📍So we need to repent and confess our sins, if we want to continue to experience the Spirit’s filling and power…

*2. God had a specific task for Ezekiel: *(2:1-5)
(1) To preach to Israel in exile….
(2) To address what needs to be said even if they are stubborn
(3) The success is measured in our faithfulness, not results!

3. God has specific tasks for us as well…
   HOW CAN WE FIND THOSE TASKS?
   ♥️LIFE LESSONS
   💥Few, if any, of us would claim God spoke to us in audible voices….

💥The Christian life is simple: growing in our walk with God and finding His purposes for our lives…

💥We have no pressure to change people against their own wills, we have no idea where God may lead us, but serving Him, whether pleasant or difficult, is what makes life the richest.

💥Are we willing to expend our energy to feed thirsting souls?
ARE WE WILLING TO SERVE THE KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS❓

Princess Hudson

Ezekiel: 8-12
Simple thoughts for💫
deeper meditation.

Ezekiel: 8: 12
”He said to me,” Son of man,
have you seen what the elders of Israel doing in the
darkness, each at the shrine of his own idol? They say,
“The Lord does not see us, the Lord has forsaken the land”

⚡ When small children play “hide and seek”, they sometimes believe they are hiding just by covering their eyes. They may say, “you can’t see me”. They assume, if they can’t see you, you can’t see them too.

⚡ The cats always close their eyes, when they drink
milk from the kitchen, when there will be nobody, thinking that because they close the eyes, nobody else can see them.

⚡ The prophet Ezekiel discovered this truth in the vision God gave him for his people, exiled in Babylon. The Lord told him, “Have you seen what the elders of Israel are doing in the darkness, each at the shrine of his own idol? They say,
“The Lord does not see us”

⚡ Like that, we sometimes do something similar with God. When we find ourselves desiring to do something we know is wrong, our tendency may be to shut God out as we willfully go our own way.

⚡ But God misses nothing, and Ezekiel’s vision was proof of it. Yet even though they had sinned, God offered his repentant people hope through a new promise: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you” (Eze: 36:26)

⚡ For us, God met the brokenness and rebellion of sin with His tender mercy at cross, paying the ultimate penalty for it.

🌈 Through Jesus Christ,
God not only offers us a new
beginning, but He also works within us to change
our hearts as he follow Him.
How good is God! When we
were lost and hiding in our
sinfulness, God drew near
through Jesus, who came to
seek and to save us.

Dr. Thomas David.🎯