By: Laurie Ousley, ND, CNH
Ezekiel 36:24-28
" Then the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Sovereign Lord, when I show myself holy through you before their eyes. For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all you impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. You will live in the land I gave your forefathers; you will be my people, and I will be your God."
Although Ezekiel wrote this to the Israelites thousands of years ago, it still has an important messages for us today.
1- God promises that He will show Himself holy to the nations (those who do not believe) by His working in us. We are to demonstrate the love of God and all that He is to those around us - we are to be His tools.
2- He will remove us from all the countries and bring us home, cleansing us from impurity and idol worship. Although we live in this world, He will teach us how to not let the world live in us - if we let Him. He will teach us the things that separate us from Him (our idols) that we may choose to keep Him first in our lives and allow Him to rid us of those idols.
3- He will give us a new heart and a new spirit. We will be changed, by the love of God, to people of compassion, love, gentleness and patience.
4- We will be filled with the Holy Spirit and through the Spirit we will have power to submit ourselves and surrender our will to that of God.
God has promised so many rich blessings to us, more than we could ever imagine. He wants the best for us, His chosen people. Ask Him today to bless you in whatever way He desires, wherever He sees a need and then sit back and be blessed beyond expectation. He is just waiting for the chance to give you all He has in store.
In His Service,
Laurie
Go on to: An Opportunity to Turn Tragedy into Triumph (9-11)
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Return to: Christian Living Articles
The
purpose of this series is to encourage people to live as loving, compassionate,
and peacemaking children of God: Jesus tells us to pray, "Thy kingdom come, thy
will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." (Matthew 6:10) God tells us through
Micah (6:8), "He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord
require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your
God." And we know from Revelation 21:4 that there will be no more mourning, or
crying, or pain, or death. Thus, Christian living requires us to set the
standards of these conditions here on earth for our fellow human beings, and for
the other animals, as a witness to the rest of the world. To do otherwise is not
Christian.