246 - "What Do I Mourn More Than Distance from God?" Ezekiel 10-13

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God stretched out what looked like a hand and took me by the hair of my head. The Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and in visions of God. Ezekiel 8:3.  God beheld his servant, the precious Ezekiel.  Before the elders.  And he brought this glorious friend to Jerusalem in spirit.  That he might show this holy man what sin looked like to Him.  Oh!  That we may see our own sin this day. Make me more aware of what lurks within and without.  

Look at the beautiful words God gave Ezekiel.
God's Gospel promises to give us all a new heart and a new spirit. Ezekiel 11:19.
Matthew Henry says it this way: God puts a new spirit within us, a temper of mind agreeable to the new circumstances into which God, in His Providence, will bring us. 
Undivided hearts.  Unattached hearts.  Unbelievable.

Ezekiel 10:1 - The Temple was filled with the Presence of God.Ezekiel 12:1 - God's Message came to me: "Son of man, you're living with a bunch of rebellious people. They have eyes but don't see a thing, they have ears but don't hear a thing.

God's Message: 'You'll eat your meals shaking in your boots and drink your water in terror because your land is going to be stripped bare as punishment for the brutality rampant in it. ... Then you'll realize that I am God.'" 
  
Time's about up.  ""Your hand has been over your eyes.  It belongs over your mouth." 66 LL.  I stand silenced before a holy God for 4 reasons seen in the Vision that I read about in 66 LL:

1. The idol of Jealousy - desire to feel loved, to enjoy good relationships, to be affirmed, to see yourself as worthy of respect and entitled to a pleasant life.  These desires become your idol of jealousy when they rule your life.

2.  The idol of Appreciation - when you, in the secret place of your heart, want something more than My Pleasure, the power of your flesh is turned loose.

3.  The idol of Self-interest -  when self obsession sinks its way into my conversations.  When you value anything above Me, when self interest rules your life, you feel only your desires for what is available in this world:  good health, warm relationships, fulfilling work and you assume it is my job to satisfy those desires.  

4.  The idol of false hope.  exchanging true hope for false hope when you turn from Me to enjoy the smug satisfaction of superiority.

Do I mourn at the failure of my spouse to love me well or the failure of my ministry to affirm my gifts and calling or the failure of my friends to appreciate me----do I mourn that MORE than I mourn distance from God?

Startling Note: Beth Moore came up to me at a conference and said: God has pulled you by the hair of your head out of your church and moved you on. She really knew very little of the story.

PHOTO:  Between the mountaintops and the valleys where we live every single day.  There.  Present.  Alive.  Known.  Accountable.  Repentant.  Alive.  Grasped.  Surrendered.  Between the mountaintops and valleys.  Every single day.  Present wherever God has yanked you from.

245 - "God Quickens Dead Hearts" Ezekiel 5-9

                              

Ezekiel 5:7 God, the Master, says:   You've been more headstrong and willful than any of the nations around you.  ...  I'm going to do something to you that I've never done before and will never do again: turn families into cannibals—parents eating children, children eating parents! ...  . Then you'll know that I was serious about this that I'm a jealous God and not to be trifled with.  Epidemic disease, unrestrained murder, death—and I will have sent it! I, God, have spoken." 

Ezekiel 6:8  Every place where you've lived, the towns will be torn down and the pagan shrines demolished. Corpses everywhere you look! Then you'll know that I am God. ... This is what God, the Master, says: Clap your hands, stamp your feet, yell out, "No, no, no!" because of all the evil obscenities rife in Israel. They're going to be killed, dying of hunger, dying of disease—death everywhere you look.  Because I am angry, furiously angry. They'll realize that I am God...

Ezekiel 7:2 The end of business as usual for everyone. It's all over. I'll make you pay and you'll realize that I am God.' It is I, God, Who have hit you. 

Ezekiel 8: 1 In the sixth year, in the sixth month and the fifth day, while I was sitting at home meeting with the leaders of Judah, it happened that the hand of my Master, God, gripped me.  HE said: "They can shout all they want, but I'm not listening."

So, am I listening to God where I am this day?  I wonder what is happening in the Unseen World of our United States of America?  The Unseen World of the Brandon household?    If we could really see and listen, we would be filled with such hope and courage.  But, this is frightening.  The people of Ezekiel's day never realized that God was God.  God made them pay.  We must ask every question that comes to mind as we read the horror of what God did to make these people cannibals.  So what is God's response?  I hit them with this terror for not listening to Me.  What will He do to our family and friends this day who choose not to follow Him?  All I know is that we must first look within and pay whatever price to follow Him and tremble before a Holy God and learn so much more to wait in our emptiness for His Plan A.  "Only those who struggle in confusion and wait in hope will be strengthened to struggle well and to wait with confidence."  66 LL.  Isaiah 30:15.

This is what the Sovereign Lord says.  Ezekiel 5:5.
He wants each of us to know that He is God.
And that life is not found in the multitude of opinion, people, things.
Not found in the strength of a man; nor in the power to do spiritually good.

Regeneration is the will of God, not the will of man.

God quickens dead hearts. 

God enlightens dark places.
By His Spirit.  By His Word.
This is what the Sovereign Lord says.

PHOTO: Snapped in Israel, where God wanted them to know that He is God.