At Christmas, Christians celebrate the One referred to by the prophets as King of all kings, upon whose shoulders rests the government of the world. Grandchildren are all the reason I need to pray for the future of our country and its leaders and the world and her rulers. I know that the One who is sovereign moves the powers of the world, believer and nonbeliever alike, and there is such peace in recognizing that the completion and perfecting of God’s plan does not rely on human cooperation. Do we know our own history well enough to lament our fall and to pray with the passion of the Old Testament prophets?
In my own quiet time sitting at Jesus’s feet, I’ve been reading through the major prophets, Psalms, and Paul’s letters. I’m currently beginning Ezekiel, a contemporary of Jeremiah. We find Ezekiel in Babylon during the captivity of Israel while Jeremiah remained in Jerusalem until Judah fell. Commentary accompanying my reading mentions our tendency to skim these lengthy books, either from the overabundance of detail or the repetitive nature of these overlapping scriptures.
This year, I’ve tried listening to the scriptures read aloud while also following along with my eyes. I’ve never had trouble multitasking nor do I usually struggle with attention deficit, but let me tell you, when I dig into my Bible, my thoughts go everywhere! We have an enemy, you know. He made the fatal mistake of trying to usurp God’s glory and authority for himself and he stands condemned. He prowls around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour because he cannot reverse his eternal fate and the only satisfaction he will enjoy until his time is up is attempting to frustrate God’s desire to save all who will believe.
“But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day.
The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise (to return), as some people think.
No, he is being patient for your sake.
He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent.
But the day of the Lord will come as unexpectedly as a thief.
Then the heavens will pass away with a terrible noise, and the very elements themselves will disappear in fire, and the earth and everything on it will be found to deserve judgment.”
2 Peter 3:8-10 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/2pe.3.8-10.NLT
Are you tired of his attacks?
Are you done being played?
Are you ready to seek first God’s kingdom and His righteousness?
Preparing your heart for His Son at Christmas is an excellent place to start! Jesus overcame the power of sin and death at the cross and His Spirit outfits us with everything we need for living a godly life. It’s all in His Word.
“Do you think the Scriptures have no meaning?
They say that God is passionate that the spirit he has placed within us should be faithful to him.
And he gives grace generously.
As the Scriptures say, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
So humble yourselves before God.
Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Come close to God, and God will come close to you.
Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world.
Let there be tears for what you have done.
Let there be sorrow and deep grief.
Let there be sadness instead of laughter, and gloom instead of joy.
Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up in honor.
Don’t speak evil against each other, dear brothers and sisters.
If you criticize and judge each other, then you are criticizing and judging God’s law.
But your job is to obey the law, not to judge whether it applies to you.
God alone, who gave the law, is the Judge.
He alone has the power to save or to destroy.
So what right do you have to judge your neighbor?
Look here, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit.”
How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow?
Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone.
What you ought to say is, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.”
Otherwise you are boasting about your own pretentious plans, and all such boasting is evil.
Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it.”
James 4:5-17 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/jas.4.5-17.NLT
I’m going to be honest with you. It’s much easier to see somebody else’s issues than to recognize and reckon with my own. Repentance has become taboo because our culture is all about what’s right for you or me. Yet God’s eternal, unchanging Word is Truth. We cannot expect the world to recognize what seems like foolishness to them because it is spiritually discerned, but we are required to hold ourselves accountable. Is it fair? Is it easy? My humanity screams, “no!” Yet it is possible, and not only that, it’s necessary. My obedience to God’s Word is the very best evidence that I believe Jesus is Lord.
Remember that the prophets lived through every circumstance that the people they were warning endured. They were not spared as God’s messengers, and in fact they often faced additional persecution from the very ones they were commissioned to warn. They were held to a higher standard as God’s messengers and so are we. Christ gave His great commission to every believer, not just ordained clergy. As watchmen, our job is to make His Word known in the world, and we must be consistent in word and deed.
“When the watchman sees the enemy coming, he sounds the alarm to warn the people.
Then if those who hear the alarm refuse to take action, it is their own fault if they die.
They heard the alarm but ignored it, so the responsibility is theirs.
If they had listened to the warning, they could have saved their lives.
But if the watchman sees the enemy coming and doesn’t sound the alarm to warn the people, he is responsible for their captivity.
They will die in their sins, but I will hold the watchman responsible for their deaths.’
Now, son of man, I am making you a watchman for the people of Israel.
Therefore, listen to what I say and warn them for me.
If I announce that some wicked people are sure to die and you fail to tell them to change their ways, then they will die in their sins, and I will hold you responsible for their deaths.
But if you warn them to repent and they don’t repent, they will die in their sins, but you will have saved yourself.
Son of man, give the people of Israel this message: You are saying, ‘Our sins are heavy upon us; we are wasting away! How can we survive?’
As surely as I live, says the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of wicked people.
I only want them to turn from their wicked ways so they can live.
Turn! Turn from your wickedness, O people of Israel! Why should you die?
Son of man, give your people this message: The righteous behavior of righteous people will not save them if they turn to sin, nor will the wicked behavior of wicked people destroy them if they repent and turn from their sins.
When I tell righteous people that they will live, but then they sin, expecting their past righteousness to save them, then none of their righteous acts will be remembered.
I will destroy them for their sins.
And suppose I tell some wicked people that they will surely die, but then they turn from their sins and do what is just and right.
For instance, they might give back a debtor’s security, return what they have stolen, and obey my life-giving laws, no longer doing what is evil.
If they do this, then they will surely live and not die.
None of their past sins will be brought up again, for they have done what is just and right, and they will surely live.
Your people are saying, ‘The Lord isn’t doing what’s right,’ but it is they who are not doing what’s right.
For again I say, when righteous people turn away from their righteous behavior and turn to evil, they will die.
But if wicked people turn from their wickedness and do what is just and right, they will live.
O people of Israel, you are saying, ‘The Lord isn’t doing what’s right.’
But I judge each of you according to your deeds.””
Ezekiel 33:3-20 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/ezk.33.3-15.NLT
We find it difficult to read passages like these because of the gospel of grace, but God gets to define what grace and mercy means, and He also commands us, His own, to be holy as He is holy. He knows what we are capable of because He sees our hearts but He has also supplied every need in Christ Jesus. This is why John the Baptist and the apostle Paul preached so strongly that Jesus is the one Way to the Father and Jesus Himself taught that He did not come to abolish the Law of God but to fulfill it. Jesus willingly took on flesh in order to take the just punishment for sin once for all time, but our choice to continue in sin once we know Christ as Savior effectively nails Christ to the cross again and again, subjecting Him to public shame. He longs to be both our Savior and Lord, saying, “If you love me, obey my commandments.”
John 14:15 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/jhn.14.15.NLT
“So let us stop going over the basic teachings about Christ again and again.
Let us go on instead and become mature in our understanding.
Surely we don’t need to start again with the fundamental importance of repenting from evil deeds and placing our faith in God.
You don’t need further instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.
And so, God willing, we will move forward to further understanding.
For it is impossible to bring back to repentance those who were once enlightened—those who have experienced the good things of heaven and shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the power of the age to come— and who then turn away from God.
It is impossible to bring such people back to repentance; by rejecting the Son of God, they themselves are nailing him to the cross once again and holding him up to public shame.
Our great desire is that you will keep on loving others as long as life lasts, in order to make certain that what you hope for will come true.
Then you will not become spiritually dull and indifferent.
Instead, you will follow the example of those who are going to inherit God’s promises because of their faith and endurance.”
Hebrews 6:1-6, 11-12 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/heb.6.6-12.NLT
The mind of Christ is given us to render the heart of God in the earth. Of course it is foolishness, imperceptible to the unchanged heart and mind. All the more reason we should pray for eyes to be opened. It is crucial that we allow our lives to be still pools where Christ is reflected accurately. His image in us is distorted when we choose self-will over submission.
“..reading through Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, with Ezekiel to go, we find ourselves circling around the same handful of themes again and again: sin in the covenant community, threatened judgment, then enacted judgment,…
Lamentations 5 is cast as a long prayer: “Remember, O LORD, what has happened to us; look, and see our disgrace” (Lam. 5:1).
But haven’t you caught yourself saying to yourself more than once, “I know this is the Word of God, and I know it is important, but I think I understand now something of the history and the theology of the exile.
Couldn’t we get on to something else?”
We live in an age burgeoning with information, we cry for brevity, and the Bible at times seems terribly discursive.
So we scan another chapter as rapidly as possible because we already “know” all this.
But that is part of the problem, isn’t it?
Read through this chapter again, slowly, thoughtfully.
Of course, it is tied to Israel six centuries before Christ, to the destruction of her cities and land and temple, to the onset of the exile.
But listen to the depth and persistence of the pleas, the repentance, the personal engagement with God, the cultural awareness, the acknowledgment of God’s sovereignty and justice, the profound recognition that the people must be restored to God himself if return to the land is to be possible, let alone meaningful (Lam. 5:21).
Then compare this with the brands of Christian confessionalism with which you are most familiar.
In days of cultural declension, moral degradation, and large-scale ecclesiastical frittering, is our praying like that of Lamentations 5?
Have the themes of the major prophets so burned into our minds and hearts that our passion is to be restored to the living God?
Or have we ourselves become so caught up in the spirit of this age that we are content to be rich in information and impoverished in wisdom and godliness?”
Read the Bible: 1 Samuel 20, 1 Cor. 2, Lamentations 5, and Psalm 36
Don’t skim, not history nor Old Testament prophecy. It’s how Israel missed her King. This is the world we inherited. Let us be salt and light in our generation, and let God be sovereign. He’s got the whole world in His hands.
Here is just a small part of Lamentations 5. If you lack joy this holiday season, consider praying this prayer today. Jesus said that God is always working and so is He. Ask Him to move on your behalf but be sure you’re ready to obey.
“Joy has left our hearts; our dancing has turned to mourning.
The garlands have fallen from our heads.
Weep for us because we have sinned.
Our hearts are sick and weary, and our eyes grow dim with tears.
But Lord, you remain the same forever!
Your throne continues from generation to generation.
Why do you continue to forget us?
Why have you abandoned us for so long?
Restore us, O Lord, and bring us back to you again!
Give us back the joys we once had! ”
Lamentations 5:15-17, 19-22 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/lam.5.15-22.NLT
The fulfillment of God’s ultimate plan is not dependent on you or me, but true joy is found in Christ alone.
“You will show me the way of life, granting me the joy of your presence and the pleasures of living with you forever.”
Psalms 16:11 NLT
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