Okay...here is my post...finally!!! Let me just say that I am WAY overcommitted at this point in my life and I am having a hard time keeping up with everything! God is teaching me a lesson in this and that is He does NOT intend for us to be stressed out serving Him. This is not His design. He wants us to serve Him well in a few areas rather than okay and stressed out in many areas. The only good news is that I am still having my time with Him everyday. I am not letting that be affected by any of this. Okay...enough about me and the mess I have created...let's get to Ezekiel!
I wonder if Ezekiel felt the same way at times that I am feeling. Every time he turned around God was asking him to give the Israelites another message and deal with the stress of them being angry and irritated with him for his message. God also asked Ezekiel to DEMONSTRATE a lot of His messages through visual lessons and that in and of itself probably caused Ezekiel a lot of stress! It is VERY comforting to me to see that people God used in the Bible experienced the same things as I do. Are you feeling me on that one?
In Chapter 13, God deals with what the false prophets were doing and the false messages they were declaring. Oh what a dangerous place this is to be! How can you recognize a false message? You have to know what the TRUTH is! Otherwise you cannot recognize something that is false. These prophets were receiving messages from their own spirits NOT from the Lord. They would and will tell people what they want to hear for their own gains and for their own glory. The EXACT same thing happens today as we all know. So our job is to know the Truth. And what does Jesus say about the Truth? "Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." (John 8:32) Do you know The Truth and know Him well enough to protect you from false prophets?
In Chapter 15, is the parable of the useless vine. The image of a vine portrays God's loving care for the nation as a vinedresser taking care of what He had planted (HCSB Study Bible). The vinedresser expects the vine to bear much fruit. The only way we can bear much fruit is to stay connected to the True Vine...Jesus Christ. In John 15:5 Jesus said, "I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in Me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without Me." And what happens if we do NOT bear fruit? In verse 6 Jesus said, "If anyone does not remain in Me, he is thrown aside like a branch and he withers. They gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned." So, are you withering? Are you going to be thrown into the fire? Stay connected to the True Vine and you will be a beautiful cluster of grapes for Jesus!
Ok Mindy - take a deep breath and relax. You are fine - your posts are great - and it doesn't matter "what time" you get this posted - you DID! And a wonderful one - including the beautiful pictures as illustrations.
ReplyDeleteYes, we all are stressed at times - I hear you - I'm still typing some "stuff" at this hour to keep things straight in my head over something we are doing at church - if I don't type it out - I will forget!
I so admire Ezekiel - so many hard things to tell his people and seeing so many awful things in life and in visions. What a wonderful man of God and so obedient.
Mindy, I couldn't agree with Barbara more. I think we all have gotten stressed at time. To me it comes just about every Saturday. There are times I read my chapters over and over and say to myself, I just can't do this. I pray before I ever start reading and just ask God to give me the words to say. You and all the others are doing a fine job. There are times that I do so bad that I wonder if they are sorry to have asked me to do this. This just tells me one thing and that is that we all care. It is important to us to say the right thing. We don't want to let the others down. So do like Barbara said take a deep breath and relax, you are doing a great job.
ReplyDeleteMindy, Ms. Boots, Barbara, Jaybrena, Amy, Terry...all of you are doing a WONDERFUL job. I can't say how thankful I am that God led me to such a great group of ladies to do this study with! I have battled this week with my own share of burdens and struggles. It hit me, that just when God is about to really do great things, Satan often attacks the hardest. Press on ladies! I'm so proud of all of you!
ReplyDeleteDitto!
ReplyDeleteMindy, I am also in the same place with trying to manage all that is on my plate. I think that we can learn as time goes on and we get ourselves into too many things. However, I also suspect that we will all be juggling until we meet Jesus. :)
Great point about being able to recognize false prophets (or human words) by knowing the Truth. I have learned so much through this experience with you guys and am so thankful for this group of women! I also know that I have so much more to learn and need to continue to press on.