Ezekiel 36:25-28 - I will
sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will
cleanse you from all your 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.
Ezekiel had another word for the people who had survived the
wrath and punishment of God. Their lives had been through a seep valley of
turmoil and hurts from the nations around them. But God wanted them to know
that there was a time coming when they would be restored. And it would be a time that exceeded any
prosperous period they had ever known.
God was going to punish the people who he had used to teach
his people who was in charge. All the
nations that had ever made fun of or mistreated the people of God would suffer
destruction. It would be complete and
empty the vast land that God had once given to Abraham to raie the great nation
of Israel.
God’s restoration is like no other feeling in the
world. He breaks us down and empties us
completely of all the things that do not help us develop a complete
relationship with God. Then he begins to fill us up with his love and disposition.
We feel like we are going through a fire that will completely destroy us…but
the coat of his love and mercy is like the seed coat of the great red wood
trees of California. They protect it
from the fire that burns just enough of the protective coat off…so it can
germinate into one of the tallest….grandest trees God created.
God hid more wisdom in the fires of the sequoia forests than
we sometimes think about. The fire that
burns that seed coat off is doing way more than just germinating a seed. Fire in these forests also prepare the
seedbed by burning the older trees and taking away weeds and unneeded brush
where they need to grow. The fire cycles
the nutrients the trees need to grow. It
sets back succession in certain relatively small areas of the forest. It provides conditions which favor
wildlife. It provides a mosaic of age classes
and vegetation types. It reduces numbers of trees susceptible to attack by
insects and disease and reduces fire hazards for the future.
I am pretty sure this process is the same in the Christian who
follows James 4:7-10 …. “ Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near
to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify
your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter
to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will
lift you up. My fires were the most
painful things I have ever endured…but the key here is that I am still here. My
seed coat was burnt beyond my human capabilities to repair….but God knew
exactly what he was doing. He was preparing the ground around me to get rid of
my weeds and unwanted sins. He was
making the ground around me more fertile…so I could grow as fast and as strong
as he needs me to be. He was teaching me
to come to him in pray and study his Bible. He was giving mime a new heart that
would be less worried and bothered by the evil world around me.
I know this one is longer than I usually write…so bear with
me for one more thought. I know that he is not through burning my seed coat off
yet. I may even need another fire to help him teach me how to rid selfishness
and pride completely from my life. I admit that I still need to work on my
humility.
Father…thank you for the fresh tears of conviction that wash
over me this morning. Thank you for all the fires that you have sent…for even
those they caused great pain…they have taught me much more about you than I
would have learned without them. Help me
to use the space you created by taking out some of the bad in my life to let
you rebuild love in its place. Amen.
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