Thursday, June 30, 2016

SISTER SYNDROME



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In Christ, Mark
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

“‘Everyone who quotes proverbs will quote this proverb about you: “Like mother, like daughter.” You are a true daughter of your mother, who despised her husband and her children; and you are a true sister of your sisters, who despised their husbands and their children. Your mother was a Hittite and your father an Amorite. Your older sister was Samaria, who lived to the north of you with her daughters; and your younger sister, who lived to the south of you with her daughters, was Sodom. You not only followed their ways and copied their detestable practices, but in all your ways you soon became more depraved than they. As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, your sister Sodom and her daughters never did what you and your daughters have done.”

“Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen. Samaria did not commit half the sins you did. You have done more detestable things than they, and have made your sisters seem righteous by all these things you have done. Bear your disgrace, for you have furnished some justification for your sisters. Because your sins were more vile than theirs, they appear more righteous than you. So then, be ashamed and bear your disgrace, for you have made your sisters appear righteous.”

“You would not even mention your sister Sodom in the day of your pride, before your wickedness was uncovered. Even so, you are now scorned by the daughters of Edom and all her neighbors and the daughters of the Philistines—all those around you who despise you. You will bear the consequences of your lewdness and your detestable practices, declares the Lord.”

Ezekiel 16:44-52, 56-58

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Fair or not, we often get compared against other people. Maybe you have experienced this before.

Culturally, we have seen singers or bands compared to other singers or bands and, at times, graded against them. Ditto for actors and actresses or politicians, writers, artists, or maybe even pastors.

On a more personal note, we can find ourselves compared to others within our own families, especially when we talk about siblings. It’s true, right? Younger siblings get measured against the older ones. One son will get contrasted with another one. Sisters get evaluated, one against the other.

Yes, we can easily get matched up with someone else and scored and/or ranked, even though everyone’s life path can be completely different with no one series of experiences or occurrences ever the same as another’s. But as we see in today’s scripture passage and our continued look at Ezekiel 16, there can be enough similarities to make valid assessments and associated judgments between two entities. Look at these words again here to see how the Lord introduces us to a sister syndrome in addressing the sinful behavior of the Israelite people:

“Everyone who quotes proverbs will quote this proverb about you: ‘Like mother, like daughter.’ You are a true daughter of your mother, who despised her husband and her children; and you are a true sister of your sisters, who despised their husbands and their children. Your mother was a Hittite and your father an Amorite. Your older sister was Samaria, who lived to the north of you with her daughters; and your younger sister, who lived to the south of you with her daughters, was Sodom. You not only followed their ways and copied their detestable practices, but in all your ways you soon became more depraved than they. As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, your sister Sodom and her daughters never did what you and your daughters have done.”

“Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen. Samaria did not commit half the sins you did. You have done more detestable things than they, and have made your sisters seem righteous by all these things you have done. Bear your disgrace, for you have furnished some justification for your sisters. Because your sins were more vile than theirs, they appear more righteous than you. So then, be ashamed and bear your disgrace, for you have made your sisters appear righteous.”

“You would not even mention your sister Sodom in the day of your pride, before your wickedness was uncovered. Even so, you are now scorned by the daughters of Edom and all her neighbors and the daughters of the Philistines—all those around you who despise you. You will bear the consequences of your lewdness and your detestable practices, declares the Lord.”  Ezekiel 16:44-52, 56-58

Note here how God uses a family analogy in order to drive His point home about the severity of His people’s wickedness as displayed through their idolatrous worship practices.

The Israelites are portrayed as having two sisters, an older sister in Samaria and a younger one in Sodom. The Lord lets us know clearly that all these sisters had one real problem in common regarding their behavior in His sight: they all adopted detestable practices, a fancy way of saying that they willfully chose to sinfully worship idols and false gods.

But did you catch the outcome when the Lord compared the Israelites to their sisters?

He called out His people and elevated their transgressions over their sisters by saying, “In all your ways you soon became more depraved than they.” He finished by declaring, “Your sister Sodom and her daughters never did what you and your daughters have done.”

Wow, wasn’t Sodom completely annihilated by God’s judgment? And the Israelites’ behavior was more sinful that Sodom’s? That would not bode well for the people of God who as we know faced their own judgment that included not only destruction but also seventy years of exile and separation from their homeland.

As we read on in God’s word, He tells us what got Sodom in trouble. The people were “arrogant, overfed and unconcerned” and did not “help the poor and needy.” They were “haughty and did detestable things” in plain sight of the Lord. And so He did what He had to do under the circumstance. He “did away with them” and the Israelites were well aware of what had happened as the destruction of Sodom was a main event in the early days of God’s people.

As for Samaria, they sinned in God’s sight as well but He tells us that they “did not commit half the sins” as the Israelites did. Obviously, if the Israelites were worse than Sodom and Sodom was worse than Samaria than it was obvious that God’s people had “done more detestable things” than either of them and made Sodom and Samaria “seem righteous” when compared to what the Israelites had done. Because of this, God called on His people to bear their disgrace and be ashamed of their sinful conduct. For they were being scorned, mocked, and despised by others, having fallen from the graces of respect, the consequences of “lewdness and your detestable practices.”

Now, I don’t know about you but I pray that if the Lord had to use the “sister syndrome” to describe my life and standing in His sight, it would look far different than the Israelites in our scriptures for today. For instead of experiencing consequences for lewd behavior and the outflow of a detestable lifestyle, I would much rather experience God’s favor and blessings for living a life fully devoted to Him, a life dedicated to His word, will, and way, a life that would serve as a positive model for anyone else to follow.

How about you?

Amen

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.

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Wednesday, June 29, 2016

THE PRICE TO PAY FOR SPIRITUAL ADULTERY



Can I pray for you in any way? Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com.

In Christ, Mark
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
** Follow The Christian Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk
** Like posts and send friend requests to the author of The Christian Walk, Mark Cummings on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mark.cummings.733?ref=tn_tnmn
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

“So I stretched out My hand against you and reduced your territory; I gave you over to the greed of your enemies, the daughters of the Philistines, who were shocked by your lewd conduct. You engaged in prostitution with the Assyrians too, because you were insatiable; and even after that, you still were not satisfied. Then you increased your promiscuity to include Babylonia, a land of merchants, but even with this you were not satisfied.”

 “‘Therefore, you prostitute, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Because you poured out your lust and exposed your naked body in your promiscuity with your lovers, and because of all your detestable idols, and because you gave them your children’s blood, therefore I am going to gather all your lovers, with whom you found pleasure, those you loved as well as those you hated. I will gather them against you from all around and will strip you in front of them, and they will see you stark naked. I will sentence you to the punishment of women who commit adultery and who shed blood; I will bring on you the blood vengeance of My wrath and jealous anger. Then I will deliver you into the hands of your lovers, and they will tear down your mounds and destroy your lofty shrines. They will strip you of your clothes and take your fine jewelry and leave you stark naked. They will bring a mob against you, who will stone you and hack you to pieces with their swords. They will burn down your houses and inflict punishment on you in the sight of many women. I will put a stop to your prostitution, and you will no longer pay your lovers. Then My wrath against you will subside and My jealous anger will turn away from you; I will be calm and no longer angry.”

“Because you did not remember the days of your youth but enraged me with all these things, I will surely bring down on your head what you have done, declares the Sovereign Lord. Did you not add lewdness to all your other detestable practices?”

Ezekiel 16:27-29, 35-43

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

In yesterday’s devotion from Ezekiel 16, we looked at how the Israelites had committed spiritual adultery before God and faced the uncomfortable truth that we all have been less than loyal to God in our own lives.

Today, we see God pronouncing His consequences on His people and explore how these consequences came to life in the Israelites’ future. For there will always be a price to pay for being unfaithful in our relationship with a God who is always faithful to us. Look again at His pronouncement of judgment here:

“So I stretched out My hand against you and reduced your territory; I gave you over to the greed of your enemies, the daughters of the Philistines, who were shocked by your lewd conduct. You engaged in prostitution with the Assyrians too, because you were insatiable; and even after that, you still were not satisfied. Then you increased your promiscuity to include Babylonia, a land of merchants, but even with this you were not satisfied.”

 “‘Therefore, you prostitute, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Because you poured out your lust and exposed your naked body in your promiscuity with your lovers, and because of all your detestable idols, and because you gave them your children’s blood, therefore I am going to gather all your lovers, with whom you found pleasure, those you loved as well as those you hated. I will gather them against you from all around and will strip you in front of them, and they will see you stark naked. I will sentence you to the punishment of women who commit adultery and who shed blood; I will bring on you the blood vengeance of My wrath and jealous anger. Then I will deliver you into the hands of your lovers, and they will tear down your mounds and destroy your lofty shrines. They will strip you of your clothes and take your fine jewelry and leave you stark naked. They will bring a mob against you, who will stone you and hack you to pieces with their swords. They will burn down your houses and inflict punishment on you in the sight of many women. I will put a stop to your prostitution, and you will no longer pay your lovers. Then My wrath against you will subside and My jealous anger will turn away from you; I will be calm and no longer angry.”

“Because you did not remember the days of your youth but enraged me with all these things, I will surely bring down on your head what you have done, declares the Sovereign Lord. Did you not add lewdness to all your other detestable practices?”  Ezekiel 16:27-29, 35-43

The people of God in Judah and Jerusalem had stretched out their hands and bowed before false gods and idols in direct disobedience to God’s command not to do so. And so as we read, God “stretched out” His hand against the Israelites and reduced their territory until there was nothing left for them to possess.

First, God handed His people over to the Philistines, their long time enemies who were known for their evil practices but note that even they thought the actions of the Israelites were lewd. Ouch!

The Philistines were followed by the Assyrians and we know that by the time they were done, the entire northern kingdom of Israel was left desolate and unoccupied by the Israelites who were hauled away into captivity, never to return.

Finally, the Babylonians, under the leadership of King Nebuchadnezzar, burst upon the scene and when he and his forces were through, Judah and Jerusalem were leveled and left in ruin. Those Israelites who did not perish in the assault were taken into custody and led away to an exile in Babylon for seventy years.

Did I mention there is a price to pay for spiritual adultery?

Note that those the Lord called to bring judgment on His people were no less sinners than the Israelites were. In fact, they shared much of the same beliefs when it came to idolatry and the worship of false gods. We know they are on the same level because God refers to the Israelites and the other pagan nations as lovers. They shared a commonality that was grounded in blatant evil when it came to the way they worshiped as well as the disrespect and dishonor that their worship brought to God. It was almost as if the Israelites were daring God to do something about their behavior and as we see from His words, He was going to do just that:

Therefore, you prostitute, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Because you poured out your lust and exposed your naked body in your promiscuity with your lovers, and because of all your detestable idols, and because you gave them your children’s blood, therefore I am going to gather all your lovers, with whom you found pleasure, those you loved as well as those you hated. I will gather them against you from all around and will strip you in front of them, and they will see you stark naked. I will sentence you to the punishment of women who commit adultery and who shed blood; I will bring on you the blood vengeance of My wrath and jealous anger. Then I will deliver you into the hands of your lovers, and they will tear down your mounds and destroy your lofty shrines. They will strip you of your clothes and take your fine jewelry and leave you stark naked. They will bring a mob against you, who will stone you and hack you to pieces with their swords. They will burn down your houses and inflict punishment on you in the sight of many women. I will put a stop to your prostitution, and you will no longer pay your lovers. Then My wrath against you will subside and My jealous anger will turn away from you; I will be calm and no longer angry.”

“Because you did not remember the days of your youth but enraged me with all these things, I will surely bring down on your head what you have done, declares the Sovereign Lord. Did you not add lewdness to all your other detestable practices?”

As we have already covered, God was going to bring one attacker after another on His people and by the time the assaults were over, the Israelites would have been stripped bare of everything. There homes would be destroyed. Their freedom would be taken away. Ditto for their dignity.

If the Israelites wanted to abandon God for other gods, then they would have to learn that those gods were as dead as the faith of the people who worshiped them, of which the Israelites were counted. Exiled from their homeland, the people of God would learn the hard way that He and He alone was their provider and protector, the only source of blessing in their lives. As the old saying goes, “Sometimes you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.”

Well, we established yesterday that we are repeating the mistakes of the past and committing spiritual adultery in many ways today. All of us have been guilty of it at one time or another. Because of this, we need scripture passages like the one today for they offer deterrents to us, deterrents that serve to lead us from God’s judgment and into His favor.

For as it was in Ezekiel’s day, it’s still true today. Our God, the Lord God Almighty, is not going to stand for being slighted or disregarded. If we choose wickedness in life and blatantly disobey His word and will, then we can expect Him to act in ways that get our attention and drive us toward repentance and a restored, reconciled relationship with Him.

Let’s not force God’s hand. Let’s show Him that we have read His word, realized that there is a price to pay for spiritual adultery, and decided that we never want to pay that price in our own lives.

Amen

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.

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Tuesday, June 28, 2016

SPIRITUAL ADULTERY



Can I pray for you in any way? Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com.

In Christ, Mark
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
** Follow The Christian Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

“You adulterous wife! You prefer strangers to your own husband! All prostitutes receive gifts, but you give gifts to all your lovers, bribing them to come to you from everywhere for your illicit favors. So in your prostitution you are the opposite of others; no one runs after you for your favors. You are the very opposite, for you give payment and none is given to you.”

Ezekiel 16:32-34

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Have you cheated on God in your life?

It’s a very pointed question that most people would want to sidestep. It’s a pointed question that should make us uncomfortable but it’s a question we all need to consider nonetheless.

This is because God just doesn’t expect but demands our fidelity in our relationship with Him. It’s been that way from the very day He established a relationship with His people and nothing has changed now that we’re studying His words more than 2,000 years later.

The bottom line is that God told us He is God and that there is no other god but Him. He told us that we are to worship and bow down to Him and Him alone. And He warned us that He was a jealous God which essentially let us know that He was not going to handle our unfaithfulness well (Exodus 20:2-3).

Indeed, as we turn back to our scriptures from Ezekiel 16, God shows us that there are dire consequences for anyone who chooses spiritual adultery over a loyal relationship with Him and a devoted compliance with His word. Look at these three verses which form the foundation for our message today:

“You adulterous wife! You prefer strangers to your own husband! All prostitutes receive gifts, but you give gifts to all your lovers, bribing them to come to you from everywhere for your illicit favors. So in your prostitution you are the opposite of others; no one runs after you for your favors. You are the very opposite, for you give payment and none is given to you.”  Ezekiel 16:32-34

Note here the Lord minces no words in calling His people what they were: adulterers. Instead of being fully committed to Him, the Israelites preferred to worship idols and false gods instead, giving them their adoration. Worse yet, the people of God took the items He had blessed them with and used them in the process of idolatry. You’ll recall they adorned the idol’s shrine with colorful garments He provided. They melted down the fine gold and silver jewelry He had given them and fashioned the molten metal into the idols they worshiped. They even took the greatest blessings that God could ever provide, their children, and sacrificed them to the idols! That’s how evil the people of God had become.

As if this wasn’t bad enough, we read that the Israelites enticed others to join in their sinful idolatry. The goal was to adversely influence other to be just as wicked as they were, to join in the prostitution of their faith but unlike a prostitute who would charge someone to engage in their transgressive behavior, the Israelites charged nothing. As we saw in yesterday’s devotion, they freely led people into the same sin they were freely engaging in themselves.

So with all this, we can obviously see that the people of God in Ezekiel’s day were clearly and willingly cheating on God.

But what about you and me? Are we repeating the mistakes of the past and in doing so, placing ourselves in the crosshairs of God’s judgment? For if we haven’t figured it out already, God doesn’t tolerate spiritual adultery and sends His harshest judgment in response to it.

Did I mention He said He was a jealous God?

Friends, we all stand before God guilty of sinning against Him, in being disloyal to Him when He has been nothing but loyal to us. We all have committed spiritual adultery in some way or another, whether we want to face up to that truth or not.

So where do we go from here? How do we start to make things right again with the God who is our Master and Maker?

It starts with repentance and a turning back to God with a renewed sense of dedication and devotion, a fresh righteous spiritual start if you may.

Know two things about this:

1. If we choose to be accountable for our spiritual infidelity, decide to change our life’s course and direct it back to where the Lord leads and guides everything we do, then we can expect to see once again that our God is a God of mercy and grace, a God who is always waiting for His children to return to Him just as the father did in Jesus’ parable of the lost son (Luke 15:11-32). And when that child returns, the Father does not condemn but rather rejoices that one of His own who was lost became found.

But what if we do not opt to return? What if we choose to remain in spiritual adultery?

2. If we opt for that course, then we can expect to receive God’s judgment in whatever way He deems appropriate. For the Old Testament Israelites, they saw everything that they had destroyed before being taken away into a foreign land for seventy years. Who knows if our punishment will be the same but rest assured that punishment will come if you decide to remain unfaithful to God.

Do yourself a favor and turn away from your sin and come back to Him with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. You’ll never regret that decision.

Amen

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.

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Monday, June 27, 2016

FREELY



Can I pray for you in any way? Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com.

In Christ, Mark
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
** Follow The Christian Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk
** Like posts and send friend requests to the author of The Christian Walk, Mark Cummings on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mark.cummings.733?ref=tn_tnmn
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

“I am filled with fury against you, declares the Sovereign Lord, when you do all these things, acting like a brazen prostitute! When you built your mounds at every street corner and made your lofty shrines in every public square, you were unlike a prostitute, because you scorned payment.”

Ezekiel 16:30-31

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Today’s devotion centers on four main points, three of which are in today’s scripture passage. The fourth is part of God’s message to all of us at the message’s end.

First, take a look at these verses as we continue our study of Ezekiel, Chapter 16:

“I am filled with fury against you, declares the Sovereign Lord, when you do all these things, acting like a brazen prostitute! When you built your mounds at every street corner and made your lofty shrines in every public square, you were unlike a prostitute, because you scorned payment.” Ezekiel 16:30-31

Now for three of the four major points as mentioned at the onset of this devotion:

1. The people of Israel freely sinned.

It’s true. The people did not flinch in adopting wicked idolatry as their primary worship and spared no expense in implementing it. You’ll recall from yesterday’s devotion that God called out the Israelites for taking the garments He had given and decorating the area where the idol was, an idol or idols that had been fashioned from the gold and silver in beautiful jewelry God had provided. They also horrifically sacrificed their own children, God’s own children, at the altar of those idols. Additionally, you could find a shrine to worship false gods at every street corner within the city of Jerusalem which leads to the second major point:

2. Others freely sinned, seizing the opportunities set up by the Israelites.

Anyone was free to go inside the shrines and worship false gods in clear view of God. This is because the Israelites didn’t try and conceal their shrines or charge an admission fee to use them. We know this because the Lord tells us Himself when He states the Israelites “scorned payment” for people to use their instruments of sin. But as we know, this didn’t mean there was no cost for the sins committed, a fact that leads to the third point:

3. God freely sent judgment upon His people.

The Israelites, and anyone else who decided to violate God’s commands and worship idols, simply were asking for God to make good on His threats of punishment and God was glad to answer their challenge. He needed no authority from anywhere to execute His consequences on His people. He was the Lord God Almighty, the Master and Maker of all, and could freely do as He chose to do in order to turn His people from wickedness towards righteousness.

And so God sent His harsh judgment on His people and all the places of worship they had built to other gods were destroyed and left in smoldering ruin. Even God’s temple in Jerusalem, which had been defiled by the Israelites who worshiped idols within, was not spared but leveled.

The sad part about all this is that it could have been so much different. All the Israelites had to do is commit themselves to be freely and fully dedicated to God as He was to them. It would have been just as easy to do that as it was to sin against Him and a lot less painful. For God would have much rather blessed His people then punish them. At His very core, He is a God of love and mercy and grace and compassion. We need to remember this as we look at our fourth (and closing point):

4. God freely saves us through His Son, Jesus Christ.

God didn’t set a fee for salvation. There is no levy we are required to pay to gain eternal life. No, God set the conditions for being saved this way:

For God so loved the world that he gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

Note that there is no fee required for salvation. Just a showing of commitment.

For if we believe in Jesus Christ as Savior, we will be freely saved, washed clean of our sins by the precious blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God who came to take away the sins of the world.  

Friends, you are freely able to receive this invitation from God the Father who longs to abide with you forever through the atonement brought by Jesus, His Son. And trust me, it’s the best free thing you will ever receive.

Have you accepted His offer yet?

Amen

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.

Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com