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In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy
word.
Then I looked up, and there before me was a man with a
measuring line in his hand. I asked, “Where are you going?”
He answered me, “To measure Jerusalem, to find out how
wide and how long it is.”
While the angel who was speaking to me was leaving,
another angel came to meet him and said to him: “Run, tell that young man,
‘Jerusalem will be a city without walls because of the great number of people
and animals in it. And I myself will be a wall of fire around it,’ declares the
Lord, ‘and I will be its glory within.’”
Zechariah 2:1-5
This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks
be to God.
When you follow the Lord and have Him involved in your
life circumstances, you will always find yourself fulfilled and blessed abundantly
as He fills you to overflow with His provision and providence.
This truth is at the center of today’s devotion, the
first from the second chapter of Zechariah, where we find the prophet having
the third of eight visions, visions which concerned the restored nation of
Israel. Look again at these opening verses:
Then I looked up,
and there before me was a man with a measuring line in his hand. I asked,
“Where are you going?”
He answered me,
“To measure Jerusalem, to find out how wide and how long it is.”
While the angel
who was speaking to me was leaving, another angel came to meet him and said to
him: “Run, tell that young man, ‘Jerusalem will be a city without walls because
of the great number of people and animals in it. And I myself will be a wall of
fire around it,’ declares the Lord, ‘and I will be its glory within.’” Zechariah 2:1-5
In the second vision,
Zechariah saw visions of horns and craftsmen who hammered the horns into
oblivion, representative of the Lord raising up forces to defeat any enemy of
His people.
Today, we see the vision involving
something markedly different as Zechariah sees a “man with a measuring line in
his hand”. We sense the man, identified specifically as an angel, was on his
way somewhere because Zechariah asked about where he was going. The angel told
the prophet that he was going to “measure Jerusalem” in order to “find out how
wide and long” the city was.
In other words, the angel wanted
to measure the city to discover its boundaries, seemingly in admittance that
there would be a limit to how many people and animals might reside within.
Well, Zechariah no sooner
discovered what the angel was up to that we find another angel come on the
scene with a message for Zechariah, the “young man” mentioned. The message was
as follows:
“Jerusalem will be
a city without walls because of the great number of people and animals in it. And
I myself will be a wall of fire around it,” declares the Lord, “and I will be
its glory within.”
The message contained nothing
but good news for the Israelite remnant who had just recently returned from the
seventy year Babylonian captivity, settling back in their homeland which
included the holy city of Jerusalem. That good news included not only full
restoration to the nation but a total repopulation of it. Jerusalem in
particular would be filled to overflow with people and animals, so much so that
there would be no boundaries to contain the abundant flourishing the Lord was
promising to bring.
But a flourishing Israelite population
boom wasn’t the only blessing God was bringing to His people. We know this because
He said so, vowing to also bring protection to His burgeoning people (the Lord
would be “a wall of fire” around them) and surround them with His glory.
Indeed, God was back with His
people and back in a big way.
Maybe you have strayed away
from the Lord in your own life, held captive and separated from Him by sin. If
so, God has a message for you today:
He wants to restore you to His
favor and bless you to overflow in your life.
All you need to do is repent,
return to Him, and commit to be fully obedient to His word and will.
Do so and you, like the Old
Testament Israelites of Zechariah’s time, can expect to experience complete
reinstatement into good graces with Him, revel in the assurance and comfort of
His protection, and be surrounded by His glory
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
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