Year 6, Day 185: Matthew 11

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Character

• Character: Having the interior life that is necessary to support the work that God sets before a person.  It is hearing from God and obeying.  It is doing the right thing when nobody is looking.

When I look at Matthew 11, I see instances of character all around.  Look at the opening section of this chapter.  What do we expect from John the Baptizer?  Is he a man whose opinions changed based on the people around him? Is he a man who worked so that one day he could live in opulence and luxury?  No!  Here is a man whose character is true.  He taught what he believed.  He taught what God asked him to teach, even if it didn’t lead to material gains.  He is a man with strong character; he is a man who is an excellent role model.

Then we get a contrasting picture of the character of the world.  Have you ever noticed how easy it is for people to find fault with the people around them?  Almost anyone can find something wrong with anything they look at.  Like children in the marketplace who refuse to be happy when hearing a celebratory piece of music is heard and they refuse to be sad when a dirge is heard.  Rather than being able to see God in the tings around them, they focus on the faults and imperfections of the people through whom God is trying to work.

In the end, we have two choices: have the character of God or the character of the world.  We can take the narrow road, which is far more difficult, and look past the failings of the people around us, see where God is at work, and live according to what God is doing.  Or we can take the easy road, focus on the plethora of failings in the people around us, miss God at work, and live according to our own morality and ethic.  Only one of those leads to eternal life and a yoke that is joyful to bear.

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Year 6, Day 184: Matthew 10

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Calling, Challenge

• Calling asks whether or not God has called the person to the particular work at this point in their life.
• Challenge: God does not merely wish us to be in relationship with Him as we are.  He challenges us to grow, stretch, and transform as we take on the mantle of being His representatives to this world.

Can you hear the calling in Matthew 10?  The chapter begins with calling.  We hear about the 12 disciples.  They are to go out to the lost sheep of Israel.  They are to go among the sick, the dead, the leprous, and the afflicted by demons.  They aren’t supposed to focus on acquiring things, but rather on doing ministry that opens people up to the Father and draws them closer to Him.  The calling seems rather straight-forward with what we’ve been taught the work of a disciple is supposed to look like.

But there are a few interesting twists here.  First of all, do you notice that Jesus specifically tells them to not go to the Gentiles?  Keep in mind that Jesus doesn’t have anything against Gentiles.  He later will tell Peter to go among the Gentiles in Cornelius’ house.  He also sends Paul to the Gentiles specifically.  But at this point in the story, they aren’t ready to go among the disciples.  What can we learn from all of this?  Our calling comes from God.  He knows what He has equipped us to do.  When we think about calling, we need to humble ourselves and get our direction from him rather than getting it from our own hearts.

Also notice that the calling isn’t exactly going to be smooth.  Jesus talks at length about the persecution that the disciples are going to face.  Family will turn against them.  Community leaders will turn against them.  Jesus tells them that He is bringing a sword, not peace.  When we are called, we are also challenged.  Ministry is not easy.

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Year 6, Day 183: Matthew 9

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Invitation

• Invitation: God is always inviting us into relationship with Him. He desires that we know Him and that we know His desire for us.

There is something that always impresses me about Jesus’ ministry: He is always open to hanging out with people the rest of the world would reject.  Jesus meets with prostitutes and lepers and tax-collectors and orphans and widows.  He meets with the needy.  He meets with the people that are going to pull from Him, tire Him, and wear Him out.

So often in the world today, we teach people to hang around with people that can improve our status.  If we want to get anywhere in the world, we need to hang around with the people that are going places so that we can run in those circles, or so the world teaches.  But we don’t actually see Jesus doing any of that. 

Jesus doesn’t hang out with the popular kids.  He doesn’t party with the rich and famous.  Jesus hangs out with the lowly, the downtrodden, the forgotten.  And He constantly invites them into His life.

That’s the invitation of God.  As Jesus says here in this chapter, He didn’t come to call the righteous – as if there were any – but rather He came to call the sick!  He came to show everyone that we all have a place with God.

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Year 6, Day 182: Matthew 8

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Authority

• Authority: Our calling.  This comes from God as king.  Because He calls us as His representatives, He gives us authority to go and do His will.

Matthew 8 is a great chapter through which we can look at the issue of authority.  Jesus demonstrates that in each situation where He is called to act, He has the authority to act.  In each situation where He has the authority to act, He has the power to act.

Of course, the easiest two places to see this in action is Jesus’ command over the storm and Jesus’ command over the demons.  Jesus can exert the Father’s authority over nature as He is called to do so.  Jesus can exert the Father’s authority over other heavenly beings when He is called to do so.  Naturally, of course, Jesus can exert the authority of the Father over humanity as well.

However, what is really neat to see here in this chapter is how people respond to the authority of Jesus.  Other people who respect and care for authority will respond.  The centurion comes to Jesus.  He understands and knows authority.  Notice that he doesn’t even need Jesus to come to his house.  He trusts that Jesus’ word is good.  He trusts that Jesus’ authority is true.  The centurion puts his faith on display by recognizing Jesus’ authority and responding properly.

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Year 6, Day 181: Matthew 7

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Obedience

• Obedience: Genuine and satisfying obedience comes out of our identity.  Our true identity comes only from our Father.

When we look at full chapters of a Gospel, we usually get many compound stories – especially in the middle chapters that cover Jesus’ time in ministry.  However, when we read through Matthew 7, there are a surprising number of teachings that speak towards obedience to the Father.  This shouldn’t really surprise us, though.  Many of the stories since Jesus began the Sermon on the Mount have been about getting us to think about how we live and how God perceives what life should be like.

• Judge not.  In other words, let the Father determine who gets to spend eternity with Him.
• Worry about your own faults before you try and fix other people.
• Ask God for what you truly need.
• Treat other people as you would have them treat you.
• Bear good fruit and consider what it means should find yourself bearing bad fruit.
• Do more than say you believe, live out your faith!
• Build our life upon the Word of God.

If you truly look at that list, ask yourself how hard those teachings are to accomplish.  Then ask yourself what the world would look like if it followed more of those teachings.  I think these two questions help us understand the power of obedience.

When we pursue our own goals, our own dreams, and our own aspirations we lose all the communal benefits that following Jesus’ teaching in this chapter bring.  However, when we are willing to obey Jesus and live according to God’s ways, it is not only us who benefit but also the community around us that benefits.

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Year 6, Day 180: Matthew 6

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Approval

• Approval: We all need to feel as though we are accepted.  When we seek the approval of God, our Up is in the right place.  But when we seek the approval of other people besides God, we open the door to pursuing false gods and risk putting someone or something other than God in our Up position.

Much of this chapter talks about how we relate to this world.  But this is not a chapter about us relating in a ministry kind of way.  Jesus isn’t lecturing us on how to help people or how to council them.  Jesus is teaching us about what is going on within our hearts.

Jesus tells us to be very careful when we give to others.  He doesn’t tell us not to give.  He tells us to be careful that when we give we don’t do it for the accolades.  For the record, He says the same thing about praying.  He doesn’t tell us not to pay for other people – certainly not!  What He says is that we need to be careful that when we pray for them we aren’t doing it to receive accolades.  The same is true for fasting, too.

Do you hear what Jesus is getting at?  Who doesn’t want to receive the recognition of the people around them?  Who doesn’t want to feel valued in life?  Who doesn’t want to feel needed?  Of course we do.  But in the end, what is better – to have the approval of the people around us or to have the approval of God?  Naturally it is the approval of God that matters.

When we do ministry, our motivation is just as important as our action.  Why we do things matters, especially when we consider the eternal.

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Year 6, Day 179: Matthew 5

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Identity

• Identity: Our true identity comes from the Father.  Only when our identity comes from God can we be obedient in ways that satisfy our person to our core.

This is a chapter that is absolutely packed full of identity.  Poor in Spirit.  Willing to mourn.  Submitted.  Thirsting for Righteousness.  Merciful.  Pure. Peacemaking.  Persecuted.  Reviled.

Wait a minute.  Do those last two sound right to you?  Of course not.  It’s not what our human ears want to hear.  But it is what Jesus says.  What is our identity?  Persecuted.  Reviled.  Why?  Because of the other things on the list.

But we’re not done yet.  Salt.  Light.  We bring flavor to the world.  We allow people to step out of the darkness of a sinful and self-centered life.

Still not done.  Ones who resist anger and confess it’s wrong.  Feeling the challenge, yet?  Ones who resist lust and confess it’s wrong.  Yeah, that one usually hits home a good bit, too.  Ones who resist divorce and work towards reconciliation.  Ones who are willing to put aside the desire for retaliation.  Ones who embrace the need to love our enemies.

Yeah.  That’s our identity.  When Christ calls us, he calls us to take up our cross.  It’s difficult to set aside our human identity.  However, the identity that He offers us is an easy one to embrace.  Once we let go of our selfish nature bent on focusing ourselves and instead embrace Jesus’ culture of love and focusing on God’s ways, it really is an easy identity to embrace.

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Year 6, Day 178: Matthew 4

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Calling

• Calling asks whether or not God has called the person to the particular work at this point in their life.

It’s really easy to speak about calling in this chapter.  After all, this is where Jesus calls Peter and Andrew and James and John.  Jesus gets His first disciples in this chapter.  He is putting calling on display for all to see.  The Son of God tells people to follow Him, and they listen!  That’s what calling is all about.

However, there is a deeper layer of calling here – and in the rest of the book of Matthew.  Do you notice how often Matthew points out the scriptures that Jesus fulfills in doing what He is called to do?  Jesus is fulfilling scripture left and right in the Gospel of Matthew.  Naturally, this happens because Matthew is writing to a Jewish audience and he wants to make it very clear that Jesus is the Messiah.

I think it is really important to see that Jesus not only calls, but responds to calling.  He is not asking us to do something that He is not doing as well.  He listens to the Father and responds.  He listens to God’s Word and responds.  We should go and do likewise.

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Year 6, Day 177: Matthew 3

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Authority

• Authority: Our calling.  This comes from God as king.  Because He calls us as His representatives, He gives us authority to go and do His will.

One of the greatest things that I love about John the Baptizer is his humbleness.  Here is a man whose who calling was to point to someone else’s greatness.  He’s completely and totally okay with that calling.

I think the reason that he is okay with this fact is that he knows from where his authority comes. Look at how John talks about Jesus.  He knows that Jesus is greater than him and he is okay with it.  He knows that he isn’t worthy of untying the sandals on Jesus’ feet.  He has no trouble understanding his place because he knows where he resides with the Father.  He knows that if his authority comes from the Father, then he needs to invest in the will of the Lord.  His own ego has no place because his authority is coming from the Father.

If we look at how this plays out when they meet, we get an interesting perspective, too.  Jesus comes to be baptized.  At first, John doesn’t agree.  He knows his place.  Jesus is superior.  However, when Jesus explains the service that John would be doing to Jesus, John agrees.  Again, John gets his authority from God.  Even though John knows that Jesus is the superior, when God explains that His perspective is different that John’s, John concedes and abides by God’s will.  John not only displays that he can talk and teach about having an authority that comes from God, he can live it as well.

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Year 6, Day 176: Matthew 2

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Protection

• Protection: In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus teaches us to pray that God might deliver us from evil – even the Evil One.  Sometimes we need God’s protection from the sin around us.  Sometimes we need protection from the sinful people around us.  Other times we need protection from the sin that lies within ourselves. In any case, Jesus’ point is clear.  We need protection from the Father to make it through each and every day.

Herod smells a rival and wants to be done away with this would-be-king.  When he sees the magi coming, he also smells innocent people who are so unaware of the political milieu that he could take advantage of them.  This is the context of this chapter.

Notice, however, that the Father makes a case about being able to protect.  The Father will protect His Son until the time of His death has truly come.  The Father puts a plan into motion that will confuse Herod and prevent him from harming His Son.

Part of this protection is also protecting the magi.  Yes, He protects them physically by sending them home a different way.  However, the Father also protects their innocence.  They are simply coming to worship at the feet of someone that the heavens also worship as shown by the star.  God protects their innocence and does not allow them to because Herod’s pawn.

Naturally, god protect Jesus and his family.  Joseph is warned in a dream to go to Egypt.  When they come back they are given the wisdom to settle in Nazareth.  God sets up His Son on a path of protection against the wrath of the human leadership around him.

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As an aside, when I first read this chapter for study, I thought that I was going to write a blog on authority.  After all, it is clear that this chapter is about authority in our life and the competing authority of God and Herod.  The magi choose God’s authority.  Joseph chooses God’s authority.  But in the end, I think that is all really self-explanatory, which is why I looked at protection instead.

Year 6, Day 175: Matthew 1

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Identity

• Identity: Our true identity comes from the Father.  Only when our identity comes from God can we be obedient in ways that satisfy our person to our core.

Matthew 1 always gets a bad rap.  It is largely the genealogy of Jesus.  So-and-so begat another so-and-so.  But there is something extremely significant in this chapter.  Identity.

All of the people in this list belong to the lineage of David.  That makes them all have some kind of legitimate claim to David’s throne.  Furthermore, all of these people – and for the record, all Jews – belong to the lineage of Abraham.  That makes them all have a legitimate claim to faith.  This chapter is full of identity.  When Jesus comes on the scene, He has a right to both the throne and faith.

This sense of identity is highly organized.  14 generations.  From Abraham to David was 14 generations.  From David to exile was 14 generations.  From the exile to Jesus was 14 generations.  God is a God of order.  He brings order to the chaos.  This is also a part of all of our identity in God.

That beings said, there is a contrasting identity here in this passage as well.  God calls Joseph to care for a woman who will give birth to a child that isn’t his.  God is doing something new in Jesus, as Joseph is called to protect that.  Yes, God is a God of order.  But God is also the God of new things, too.  God doesn’t call us to be the same in every context and every time.  God calls us to His plan, which is fluid.  It is consistent – God’s ideals, premises, and commandments do not change.  However, the means and methods that cultures and peoples are reached for those ideals are quite fluid.  God is the God of new things.  Joseph is being called into that as a part of His identity when God asks Him to defend this young virgin who will give birth to His Son.

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Year 6, Day 174: Ezekiel 48

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Invitation

• Invitation: God is always inviting us into relationship with Him. He desires that we know Him and that we know His desire for us.

Do you catch how this book ends?  If you aren’t careful, you’ll miss it.  If you are just reading the words, you can get lulled into a mode of skimming and become just happy to reach the end.  The book ends with the words, “And the name of the City from that time on shall be: The Lord is There.”

Those are powerful words.  Remember, the name Jerusalem means “City of Peace.”  God is essentially changing the name of His Holy City.  Why is this significant?  Ezekiel ends the book with a look into the future where peace with God is transformed into dwelling with God.  No longer with God’s people be about bringing the fallen word into a status of being at peace with God; they will now be about proclaiming what life with God is truly like.

Doesn’t that concept sound incredibly Christian?  Yes, Christians are still desiring to be at peace with God.  But that’s what Jesus accomplished on the cross.  Peace with God is a status that was earned for us in the past.  

We are now invited to dwell with God – or I should say, to have God dwells with us.  When the world looks at us, it should say, “The Lord is There.”

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Year 6, Day 173: Ezekiel 47

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Provision

• Provision: God gives us what we truly need.  God knows our needs better than we can know them.  We learn to trust God to provide for us.

This is such a beautiful portrayal of God’s provision in a vision.  Ezekiel is brought into the temple, where he sees a trickle of water coming out of the temple.  As he goes out, he sees to flow becoming bigger and deeper and stronger.

Of course, there is the natural teaching that we can bring out of this.  Fresh water - the fundamental need for all life – comes from God.  Spiritual speaking, this is God’s way of telling Ezekiel in a vision that all life originates and is sustained by God.  The first layer of this vision is really that simple.  What we need in life starts with God.  He provides for us.

In a more complex level, notice that the water gets deeper the further away you get from the temple.  In the natural word, this makes sense.  You take any river and trace it back to its roots and you will find a simple spring.  But if you go to its end you will usually find a great lake, or more likely an incredible delta system as the river flows into the sea.  But the reason this happens is because along the way this river is made up off many feeder rivers.  There are many sources of water contributing to this great river.  But not so with this vision.  All of this water in the vision comes from God.  This is incredibly important, because what it shows us is that God is capable of taking something that looks so small and turning it into an incredible blessing that is both deep and wide.  Remember the feeding of the five thousand?  This vision is the Old Testament parable version of that kind of story about God’s provision.

Finally, notice the purpose of the water.  Trees will live by it.  Fish will live by it.  Mankind will live by it.  God is telling us that He will sustain us into the future.  All dynamics of sustaining life are touched and made possible by God’s generous provision.

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Year 6, Day 172: Ezekiel 46

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Challenge

• Challenge: God does not merely wish us to be in relationship with Him as we are.  He challenges us to grow, stretch, and transform as we take on the mantle of being His representatives to this world.

Where do we get challenge out of a passage that talks about how to enter the temple, how to give sacrifices, and how to keep from transmitting holiness to the people?  {For more information on that last point, see my blog post from 3 years ago to which I link above.}  It’s really quite simple.  It’s also really quite hard to see without help.  I remember the first time someone taught me about this idea.  I remember thinking that it was a really cool understanding of this passage that I never would have gotten on my own.

Do you notice how the people who come from the north are told to go out the south and not go out how they came?  The same is true for the people from the south.  They go out the north.  The question is, why is this important?

The answer to this is really cool.  When we come to God, we don’t go back to where we were.  In other words, coming to God changes us!  When we come to God, we leave different than when we came.  Isn’t that a really cool understanding?

This is the challenge of God.  When we come to God, we shouldn’t be looking for ways to justify who we are.  When we come to God, we look for ways that God can make up more like Him.  Yes, we do want to celebrate those ways that we are already like God.  But we also want to always be on the lookout for the ways that we can become more like Him.  That’s the challenge of coming to God.

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Year 6, Day 171: Ezekiel 45

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Character

• Character: Having the interior life that is necessary to support the work that God sets before a person.  It is hearing from God and obeying.  It is doing the right thing when nobody is looking.

As we turn to the next chapter in the book of Ezekiel, we begin to talk about the world around the temple.  We’ve spoken about God.  We’ve spoken about worshipping God.  We’ve spoken about teaching people about God.  Now we get a vision about how life looks when God is the center of society.

As we ponder this question, look at God’s advice.  The first thing that he says is a comment on economic policy.  The people in the marketplace need to start using fair scales.  They need to quit skimping and misrepresenting their goods in order to make a profit.  Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

The truth is that we have here a fundamental issue with human society.  We seldom ever find human society that is truly fair unless it is regulated.  In this chapter, that regulation falls to the princes of the land.

In the end, this is an issue of character.  When it comes to making money, are we willing to go about it ethically or not?  Do we have the character to represent ourselves and our goods and then live up to those promises?  In a society that is truly founded upon God, we do.

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Year 6, Day 170: Ezekiel 44

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Teacher

• Teacher: One who holds forth the truth and is excited by it. The teacher looks for ways to explain, enlighten, and apply truth.  A teacher's authority doesn't come from how smart they are but from the Word of God and the power of a transformed life.

In the midst of all of these chapters on measurements and the temple, we have a really neat mention of the Levites of Zadok.  Notice that the majority of the Levites are called out because of their rebellion.  The majority of the Levites are reprimanded – yet forgiven – because they chased after foreign idols.  But the Levites of Zadok’s family are commended for their faithfulness.

What is it that these Levites are called to do?  They are the only group of Levites that are allowed to participate in the sacrificial aspect of the temple.  But what I want to look at in this post is verse 23.  They are called to teach the people the difference between clean and unclean.  They are to teach the people right from wrong.

There is an important lesson here.  Everyone can learn from mistakes.  Everyone can be forgiven.  But if you are looking to learn from someone, learn from someone who can be counted on to get it right.  Learn from someone who demonstrates that they know right from wrong.  Don’t just listen to people who talk a good talk.  Imitate people who readily apply the good walk to their own life.  Let those people be the teachers in your life.

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Year 6, Day 169: Ezekiel 43

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Forgiveness

• Forgiveness: Forgiveness is when our sins are absolved by God.  We do not deserve this forgiveness, but God grants it to us anyway.  We cannot earn forgiveness, but God gives it to us anyway.  As we are forgiven by God, He also asks us to forgive others.  In fact, Jesus Himself teaches us to pray for our forgiveness in the Lord’s Prayer when He says, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

The end of the chapter deals with sacrifices.  Naturally, sacrifices are for the forgiveness of sin.  It is the shedding of blood that allows for human sinfulness to be overlooked.

This makes great sense when we couple this with what happens at the beginning of this chapter.  In the beginning of the chapter, God promises to come and dwell with His people.  He promises to forgive them.  He promises to put the past behind and come forward into a restored relationship.  This is why we see the vision of the sacrifices at the end of the chapter.

As a Christian, I can’t help push through this text into the future that this text does not presuppose.  We know that Christ will come.  He will teach.  He will die.  Through the shedding of His blood we will find our relationship with Him restored permanently.  And after His death, we see the ultimate fulfillment of the promises of this chapter.  After His death, the Holy Spirit comes and dwells within us.  God dwells among His people in a new and exciting way.  God comes and dwells with His people.  It starts with His forgiveness being poured out upon us.

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Year 6, Day 168: Ezekiel 42

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Obedience

• Obedience: Genuine and satisfying obedience comes out of our identity.  Our true identity comes only from our Father.

If you have been following the commentary that I wrote in my blog three years ago, you understand that I believe this vision from Ezekiel applies to the time between Ezekiel and the coming of Jesus.  What that does is leave us with a little controversy.  After all, when Christ came there is no need for the Holy of Holies anymore.  As Christ dies on the cross, the temple curtain is torn.  He becomes the ultimate and eternal sacrifice; no further sacrifice is needed.

Thus, when we read chapters like this in Ezekiel 42, we still need to appreciate what we are reading – even if it is different than how we live in Christ.  So what can we find here?

We can find obedience.  These Hebrew people lived in a time before Christ.  As they lived before Christ, they did sacrifice.  They did keep their priestly line separate.  They did keep the food left in sacrifice for their priests.  They observed God’s Law as God had prescribed for them.

Even though the customs may have changed because Christ has intervened and fulfilled the Law, we can appreciate the obedience to God that we find here in this chapter.

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Year 6, Day 167: Ezekiel 41

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Up

• Up: Up is the word we use for what we worship.  If we are following God’s will, God will occupy the Up position.  Our life, our identity, our mission, our family on mission is all derived from Up.  This is why God needs to be in our Up position.

In a part of Ezekiel that talks about a vision of the coming temple, it makes sense to talk about Up, right?  When Ezekiel thinks about the temple, he is thinking about God at the center of worship.  When we read this chapter, we should think the same thing.

The question that rings through my mind in this chapter, though, is “Where are all the stuff?”  About the only thing that we’ll talk about in the temple is the altar, and we won’t get there for another 2 chapters.  It should strike us odd that when Ezekiel comes to talk about the central place of worship that Ezekiel focus on the building construction rather than the stuff on the inside.

This causes me to pause.  In our modern worship, how much attention do we place on the stuff within our space?  Do we care if we have an organ or piano?  Do we care what color the carpet is?  Do we care if we have chairs or pews?  Do we care if we have a fancy altar and a fancy altar rail?  Do we care if we have a big ornate cross at the front?  Do we care if we have stained glass windows?  Do we care if we have nice hymnals or a projector screen?

In the end, does any of this actually matter?  I’m willing to bet that along the way something in the paragraph above struck a nerve because we do actually care about it.  But should we?  Is my worship of God actually dependent on the stuff inside the space where I worship?  It shouldn’t be.  I think Ezekiel’s lack of focus on the stuff in the temple gives us a significant message.

  

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Year 6, Day 166: Ezekiel 40

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Calling

• Calling asks whether or not God has called the person to the particular work at this point in their life.

As we look at this chapter, we’ll get the obvious out in the open. This chapter is a fantastic chapter if you are into measurements.  But it is quite light in terms of action; and it feels even lighter in terms of theology.

If you haven’t done so, feel free to read the commentary I wrote on this chapter from three years ago.  In it I paint a very reasonable argument about where in time this vision of Ezekiel rests.  I argue that this Ezekiel is seeing a vision for the time period after the exile but before Jesus comes to the earth in human flesh.

For the rest of this blog, then, I am going to focus on a very simple fact.  In Ezekiel we’ve moved through Hebrew rebellion, Hebrew restoration, and then the rebellion of the world against God.  The final chapters that remain are chapters about the spiritual life of God’s people.  I think it is significant that the vast majority of the chapters that conclude this book are about the people and their worship of God.

Quite simply, our greatest job is the worship of God.  The greatest thing that we can bring to the presence of God is our reflection of His greatness.  The greatest gift that we can bring to God is our humbleness in His presence as we acknowledge that He is God and we are not.  To draw a simple conclusion on a simple chapter: when the dust settles, we are called to worship God.

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