Three P's.
Ezekial 40:4: Son of man, Look with your eyes and hear with your ears and set your heart upon all that I shall show you; for you were brought here in order that I might show it to you. Declare all that you see to the house of Israel.
From just this ONE verse, I would venture to say there are three things we can know about what kind of God this is that Ezekial deals with and that you and I claim to know today.
This God brings a particular people to a particular place for a particular purpose. Please pardon my overuse of words that start with 'P.' I feel like a Southern Baptist pastor at a Sunday morning service right about now, but it was amazing how it just jumped out to me during my time with God this morning.
God called Ezekial- a particular person, and He called him at a particular time in history for a specific particular purpose. Reread the verse...it's plain as day. And if the God of Ezekial is indeed the unchanging same today as He was yesterday God of the Bible, then we can rightly say that He still calls particular people to places for particular purposes...maybe even YOU and ME!
God tells Ezekial to 'set his heart upon all that [He will] show him.' Tim Keller has a wonderful explanation of the Hebrew Bible's usage of a certain word over and over which our English translations translate as 'heart.' In English, we think of heart as emotions and feel good stuffs...but the heart in the Hebrew Bible was wound up, so says Tim and many others, in not only the emotions but also the mind and the will. Heart is more of a term for one's entire inner being. So as God is calling Ezekial, He is saying to him that he should set his entire inner being upon this calling He's given to him.
As I read that, I am convicted that God calls us to these ministries big or small and these places comfortable or uncomfortable and asks us to wind ourselves up in them, let them penetrate every aspect of our being, completely steep ourselves in them.
I can think of times in my life when God gave me the opportunity to be somewhere yet I was no entirely there...my mind was back home...thousands of miles away...on a boyfriend or a school project or a family member. I wish more than anything I could go back now and change my attitude and actions, but I cannot. Those opportunities are lost forever. Nonetheless, I can learn from the past...and as I find myself here in NYC, I can be entirely here, let this ministry and these children be my first priority regardless of where else parts of my heart may take me.
God doesn't end there though. He tells Ezekiel to set his heart upon this place that HE MIGHT SHOW IT TO HIM. This place is a gift, a blessing. And the purpose God calls us to any of our places is a purpose we can't even begin to contemplate. The purpose includes blessings for not just ourselves but others...and for glory...to GOD! If god calls you to a certain place at a certain time, He is LETTING you see something that He may not be letting anyone else see at that moment. Surrender to having your heart fully absorbed and saturated in that time and place...I'm pretty sure God knows what He is doing...and I'm pretty sure we can trust Him with 'our' lives which indeed are not even 'ours' in the first place...but that's another post entirely.
Lastly, God tells Ezekiel to declare to Israel what he sees. So don't just bottle up your experiences...declare them...Pour out to others the blessings God pours into you. Remember this little light of mine?? I'm gonna let it shine. Hide it under a bushel? NO! I'm gonna let it shine. So shine the light...to the particular place in the particular time...because you are the particular person that Jesus has called...
From just this ONE verse, I would venture to say there are three things we can know about what kind of God this is that Ezekial deals with and that you and I claim to know today.
This God brings a particular people to a particular place for a particular purpose. Please pardon my overuse of words that start with 'P.' I feel like a Southern Baptist pastor at a Sunday morning service right about now, but it was amazing how it just jumped out to me during my time with God this morning.
God called Ezekial- a particular person, and He called him at a particular time in history for a specific particular purpose. Reread the verse...it's plain as day. And if the God of Ezekial is indeed the unchanging same today as He was yesterday God of the Bible, then we can rightly say that He still calls particular people to places for particular purposes...maybe even YOU and ME!
God tells Ezekial to 'set his heart upon all that [He will] show him.' Tim Keller has a wonderful explanation of the Hebrew Bible's usage of a certain word over and over which our English translations translate as 'heart.' In English, we think of heart as emotions and feel good stuffs...but the heart in the Hebrew Bible was wound up, so says Tim and many others, in not only the emotions but also the mind and the will. Heart is more of a term for one's entire inner being. So as God is calling Ezekial, He is saying to him that he should set his entire inner being upon this calling He's given to him.
As I read that, I am convicted that God calls us to these ministries big or small and these places comfortable or uncomfortable and asks us to wind ourselves up in them, let them penetrate every aspect of our being, completely steep ourselves in them.
I can think of times in my life when God gave me the opportunity to be somewhere yet I was no entirely there...my mind was back home...thousands of miles away...on a boyfriend or a school project or a family member. I wish more than anything I could go back now and change my attitude and actions, but I cannot. Those opportunities are lost forever. Nonetheless, I can learn from the past...and as I find myself here in NYC, I can be entirely here, let this ministry and these children be my first priority regardless of where else parts of my heart may take me.
God doesn't end there though. He tells Ezekiel to set his heart upon this place that HE MIGHT SHOW IT TO HIM. This place is a gift, a blessing. And the purpose God calls us to any of our places is a purpose we can't even begin to contemplate. The purpose includes blessings for not just ourselves but others...and for glory...to GOD! If god calls you to a certain place at a certain time, He is LETTING you see something that He may not be letting anyone else see at that moment. Surrender to having your heart fully absorbed and saturated in that time and place...I'm pretty sure God knows what He is doing...and I'm pretty sure we can trust Him with 'our' lives which indeed are not even 'ours' in the first place...but that's another post entirely.
Lastly, God tells Ezekiel to declare to Israel what he sees. So don't just bottle up your experiences...declare them...Pour out to others the blessings God pours into you. Remember this little light of mine?? I'm gonna let it shine. Hide it under a bushel? NO! I'm gonna let it shine. So shine the light...to the particular place in the particular time...because you are the particular person that Jesus has called...
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