September 8
59”’This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will deal with you as you deserve, because you have despised my oath by breaking the covenant.’” (Ezekiel 16:59)
Happy Hump Day Y’all! Ezekiel 16 is 63 verses of a stunning metaphor where the Prophet states that God spoke to him about Jerusalem and compared the city to an adulterous wife. I love a good metaphor, and this chapter goes after the people of Jerusalem with colorful language about how that city, the center of the Israel nation, had betrayed God “like a brazen prostitute.” The Chapter concludes with this verse at beginning of the final paragraph.
As we have discussed many times over the last year and a half, Jesus is the new covenant that He established between all people and God, our Father. As we will read later this month in the book of Hebrews, “if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another (Hebrews 8:7).” Jesus’ new covenant was much simpler than the old: love God, love people, believe in Jesus and share His Gospel. But is the Christian church a better spouse to this new covenant than the people of Jerusalem were to the old? Or is the Church just as adulterous?
While we do not worship other gods anymore, we sure do not give Jesus the attention and focus we should. Our relationship with Him is usually an afterthought. I’ll read my Bible when I have time. I’ll go to church every once in a while. I’ll tithe when I can, and maybe donate goods and services when things get really bad. If we treated our spouses like the Church treats their relationship with Jesus, our spouses would be long gone. Yet Jesus sticks by our side regardless. Let’s take a personal role in making our relationship with Jesus the most important relationship in our life.
I was going to share the new album from Saddleback Worship, which I will get to tomorrow, but for today, I “accidentally” stumbled on this new single from the great Dante Bowe just now. I put “accidentally” in quotations because, while this was most likely brought up in my feed by the YouTube algorithms, I was trying to scroll down on a completely different video when the song below started playing. I may have accidentally pushed something on the screen, but this song was directed to me for a purpose. Click on it and see why I easily could not ignore this amazing worship song.
Reading plan: Hebrews 1:1-9
Deeper reading plan: Ezekiel 15, 16
Common Sense Reborn 