Who do you trust? (Ezekiel 20:11-13)
"So I brought them out of Egypt and led them into the wilderness. 11 There I gave them my decrees and regulations so they could find life by keeping them. 12 And I gave them my Sabbath days of rest as a sign between them and me. It was to remind them that I am the Lord, who had set them apart to be holy.
13 “But the people of Israel rebelled against me, and they refused to obey my decrees there in the wilderness. They wouldn’t obey my regulations even though obedience would have given them life." Ezekiel 20:11-13
Throughout the Book of Ezekiel God again and again harps on Israel's rejection of His commands and how they had abandoned Him to worship idols. However, after years of ignoring God's messages, one day the leaders of Israel approached Ezekiel and requested a message from the Lord in hopes of getting some guidance. Of course God wasn't about to cooperate with their hardened hearts and He then reminded them of what landed them in exile in the first place.
Israel's biggest problem from the beginning was that they consistently misunderstood God's intentions in giving them His Law. Verses 11-13 clearly explain that his intent all along was to help His people "giving them life" by protecting them from themselves and their sinful behaviors that would erode their relationship with Him. He reminded them that obedience would have guaranteed them a quality of life in the good land that He had promised and that He had every intention of blessing them.
Unfortunately, we suffer from a similar disease that causes us to question God's intentions as an excuse for doing things our way instead of His. We have a habit of asking for God's help or guidance in areas where He has already spoken clearly while in our hearts we continue to ignore what He has already said.
It's easy to view God's clear commands throughout Scripture as suspect when they appear as if they would hold us back or prevent us from living the "good" life. But we easily forget that God's vision is far greater than 20/20 and that much of what He says concerning life and relationships is meant to protect us from what we can't see rather than to keep us from what we can see.
God has given us very clear instructions about how to live the life He always intended for us (which will always have a better outcome), but like Israel, the moment we begin to question God's motives, our ability to obey His commands gets drunk on our our own ability to decide what's best for us, setting us on a crash course towards disaster.
Today we have the same choice: to embrace the protective Body-armor of God's commands or to stagger through the mine fields of life drunk on on our blind self-reliance. Both options require faith and trust. The question ultimately comes down to, "Who do you trust more?"
13 “But the people of Israel rebelled against me, and they refused to obey my decrees there in the wilderness. They wouldn’t obey my regulations even though obedience would have given them life." Ezekiel 20:11-13
Throughout the Book of Ezekiel God again and again harps on Israel's rejection of His commands and how they had abandoned Him to worship idols. However, after years of ignoring God's messages, one day the leaders of Israel approached Ezekiel and requested a message from the Lord in hopes of getting some guidance. Of course God wasn't about to cooperate with their hardened hearts and He then reminded them of what landed them in exile in the first place.
Israel's biggest problem from the beginning was that they consistently misunderstood God's intentions in giving them His Law. Verses 11-13 clearly explain that his intent all along was to help His people "giving them life" by protecting them from themselves and their sinful behaviors that would erode their relationship with Him. He reminded them that obedience would have guaranteed them a quality of life in the good land that He had promised and that He had every intention of blessing them.
Unfortunately, we suffer from a similar disease that causes us to question God's intentions as an excuse for doing things our way instead of His. We have a habit of asking for God's help or guidance in areas where He has already spoken clearly while in our hearts we continue to ignore what He has already said.
It's easy to view God's clear commands throughout Scripture as suspect when they appear as if they would hold us back or prevent us from living the "good" life. But we easily forget that God's vision is far greater than 20/20 and that much of what He says concerning life and relationships is meant to protect us from what we can't see rather than to keep us from what we can see.
God has given us very clear instructions about how to live the life He always intended for us (which will always have a better outcome), but like Israel, the moment we begin to question God's motives, our ability to obey His commands gets drunk on our our own ability to decide what's best for us, setting us on a crash course towards disaster.
Today we have the same choice: to embrace the protective Body-armor of God's commands or to stagger through the mine fields of life drunk on on our blind self-reliance. Both options require faith and trust. The question ultimately comes down to, "Who do you trust more?"
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