FRIDAY, 15 January, 2021 “God’s Help”

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Hello my dear “Walking with Jesus” friends,

In these days of such troubling news all around us, I’m happy today to bring you a wonderful, good news report! With God’s help, ANYTHING can be accomplished, isn’t that right? We see it all through the Bible and history, even things that seem impossible, can be changed or accomplished by God’s power!

In recent weeks we’ve been looking at Israel’s Biblical history to learn important lessons for living life today, because the circumstances of our day are so amazingly similar to those times more than 2500 years ago. In the past few days we’ve been with 50,000 Jewish exiles who have returned to Jerusalem and are trying to rebuild both their demolished city and the destroyed Temple of God, even though surrounded by many people who have moved in from surrounding nations. They have faced much opposition from many people who do not want the God of Israel to have any role in the new society they are building out of the rubble of Jerusalem.

Watch that friends, as we rush into a new year of 2021, our world faces many challenges and changes from COVID new variants to leadership changes in America and other places. Just last week Argentina, one of the leading countries of South America, and historically a strongly Roman Catholic country, finally legalized free abortions up to the 14th week of pregnancy. The moral revolution is everywhere, pushing God out. I heard some interviews of Argentinian women say they were excited to follow the lead of women in the United States, in this abortion movement! What is God wanting to do through HIS people in our day, all around the world as societies push God out??

In Jerusalem, in 518bc work was progressing feverishly on the rebuild of the Temple despite the opposition all around them, primarily because two men of God, Haggai and Zechariah, were encouraging the people with fresh messages from God. Those messages assured the people that God was watching over them, God was with them, God was providing what they needed to complete the monumental task. Look at Ezra 6:14 “So the elders of the Jews continued to build and prosper under the preaching of Haggai and Zechariah…”

May I ask, which voices are those, in your part of the world, which are most helpful to you and others, who want to see God honored and see a return to God’s morality in your city, your country? Is your voice making a difference in your sphere of influence? Words matter don’t they my friends? God honoring words can be incredibly helpful. God defying or denying words can be terribly destructive. We’ve been living in that mayhem of words especially this past year of COVID pandemic and political rhetoric! What have been your words and how have they impacted people?

Now listen closely to the next verse in Ezra’s account: “They finished building the Temple according to the command of the God of Israel and the decrees of Cyrus, Darius and Artaxerxes kings of Persia. The temple was completed in the sixth year of the reign of king Darius.” (Ezra 6:14,15) The date was March 12, 515bc. A new Temple stood triumphantly on the temple mount in Jerusalem once again! And do you see how the people recognized the undeniable involvement of God in the project? God had moved miraculously, in amazing unique ways, in the hearts of the most powerful men in the world, all of whom had no reason to advance the cause of the Jews or Jerusalem or the Temple, and yet God had moved their hearts to write laws and provide resources for this Temple miracle! Look around my friends, do you see the mighty hand of God involved in the history of your part of the world? What about right now, in 2020 & 2021?

Have you noticed the work of God will usually only be recognized by God’s people. To others it is simply coincidence. Are you alert so you don’t miss anything God is doing?

As you see in the next verses in Ezra 6, a glorious dedication celebration was held, and then not long after, on the appropriate day… the 14th day of the first month, (Exodus 12) the great festival of PASSOVER was once again celebrated in Jerusalem and especially at the great Temple! It had been more than 70 years since Passover had been celebrated there! What a week that must have been.

Would you consider this with me: We know God is always watching goings on here on earth. As Jesus watched the construction and dedication of this Temple and now the Passover celebration, from the vantage point of the Throne room of God in heaven, what do you suppose Jesus was thinking?

I suspect Jesus might have been looking ahead in time, about 540 years, to the time when HE would participate in several Passover celebrations in that very Temple! Perhaps Jesus and God the Father even had a conversation about the ultimate Passover when Jesus would pay the ultimate price for all humanity, by hanging on the cross and becoming the Passover ‘Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world’ as John the Baptist had said in John 1:29. Pause right here and ponder the significance of God watching events in our world through the lenses of both history and the future He can see clearly.

In closing today, consider the final statement of Ezra 6: “For seven days they celebrated with joy the Passover festival, because the LORD had filled them with joy by changing the attitude of the kings of Persia, so that they assisted the Jews in the work on the house of God, the God of Israel.” For Jews, then and now, the Passover festival is one which calls them to look back, all the way back to the days of their ancestors living in slavery in Egypt, and see how God has over and over come to their rescue as His people, and delivered them in miraculous ways!

While your part of the world may seem in shambles right now, I invite you to do the same today. Look back over your life, your family, your community, your church, even your nation… and thank God for how He has done the impossible so many times in your past. And then let’s invite God to powerful involvement in our lives, our families, our churches, our communities and our nations in 2021, beginning today!

Don’t put any limits on God. Consider asking God to do in the hearts of the leaders of your nation, what these verses report to us that God did in the hearts of Persian emperors, to accomplish the rebuild of the Temple and Jerusalem! What great work of God is needed in your nations’ leaders today?

Now I have a song for us to consider this important truth… “God will make a way, when there seems to be no way, forever… He is faithful”! Is there some great need you have today, for God to get involved in a powerful, transformation way with you? Let’s worship Him right now. . .

Today’s Scripture is Ezra 6.

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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.

Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.

Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)

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