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Good weekend to you my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
As we begin a new month together, March 2025, I wonder what you see as you look out over the next 31 days in your life journey. What significant things are already on your calendar?
And if you and I were to keep careful track of personal events, events impacting our family and friends, and even major national or international events this month, can you imagine what our journey will look like by the time we reach March 31st?
Yesterday I left you with Mr. Ezekiel who was receiving a very significant message from God about failed leadership held accountable by God and God’s promise to intervene and personally act on behalf of His people Israel, gathering them back in their homeland. (Ezekiel 34:11-14)
These words of God’s promise have been cherished by the descendants of those who first heard them in Ezekiel days and for many generations: “I Myself will tend My sheep and have them lie down, declares the Sovereign LORD. I will search for the lost and bring back the strays, I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak…I will shepherd the flock with justice.” (Ezekiel 34:15,16) As you may know sheep are among the most skittish of all animals and will only lie down when fully content.
While this was a specific promise made by God to a specific group of people at a specific time in history, have you found it applies to you also? Have you experienced God’s provision and protection, and watch care over you? Has God come searching for you when you were wandering and maybe trying to hide from everyone and maybe from God?
Has God healed your wounds and restored your strength? Has God been for you a Good Shepherd of love and patience, fairness and justice, forgiveness and mercy? Can you imagine where you’d be in life if God had NOT done all those important things in your life? Have you thanked God lately for all He has done for you?
Both then and now, as people read Ezekiel’s scroll there was and is a natural tendency to feel encouraged by God’s promises but perhaps a bit judgmental toward failed leaders, maybe even watching to see if failed leaders will face justice.
And perhaps that’s why God’s message continues with these next words aimed at all of us: “As for you My flock, this is what the Sovereign LORD says: ‘I will judge between one sheep and another and between the rams and the goats. Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture? Must you also trample the rest of your pasture with your feet? Is it not enough for you to drink clear water? Must you also muddy the water… Must My flock feed on what you have trampled and drink what you have muddied?… I will judge between one sheep and another” (Ezekiel 34:17-22)
Whether it’s cattle, sheep, goats, horses or any other species of animals who share pastureland and water with others in their flocks or herds, the behavior of each animal affects the others in their herd. But it’s not just animals, it’s you and me too, am I right? Our behavior in our home effects everyone else who shares our living space. Our behavior in school or at work or even at church affects everyone else with whom we work or go to school or church. It’s the neighborhood where we live and the social groups we are part of.
We all know what it’s like to have someone else’s bad attitudes or selfish behavior or poor choices negatively affect our life, right? Are we as attentive as we could be or should be to the effects we have on the people our lives touch? Do we have at least one person who will be honest in helping us see the negative effect we have on others if we can’t see it? Are we sensitive to the conviction of the Holy Spirit?
Of course, Jesus can and should make all the difference in our lives, our families and the communities of people we connect with where we live, work, play or worship, isn’t that true? That’s the overall message of the New Testament of the Bible and may I urge you to take some time to reflect especially on Colossians 3:1-17.
That powerful message fits perfectly with Ezekiel 34:17-22 and calls us to spend some time honestly looking at the effects we have on others IF Jesus IS our Savior, and the Holy Spirit IS residing in us to guide our lives. Are you pleased with what you see in the ripple effect of your life?
God gave Ezekiel one other powerful statement in this message which is very worthy of our consideration this first weekend of March: “I will place over them one Shepherd, My servant David, and He will tend them; He will be their Shepherd. I, the LORD will be their God and My servant David will be prince among them. I the LORD have spoken.” (Ezekiel 34:23,24) David, of course, was the great national hero of Israel. David had been dead about 500 years when Ezekiel received this message, but the Jews in captivity heard this promise from God as very significant.
Someday there would be another great national leader for them who would love them as David did; lead them with wisdom, as David did; defend them and bring them prosperity and unity as David did. He is the One Jews have long anticipated and called “Messiah”. Of course He came, didn’t He, in the person of Jesus, yet since the days of His arrival to the present, most Jews have refused to believe Jesus to be “the Christ”, the Messiah God was promising to Ezekiel.
But Jesus will yet come again, and this next time as He sets up His world kingdom in Jerusalem for His 1000-year reign, there will be no doubt, anywhere in the world, for all Jews and Gentiles!
This weekend, as we begin a new month together, each and every day you and I have the opportunity to live making a Jesus difference in our world. Are you ready for a great month of influence and impact? Here’s a worship song to help us step into this new month celebrating these great truths…
Today’s Scripture: Ezekiel 34:15-24.
Choose below to read or listen.
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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
“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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