Am I a Hoarder?

Ezekiel 44:28 This shall be their inheritance: I am their inheritance; and you shall give them no possession in Israel; I am their possession..

 I have watched a couple of episodes of the TV program about hoarders, people who cannot dispose of anything.  What they owned, even their trash, is so valuable to them that it ruins their lives, including their relationships with people.

Hoarding is the extreme example of loving things too much, but I think we all have to be careful about this. 

It is easy to love things more than I love God.

The priests were God’s representatives to the children of Israel as well as the people’s representatives to God so theirs was a very important task.  They needed to be able to be fully attentive to their responsibilities.

For this reason, God wanted them unfettered, unhampered, by things that could distract them.   

Possessions have a way of doing that to us.  Possessions and inheritances have a way of taking us over if we are not careful.   

As a follower of Jesus, I am a member of the "holy priesthood." 1 Peter 2:5 says: "You yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ."

This is my reminder that God wants to be my number one “possession” with everything else taking second place.  It is only then that I can honor and serve the Lord in my own life.

I cannot allow myself to be a hoarder in any sense of the word if I want to continue to love God above all else.

 

Vindication

 

Ezekiel 36:23 And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name … and the nations will know that I am the Lord when I vindicate my holiness before their eyes.

I looked up the word “vindicate” in the dictionary because it is not a word we use very often. I am glad I did so because it gave me much more food for thought as I meditated on this verse.   

To vindicate means to clear, as from an accusation. 

God is frequently accused of being an unloving or harsh dictator. 

What is the first thing most people say when something bad happens? "Why did God allow that to happen?" "If God is so loving, then how could He allow such terrible things to happen?" "There can't truly be a hell if God is so good and so loving as you say He is."

God's goal is to clear His name from such accusations by saving people from sin and wickedness.   

He explains this goal in Ezekiel 36:26-27.

✅"I will give you a new heart." 

✅"A new spirit I will put within you."

✅"And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh."

        God's goal is to transform me, to turn me into a person who reflects His true character to the people around me. Jesus called it being "born again."

✅"And I will put my Spirit within you."

✅"[I will] cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules." 

          God's goal is to give me the tools I need to live a transformed life by giving me His Spirit to guide my earthly journey. Jesus promised that to His followers just before He left earth (Acts 1).

By His powerful actions of salvation, His miraculous ways of rescuing people from spiritual and physical danger, God is defending Himself. He is vindicating His holiness.

When I see God at work in my own life or in the lives of those around me, I am seeing God vindicate His great name.  

And when I reach heaven, whether at death or at Jesus’ Second Coming, God will have vindicated His holiness completely, without question, for eternity.  

He has done, is doing, and will continue to do everything He can to vindicate His holiness, to convince people to worship Him and Him alone.

The Good Shepherd and His Sheep

                                               

Ezekiel 34:31 You are my sheep, human sheep of my pasture, and I am your God, declares the Lord God.

As soon as I read this chapter of Ezekiel, I thought about other chapters in the Bible that talk about a shepherd and sheep. David wrote about that in Psalm 23, and in the Gospel of John in the New Testament, chapter 10, Jesus speaks of Himself as the Good Shepherd, caring for His sheep. 

The comparisons are striking, considering that Ezekiel lived and prophesied hundreds of years before Jesus came to the earth.    

Ezekiel 34 begins with an indictment against the false shepherds who used the sheep but did nothing to help them in their needs. Jesus spoke of the same thing in John 10.  

Ezekiel 34:12 says: As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered ... 

       Psalm 23:5 = You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. 

          In John 10:16 Jesus says: I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. 

Ezekiel 34:14 - I will feed them with good pasture ...    

     Psalm 23:1 = The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

          In John 10:9 Jesus says: I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.  

Ezekiel 34:15 says:  I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord God.                                                                                      

     Psalm 23:2 = He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters ... 

          In John 10:27 Jesus says:My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

Ezekiel 34:16 - I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak ... 

      Psalm 23:4 = Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

          In John 10:28 Jesus says: I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. 

I wonder if the disciples thought of this passage from Ezekiel along with Psalm 23 when Jesus talked to them, as I did.

If I ever doubted the truth of Jesus as the Good Shepherd, these three chapters of the Bible would end it all.

Jesus is the Good Shepherd, 

     the fulfillment of prophecy, and 

         God's special plan for caring for His children.