bible

Ezekiel 13 1 And the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 2 “Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel who prophesy, and say to those who prophesy out of their own heart, ‘Hear the word of the LORD!’”3 Thus says the Lord GOD: “Woe to the foolish prophets, who follow their own spirit and have seen nothing! 4 O Israel, your prophets are like foxes in the deserts. 5 You have not gone up into the gaps to build a wall for the house of Israel to stand in battle on the day of the LORD. 6 They have envisioned futility and false divination, saying, ‘Thus says the LORD!’ But the LORD has not sent them; yet they hope that the word may be confirmed. 7 Have you not seen a futile vision, and have you not spoken false divination? You say, ‘The LORD says,’ but I have not spoken.”8 Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: “Because you have spoken nonsense and envisioned lies, therefore I am indeed against you,” says the Lord GOD. 9 “My hand will be against the prophets who envision futility and who divine lies; they shall not be in the assembly of My people, nor be written in the record of the house of Israel, nor shall they enter into the land of Israel. Then you shall know that I am the Lord GOD. 10 “Because, indeed, because they have seduced My people, saying, ‘Peace!’ when there is no peace—and one builds a wall, and they plaster it with untempered mortar— 11 say to those who plaster it with untempered mortar, that it will fall. There will be flooding rain, and you, O great hailstones, shall fall; and a stormy wind shall tear it down. 12 Surely, when the wall has fallen, will it not be said to you, ‘Where is the mortar with which you plastered it?’” 13 Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: “I will cause a stormy wind to break forth in My fury; and there shall be a flooding rain in My anger, and great hailstones in fury to consume it. 14 So I will break down the wall you have plastered with untempered mortar, and bring it down to the ground, so that its foundation will be uncovered; it will fall, and you shall be consumed in the midst of it. Then you shall know that I am the LORD.

God is serious about many things, Pride, jealousy, envy, strife, sexual immorality etc..in Ezekiel 13 we see that he’s serious about prophets who lead his people astray because in reality they didn’t hear from God but they gave a word that was based in their own opinion.

Now it’s easy to bash those guys and say oh they must be disingenuous.  If they really are a prophet of God they would know his voice.

This challenges me because in my time as a minister, I too have felt pressure to have a word from God on EVERY SUBJECT KNOWN TO MAN.  I think ministers have to be really careful not to present their opinion as though it is the word of God, even if it is good advice.  Remember that in this verse, God even calls them prophets! He calls them foolish but not false.  BIG difference.

There’s also another side to this coin.  If you read on in verse 11 you notice that the punishment for this effects the people who listen to their advice as much, if not more, than the prophets who gave the bogus word!  I think God is trying to set up a model where his followers will learn to be wise and 1: test the spirit and fruit of the prophet 2: test the word for authenticity.  This is reiterated by john in 1 John 4:1 “ test the spirits whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” And also in Matthew 7:2 “you will know them by their fruit.”

Have you ever seen a sheep?  Every Easter in South Carolina we would rent a lamb to use on stage in our stage production.  Well, for the first few years, guess who’s job it was to keep this lamb clean, fed, and quiet… you guessed it, mine!  That job was terrible.  Do you have any idea how much those animals poop? Well, lets just say it’s a constant flow… much like a river.  Also, they stink! As if that isn’t bad enough, they are LOUD!  And can you guess where we kept him? In the house!  I remember not being able to sleep because of the constant cries of this whiney little lamb.  The only thing that would keep it quiet was to put it directly in front of a shiny object.  This lamb would look into it’s own reflection and think that it was with another lamb. NO that isn’t cute…. Its stupid!  These animals aren’t real bright! Is it any wonder that God refers to us as his sheep? We can be so stupid as a whole! Now before you crucify me, I’m not saying Christians aren’t bright. In fact, I believe Christians are some of the brightest people on earth.  Why then, do we believe what we’re told without researching it out for ourselves. For instance, I grew up in a church that believed that inter-racial marriage was sinful.  Now, my parents didn’t buy into that philosophy, but I did for many years, just because my Sunday school teacher told me so.   Have you ever seen a Christian say that God hates Gays.  Or have you ever known a Christian who said that women shouldn’t wear pants? Where do they get this stuff?  In watching Bill Maher’s “Religiolous” I became upset with the Christians he interviewed, not one of them had a good reason to believe anything they believed!  They didn’t know why they believed a certain way, just that they did! It was billed as a belief system for dummies. I recently came across a lovely woman who had a pillow case in her house that said if you sleep on it once and send it back (with an offering no doubt) it would bless her household.  Now you tell me, can you find anointed pillow cases in the bible?  The bottom line is this, I want to see a new generation of Christians who don’t just blindly accept religious viewpoints and traditions.  A generation of people who love Christ and know what they believe and don’t fall for any religious schemes or rhetoric. The bible says plainly, “test the spirits”. Don’t accept things without first researching it out for yourself and I promise your journey of enlightenment will not only please God, but it will bring you closer to him also.  Don’t be like the foolish prophets who blurted out what they thought was God without truly hearing from him. Don’t be like the foolish sheep who blindly accepted the heretic teachings of “less than reputable” prophets.  Enlightenment is not just a mystical eastern concept. You don’t need a pastor to tell you what to believe (although he can help you) all you need is the perfect, infallible, righteous, and correct, word of almighty God. I bet you have it sitting in your very house.  Wow what a privilege

James 5: 15 and the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. ¹⁶Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

I have often used this passage to open up discussion in small group settings but, I myself find it hard to really put this into action.   If you’re anything like me, you find it hard to truly be open to others.  In my life, the toughest thing I have had to overcome is the feeling that I am not loved or accepted.  Over and over again, I have been hurt by people who say they love me, and then, when I do something they don’t like… they turn their back and walk away.  Over the years, without even realizing it I have become a person who trusts no one and believes nothing people say.  What’s that? But you’re in ministry, how can you say that?  Well, I find when people tell me they love me, I secretly say to myself, “yeah sure, wait until I mess up” or “wait until you don’t like something I do”.  Have you ever found yourself in my shoes? Unknowingly you have become jaded and have locked yourself into a pattern that forces you to please others or just “keep the peace”?  I like to say that I’m not a people pleaser, I like to say that I serve God and not man, but DO I ?

Recently I have found that the true meaning of this scripture is meant to give freedom to you because of your confession.   It has nothing to do with how your peers react. It has nothing to do with whether or not they pray for you or they don’t judge you.  It is simply this… God wants us to live a life that is authentic! Thats it.  He say’s confess your sins one to another. He’s not saying that your friends can help you. He’s not saying that they will understand. He’s not even saying that you have to tell everyone, everything about you.  What he’s saying here is that we shouldn’t be concerned about looking good in the eyes of others.  We shouldn’t care what they think of us.  The issue at hand, is that he wants us to be humble enough to humiliate ourselves and lower ourselves in the eyes of others so that we can honor God with our lives.

We too often live life in a way that hides the truth of who we are.  Look at the extreme example of Ted Haggard.  He had lived a life in which he covered the truth of who he was with a facade that looked holy in the eyes of men.  Answer this… which is better, a beautiful clean house with termites eating away at the foundation, or a “fixer upper” with strong wood and a solid foundation?

Have you ever been in a cold dark place? Maybe under a house or in a cave.  Those places always have one thing in common, they have mold, mildew, and rott.  Don’t lock your heart away in a deep dark place.

Imagine what the church would look like if you knew everyone’s junk. Even the pastor’s!  At my former church in South Carolina our youth pastor admitted in a sermon that he didn’t read his bible every single day. .. Families left the church.  WOW what if instead of judging him, they confessed their faults?  Humility solves all problems.

What is your personal truth?

What if we all walked in truth, with no illusions, no dillusions, only TRUTH.

As for myself, I have a new resolve to please God with my life, who cares if those around me love me ! I will choose to love them, love God, and love the Man that God is making me.

I pray the same for you.

Proverbs 22: 9  A generous man will himself be blessed, for he shares his food with the poor.

I have often caught myself saying things like, boy imagine how generous I could be if I could win the lottery.  Even today I caught myself daydreaming of all the good I could do with 200 million dollars.  There is no doubt that I could do great things with that money but that isn’t at all what Solomon meant when he talked about a generous heart.  I sat down today with my son to watch that old school version of robin hood. You know the one, the disney version with all the animals.  I’m sure it’s the best version.  There was a scene in the movie that reminded me of a generous heart.  Remember the scene where Friar tuck is in his church and a little church mouse comes out and offers her last farthing for the poor, even though she herself was poor?  It reminded me of the widow who came to Jesus and offered her last mite to his ministry. Or even the widow who took care of Elijah by offering him her last bit of flour and oil.  Over the years I have become more and more convinced that God is very concerned with the motives of our heart.  He knows the inward places of our heart but he never ceases to test and bring out our true motives.  For instance, I run a homeless ministry, I love to feed the homeless.  Yesterday I was trying to get lunch at popeyes,  (pretty great chicken) then I heard a voice asking me to buy them food.  Of course I bought her food but I have to say that when you’re strapped financially it hurts a little more.  I thought to myself, this is what it’s all about.  How hypocritical would I be if I only fed the hungry when I was using someone else’s money and resources!  I have found that time and time again God has asked me to give more when I was lacking resources than when I was doing ok.  Its in these times that we find out if we have a generous heart or if we just like to call ourselves generous. I think we all like to call ourselves generous. Think about it who really calls themselves stingy?  Next time you are tested, remember that God asks for a generous heart not a generous wallet!  Don’t wait until you have more money, don’t wait for everything to be in place, don’t wait for everything to make sense with your 5 year financial plan.  The scripture says that the generous will be blessed for he shares HIS food with the poor.  Think of it like this, we are meant to be rivers of blessing, the more we bless others the more we can receive from God. If we ever start to store the blessings we will become a stagnate lake.  Pour out everything so that you may receive everything.

Much love

Have you ever noticed that if you read much in the old testament you will find this reoccurring theme? God puts a king in place, gives him a promised future and specific commands, and usually in the next chapter you see that the same king has led the people astray, he has erected idols and broken every law of God!  I have read of these kings like Jeroboam time and time again, usually thinking something like, “WHAT WAS HE THINKING?”.

Was he drunk with power and ignored God? Is it that he was insincere?  Was it that he never knew God?  I think it is something else entirely.  I think he just relied on other people’s experiences with God and never really had a relationship with God himself.  I have been thinking about this a lot lately.  So many people, myself included, can often rely on the word that God has given someone else instead of really putting in the time and effort to truly have an intimacy with Christ.  It’s easy to just listen to a great message and feel fed but really we all have the ability to hear from God.  I have often said that church was not meant to feed you… (wow strong statement right, just hear me out) If you only ate once a week you would be a hot mess! It’s the same with church, you can’t starve yourself during the week and then expect the pastor’s message to fix you.

Sometimes God will withdraw and be silent for entire seasons in our life.  It tests our love and devotion. Will you love me if you don’t tremble everytime you pray? Will you love me if I say no to your prayer request? Will you still love me if things don’t go your way? Jeroboam lost his way because he relied on the prophets to give him the word of the Lord.

The saying goes, “Absence makes the heart grow fonder” … Really? That is true but only if you are really in love.  Otherwise, its just “Out of sight, Out of Mind”.

Food for thought