The Road to God's Judgement

Prophets Faithfull to God's Covenant Prophets of Restoration Live in the light of God (Isaiah 2:5)    Ezra: Faith and Action Preacher Zechariah 7:8-14 The Message 7-10 “There’s nothing new to say on the subject. Don’t you still have the message of the earlier prophets from the time when Jerusalem was still a thriving, bustling city and the outlying countryside, the Negev and Shephelah, was populated? [This is the message that God gave Zechariah.] Well, the message hasn’t changed. God-of-the-Angel-Armies said then and says now:     “‘Treat one another justly.     Love your neighbors.     Be compassionate with each other.     Don’t take advantage of widows, orphans, visitors, and the poor.     Don’t plot and scheme against one another—that’s evil.’ 11-13 “But did your ancestors listen? No, they set their jaws in defiance. They shut their ears. They steeled themselves against God’s revelation and the Spirit-filled sermons preached by the earlier prophets by order of God-of-the-Angel-Armies. And God became angry, really angry because he told them everything plainly, and they wouldn’t listen to a word he said. 13-14 “So [this is what God-of-the-Angel-Armies said] if they won’t listen to me, I won’t listen to them. I scattered them to the four winds. They ended up strangers wherever they were. Their ‘promised land’ became a vacant lot—weeds and tin cans and thistles. Not a sign of life. They turned a dreamland into a wasteland.” For Reflection Hearing, knowing, and believing the words are impotent without their "doing!" It is not the rituals, not the songs, not the desire, not the fastings, not church attendance, not the public prayer, not your sorrow for sinning, not your commemoration of good deeds -- it is about what you do in Christ's love because God loved you first! It is about dying to your corporeal lives and rising into your God-centered life. It is about suffering and emerging from the distress in restoration and thanksgiving. It is about losing your life and finding joy in obedience to the will of God. It is about radical trusting the unseen God to make all things work for good.  Pray Pray and find rest and peace that surpasses all understanding. Pray and bask in that which is copesetic. Forward to a friend