Prophets Faithfull to God's CovenantProphets of Restoration
Live in the light of God (Isaiah 2:5) Ezra: Faith and Action PreacherEphesians 4:17-24
The MessageThe Old Way Has to Go17-19 And so I insist—and God backs me up on this—that there be no going along with the crowd, the empty-headed, mindless crowd. They’ve refused for so long to deal with God that they’ve lost touch not only with God but with reality itself. They can’t think straight anymore. Feeling no pain, they let themselves go in sexual obsession, addicted to every sort of perversion. 20-24 But that’s no life for you. You learned Christ! My assumption is that you have paid careful attention to him, been well instructed in the truth precisely as we have it in Jesus. Since then, we do not have the excuse of ignorance; everything—and I do mean everything—connected with that old way of life has to go. It’s rotten through and through. Get rid of it! And then take on an entirely new way of life—a God-fashioned life, a life renewed from the inside and working itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces his character in you. For ReflectionAs a sinner in the process of becoming a Christian, our major impediment is the vanity of our minds. The fundamental idolatry occurs when one elevates one's self to the level of a god. Especially in the eddies of our turbulent white water lives, the blindness and callousness animated by self-determination fool us into believing that our lives are so smooth that we don't need God. Then we are easily seduced into forsaking our faith.
When trouble hits, we flounder out of control in the chaos of boulder-strewn rapids. We call on God to help us with the full expectation that God will do something miraculous and turn the tide in our favor. We bargain and strike a covenant with God, and as things smooth out, we forsake our covenant. It is as though we do not know that our lives are meant to be divinely ordered. PrayPray and be humbled by the majesty, power, and Grace that gave us life.
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