Leaving to Live

OOOOOOOOooooooo weeeee!  Church was on fire yesterday.  The sermon challenged me to live my life to the fullest.  My pastor came from Ezekiel 16:1-6.

Ezekiel is a prophet.  He’s the weird guy that doesn’t quite fit in.  He always has a Word for people, but he uses analogies that can be a bit elaborate.  God has put him in position to warn Jerusalem about their missteps.  Ezekiel doesn’t just declare that Jerusalem is in danger.  He paints a vivid picture of their current state of peril.

Jerusalem believes that they’re in a prime position.  After all, they’re God’s chosen people.  They are the seed of Abraham.  Highly favored and regarded.  In short, they were a lot like the super saints in church today.  They had forgotten where they had come from.  It was okay for them to live their lives in any fashion.  Chosen means that you’re superior, right?  So, it was Ezekiel’s job to jog their memory.

Ezekiel tells the children of Israel that they’re behaving like their parents were from the tribes of Canaan.  They are living like they have no home training.  They aren’t living up to the standard that was set for them. 

He then compares Jerusalem to a newborn.  A discarded newborn.  No one even took the time to cut their cord.  They were worthless.  Struggling in their own blood and on the brink of death.  God walked by.  He didn’t leave them struggling.  He took pity on them and commanded them to live.  While they were in their mess, he spoke life into them.

We’re just like that newborn.  Our cords haven’t been cut.  We’re still entangled in our toxic relationships.  We’re connected to our wrong ways of living.  We don’t have the capacity to cut our cords.  No newborn does.  God is gracious.  He cuts the ties that hold us back.  He wants us to leave that old life behind.  We were dying, and He spoke a Word to give us new life.

Many times, we must leave the old behind to really live.  Jesus died so that we could have life and have it more abundantly.  God’s desires for our lives far exceed anything we could want or imagine in this life and the life to come.  He is determined to take us to higher heights.  We should be equally determined to let Him lead us into a life worth living.  #wepreach