Read: Ezekiel 27:1-28:26, Hebrews 11:17-31, Psalm 111:1-10, Proverbs 27:15-16
All he does is just and good, and all his commandments are trustworthy. They are forever true, to be obeyed faithfully and with integrity. (Psalm 111:7-8)
Relate: For the past couple weeks I’ve been reading a little bit from the book of Ezekiel. If you have been reading the link at the top of each blog, so have you. This time has reinforced a view I’ve had of this prophet for as long as I can remember. This guy is weird. I mentioned a bit of that yesterday with “Do Not Mourn”, but look at some of the other stuff this guy did as well: He writes “Jerusalem” on a brick then attacks it with a frying pan (Ezekiel 4:1-3) He lay down on one side for 390 days, then rolled over to lay on the other side for 40 more (4:4-6) While laying there he made his own bread using cow… patties for fuel. (4:9-17, apparently he was able to talk God out of making him use his own feces). Later, he cut his hair with a sword and divided it into three equal parts using a scale. He burned some of it, kept some of it tied to his shirt, and then chased the other third around the city attacking it with his sword (5:1-4)
Respond: This guy is weird… or obedient. I can imagine that a lot of people felt he must have had a nervous breakdown. If he were around today there would have been more than a few trying to get him locked up in some institution. But what really gets to me is two things: How hard of heart the people must have been for God to need to use such insane illustrations? How amazing is Ezekiel’s obedience that he would be willing to go through it?
There is a lot of talk about the inerrancy of the Bible. Various Christian scholars go to great lengths to try to fit the claims and statements in scripture into a literalist, rationalist, western mindset. They bend over backwards trying to explain away some of the differences in numbers and such found in different places. As noble and honorable as these efforts are, far more important is the simple matter of obedience.
The Bible is authoritative. What that means is that it has the right to be an authority in my life and I have a responsibility to be obedient to its commands. It is my authority. All too often we can get so bogged down in the minutiae of belief that we lose sight that the greatest proof of belief is obedience. Ezekiel believed God and it was demonstrated by his obedience. Will the same be said of me?
Respond:
God, help me to follow You. Help me to be obedient to Your Word. It is so easy for me to get caught up in the details of knowing. I love it. You know that because You made me. Help me to live out that knowledge. My walk falls so far behind my understanding. Help
THE RIVER WALK 
Reblogged this on Glenford's Daily Word, Food, & The Vine.
Loved this post! Sharing on my Facebook Page, Thoughts From The Porch….check it out!
Have a blessed day!
This was wonderful and I have been wanting to tell you that I love the way you put your thoughts together! Thanks for sharing!
So true! I would also add that ‘the greatest path to gaining belief is through obedience’. Loved your post (and MercyMe is always a fave).
So true. Action often precedes both emotion and intellect. What we do impacts both how we think and how we feel. The quickest way to happiness is to fake it with a smile until that smile seeps into you. In the converse, the quickest road towards loss of faith is through unrepentant sin.
Amen!
Loved your testimony. Don’t get so caught up in obedience that you forget that you are God’s child and he loves you.
So funny…we were just discussing this yesterday in my small group. One of the women quoted the Ezekiel 4 passage about God allowing Ezekiel to use cow dung instead of human dung, and said, “When God wants you to go through crap, he may let you choose the crap, but it will still be crap. Just obey.” We all had a great laugh, but admitted that was a terrific pearl of wisdom.
Ya he was WEIRD … what was the hair tied to that he chased it – I’ll have to check that out. 🙂 I think that obedience is REALLY important too. His main thing to me is rest and relax and that is extremely difficult for me to accomplish … but I keep trying. 🙂 God bless you!
Do you really consider efforts to dissect the authority of God as “noble and honorable”?
I’ve see Ezekiel’s actions as him trying to understand, visualize, if you will, the specifics of how Jerusalem will fall. It’s like he was using these items to lay it all out so he could understand it better. That’s my own interpretation so take it with a grain of salt. Interesting post. 🙂