Month: June 2020

316. God’s Spirit Within

Ezekiel 36:27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.

The Lord promises to put His Spirit within us. Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit into our hearts. As a result, God (Jesus) would be within us all the time. Is it the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit who dwells within the believer’s spirit? Well, if you have one person of the Trinity you have all three, for God is One. It matters not: if Jesus lives in your heart, or if the Spirit dwells in your spirit, it is all the same. Your body is a Temple. God’s presence is to be found within the heart of every believer. We don’t have to search far to find God. He is on your lips and in your heart: with the lips one confesses and with the heart one believes. And so he is saved.

The result of this promise of indwelling is that we will obey the Law. When we obey God’s Law life is much better. The result of God’s Spirit within: we “walk in my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them.” What we have failed to do the Spirit within begins to do. He never stops working and He never gives up. And finally, the Lord will finish what he started. Meanwhile, we are in process. The flesh cannot, repeat, cannot, be improved. We cannot make ourselves better people by the efforts of the flesh. Give up trying and striving. Give yourself to Jesus every day, and let Him do what He does. The key word in this verse is “cause.” The Lord Himself will cause you to walk and keep. When we have come to the end of ourselves the Lord takes over.

We remember the promise: “He will cause….” It hurts a little, but we remember that without Jesus we can do nothing. It hurts to say so, but we get no credit for any good work we have ever done. If we ever do a good work, it is God who does it and gets the credit (“I will cause”). If a work is not done in faith it is sin [Romans 14:23]. If it is done in faith God did it. We thank God that He used us to do something good. Our job, our work, is to believe in Jesus. [“What must we do to be doing the works of God? This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” John 6:28-29]. For this reason we spend time with God every day. We go to church to hear the gospel every week. Then the Lord within will cause us to do good works. It is unbelief that says, “But I have to do something!” No, the Spirit is the cause.

315. New Heart and Spirit

Ezekiel 36:26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.

Here is the really Good News: the Lord will give us a new heart and He will put a new spirit within the people of God. This promise gives real present hope to the OT people of Israel, and the promise is fulfilled in the NT for believers in Christ. What Christ has done is to earn a place for the Holy Spirit to dwell in the hearts of believers by faith. The dead spirit with which we were born is made alive in Christ. So every believer has a new heart and a new spirit.

The Holy Spirit, since Christ, lives in the human spirit making it alive and making us in a connected relationship with the Lord God, the Almighty Creator. Besides creating life inside, the Spirit within energizes and influences the soul to live according to God in Spirit and in Truth. He slowly and gradually, but steadily and surely, grows spiritual life and prompts us to do good works, sanctifying us to make us more holy and loving, and more like God. He will not finish the job until we die and are resurrected: then the perfected soul joins the resurrected body.

In effect, we are two people: saint and sinner, old man and new man, flesh and spirit, death and life, cursing and blessing, corrupt heart and clean heart. This duality results in constant spiritual warfare within. The result is both “works of the flesh” and “fruit of the Spirit,” both working side by side to gain the upper hand and exert control of bodily behavior. We are constantly engaged in this conflict. Is it any wonder our emotions are often in turmoil?

The Spirit applies the Word and Sacraments to change the inward man (which is eternal) and affect the outward man (which is perishing). The more the Law and the Gospel feed the soul the more difference it makes. The more the evil world and the selfish flesh feed the soul the more difference it makes. But we always have the promise: God gave a new heart and a new spirit. The stony heart is slowly being eroded to make a soft heart that can receive the impression of Christ, the image of God. Receive this promise with an honest and good and glad heart.

314. Cleanness

Ezekiel 36:25 Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.

“Cleanliness is next to godliness,” so said John Wesley (and Mohammad). While this isn’t in the Bible, spiritually it is a Biblical concept. “The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin.” “You are clean through the word I have spoken to you.” “Create in me a clean heart, O God.” “Cleanse me with hyssop and I shall be clean.” The spiritual idea is that the spirit within is clean of sin. Forgiveness through the Gospel cleans the heart. For it is out of the heart that all the sins Jesus lists come. All outward sins come from the inside. I am a sinner: that is the problem. My actual sins in thought, word, and deed are symptoms of the underlying cause, a sinfully dirty heart. The Law attacks outward behavior and exposes the inside. The Gospel attacks the inward condition and cleanses it.

Therefore, we need cleansing, and this is what the Lord is promising in this verse:

“I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean:” When we are baptized, and when we remember our baptism, the clean water of the Spirit washes over the soul, and we are every whit whole. God promises clean water for the soul, and it is available all the time. Repent and turn to Jesus.

“From all your filthiness, and from all your idols, I will cleanse you.” First, we admit that we are filthy inside, and we acknowledge that we have idols in the heart. Whatever our heart desires outside of God and faith is, or becomes, and idol. An idol is something to trust in other than God, something we really love and want. We need to be cleansed of filthiness. We don’t realize how an attachment to anything without God is idolatry and adultery. We need cleansing.

Second, we receive the forgiveness of sins through faith in the blood of Jesus. In this way we are clean through and through. We may have been cleansed in the morning, but after a day of walking through the world our feet need to be washed, for they have unintentionally become soiled. This happens when the Spirit uses the love of others to mutually “wash our feet,” that is, when we love one another. We sense a need for Christian fellowship, but we don’t normally see what happens in the mutual consolation and conversation of the brethren. 

Just like we physically feel better after a shower and clean clothes, so we are spiritually refreshed after contact with a holy and loving God. He keeps His promise: He cleans the heart through and through with the precious Gospel.

313. Bring Us to the Land

Ezekiel 36:24 For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land.

The Lord will take us out from among the world, for the faith that God gives us makes us different than unbelieving mankind. He sets us apart from the world and its ungodly ways. He rescues from the destructive forces of Sin, Death and Satan, which rule and control the people of the world.

The Lord will gather us out of all the world’s kingdoms with its evil, deadly, ungodly, foreign, and destructive ways. In the end all the kingdoms of the world will become the Kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever. “Gathering” means that we are in a good and safe group; we are a part of the in crowd; we are in the family of God with God our Father and Jesus our brother. The Holy Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith.

The Lord will bring us into our own land. Our own land is the Kingdom of God; this is where we belong, and it is where we have a sense of belonging. Everything is familiar, comfortable, safe and warm; nothing is strange, foreign, unfamiliar, unknown or dangerous. We get used to living in that kind of world, but the Spirit is training us in righteousness and godliness, so that the world becomes more foreign and the kingdom becomes more familiar. This is “our own land.” This is the family of God, the kingdom of God, the reign of God, the Church of God.

In the immediate context, this promise is for the Jews in Exile in Babylon. But in the wider context of Scripture this promise is for all believers in Christ. We know there was a Paradise, a Promised Land, out of which we were expelled, and we know there will be such a place to which we will be brought once again.

312. God Sanctified in Us

Ezekiel 36:23 And I will sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the heathen, which ye have profaned in the midst of them, and the heathen shall know that I am the Lord, saith the Lord God, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes.

It is an unusual phrase to say that the Lord will sanctify His great name, because God and His name are already holy. The name cannot be made any more holy than it already is. But the amazing promise is that the Lord will be sanctified to us. 

We pray, “Hallowed be Thy name.” The meaning is: His Name will be kept holy among us. This now is quite something to pray for. It means that we ask the Lord to help us to use God’s Name only for prayer, praise and thanks. It means we do not want to use His Name “in vain,” that is, frivolously, for no good purpose, to curse, to swear, or for any sinful purpose. It means we will not profane (make unholy) the name of God in our lives. Using God’s name for vain and empty purposes is an easy temptation in our world; that is why we pray: “Keep me from profaning Your Name on my lips whenever I am angry or excited.” God promises to hear this prayer, keep the Name holy among us, and keep us from falsely, frivolously or angrily speaking God’s Name in vain.

Unbelievers sprinkle their conversations with the Name of God or Jesus on a regular basis. They profane the Name. You, however, will keep it holy. Yahweh is “The Name.” Jesus is Yahweh, the I AM. By the Spirit we confess, “Jesus is Lord.” Our surroundings, our families, our relationships, our groups, our worlds are defiled when The Name is used carelessly and profaned among us. We need the Lord’s Prayer and God’s Promise to keep our lives clean. We pray and believe God will answer: “Lord, sanctify yourself in me.”

But the promise (“I will be sanctified in you”) means more than just clean speaking; it also means clean living, unselfish loving, generous giving, and doing everything that a good God does. Since “bearing the name” in this way is impossible, we need to believe this promise daily, we need forgiveness daily, we need to pray “Hallowed be Thy Name” daily, and we need to repent and believe the gospel daily. To encourage us in this life God gives this promise. And when God is sanctified to us everything else in life is good and it all goes right.

311. Better than at the Beginning

Ezekiel 36:11 And I will multiply upon you man and beast; and they shall increase and bring fruit: and I will settle you after your old estates, and will do better unto you than at your beginnings: and ye shall know that I am the Lord.

Along with multiplying and increasing and bearing fruit and settling, the Lord promises to do better unto us than at our beginnings. This hope and promise of better things is at the core of the Word of God, and this promise greatly impacts our present life. No matter what it is like now, no matter how bad it gets, no matter how far from home, no matter the troubles of the present time, everything, and God means everything, will be better; the Lord will do better unto us than at the beginnings of Creation. Both the universe and man will be better off then even they were in Paradise before Satan, Sin and Death entered.

In the beginning everything God created was good and then, when six days were finished, it was all very good. God was very good, and He still is; the environment was good, relationships were good, and humans were good. Then Satan entered the Garden and tempted Man to sin, and Sin brought death. Since Genesis 3 Death reigned until defeated in Jesus’ Resurrection, Sin ruins humankind and separates us from a sweet relationship with a good God until Jesus took Sin away on the cross, and Satan is the prince of the power of the air until Jesus’ Kingdom strikes back and dethrones him completely. 

Jesus’ life shows the Victory of the Kingdom over Satan, his demons, Death, its diseases. Jesus’ death seals the Victory over Sin. Jesus’ resurrection guarantees the violent Victory over all three enemies. The Rescue, Recovery and Restoration have begun, and the absolute end of all Enemies will take place as predicted in Revelation 19 and 20. Then Revelation 21 and 22 describes the condition of eternal life that will be better than at the beginning in Genesis 1 and 2. We have an empty ache for the Restoration of all things in which life will be even much better than at the beginning, when all things were very good. Better than very good: that is God’s promise; that is our hope; that is our daily reality.

310. Multiplied, Inhabited, Built

Ezekiel 36:10 And I will multiply men upon you, all he house of Israel, even all of it, and the cities shall be inhabited, and wastes shall be builded.

God’s promise for the New Testament Church is that it will multiply with people. This came true in the Book of Acts where it says several times: “And the word of the Lord grew.” It is still coming true in our day when the Church is still multiplying throughout the world, even to the ends of the earth. The “house of Israel” is the Church of believers in Christ, and it will continually multiply people. At certain times and places we may become discouraged with the lack of growth and strength of the Church, but we have this promise that it will multiply people.

Then God says that the cities will be inhabited. Real human beings will live in the NT Church. Although we see empty church buildings around the world, we also see places where believers inhabit in abundance. Real people of God will be filling the empty places and locations throughout the world where the gospel is preached for forgiveness and salvation.

And finally, the wastes will be builded. There are many empty and wasted areas on the earth that are being built up into churches and groups of believers. And when that happens positive influences happen to build up wasted areas. “Wastes” include geographical waste places, philosophical wastes, psychological, social, familial, political, economic and institutional waste places. The solid truth of God’s Word makes something useful out of what Sin and Satan has wasted. This building also happens within each individual Christian where Sin has wasted portions of the soul: the Spirit is in the process of recovering and restoring and building up what has been lost, stolen and wasted. Trust God for His promise in Christ to build you up and restore what the devourer has wasted inside you. He will do it.

309. Tilled and Sown

Ezekiel 36:9 For, behold, I am for you and I will turn unto you, and ye shall be tilled and sown.

This promise sounds like good news/bad news: you will be tilled is the bad news; you will be sown is the good news. No one likes to be plowed over, but everyone knows that hard ground must be plowed before anything can be planted and grown. This is bad news that turns out to be good in the end. We don’t like the tilling while we are going through it, but God sees a hard and stony heart that must be broken up like fallow ground. 

In Jesus’ parable the seed sown on the hard pathway or the stony ground does not sprout or grow very well. The good soil is the plowed ground, where seeds may sprout, grow and yield fruit a hundredfold. This is the “honest and good” heart. We resist the breaking up of the hard heart, and we won’t do it ourselves; therefore, God, the Holy Spirit, must do the plowing and breaking. He uses the experiences of life to soften the heart and make it receptive to the seed of the gospel. He applies the Law with its discipline and threats to soften a hard heart to receive the life-giving Word. We may harden the heart, like Pharaoh, but after a while (and we don’t know how long a “while” is) God hardens Pharaoh’s heart. When we suffer the pains of sin’s consequences with patience, without complaining or blaming, then the tilling work of the Spirit is succeeding. However, God graciously allows us to resist, complain, and blame without yielding to repentance and faith. Then we have to go through it again and the process takes longer.

We thank God that He promises to till, because the heart needs the seed of faith to grow and produce beautiful fruit. “The Sower went out to sow” the Word of God. We thank God that He promises to sow us into fruit-producers. The Lord never stops tilling and sowing because He says, “I am for you, and I will turn unto you.” God is doing a beautiful work in your life through tilling and sowing, like He promises.

308. Branches and Fruit

Ezekiel 36: 8 But ye, O mountains of Israel, ye shall shoot forth your branches, and yield your fruit to my people of Israel; for they are at hand to come.

The mountain of Israel is the Church, all the believers in Christ. This promise is for us. We shall shoot forth branches and yield fruit for the people of God. The Church bears fruit for each other in the Church, not to mention the fruit bearing that goes on for unbelievers to enjoy as well. In other words, Christians will be a blessing to others, especially to those of the household of faith.

This is an unconditional promise: you will shoot branches and grow fruit. Jesus picks up this promise and makes it semi-conditional in John 15: “I am the Vine and you are the Branches. If you abide in Me, then you shall bear much fruit.” The condition is “abiding,” or believing, in Jesus. Remaining in the faith of Jesus “automatically” produces fruit. And this is the purpose of life: to bear fruit. The “if” of Jesus’ words assumes the believer believes and keeps on believing. This is the work of the human being: not to try to bear fruit, but to abide in the Vine. We will just be branches stuck on Jesus, and the fruit will come. We don’t make it happen, for branches by themselves can do nothing unless they are connected to the root and trunk.

It looks like we, the branches, are yielding fruit, but it really is the Holy Spirit living in us and directing us to do good works and yield fruit. It is called the fruit of the Spirit. Our responsibility is to simply keep on believing in Jesus. We are strengthened and encouraged and growing in the faith when we go to church and Bible study and hear the Gospel in a meaningful way. The Spirit produces the Branches (by baptism and conversion), and the Spirit yields the fruit during the life after conversion. We see how the work is all of God alone, and it is not at all of our own fleshly effort. The Gospel causes thanks and praise to spring up in our hearts, and it gives the power to walk into the good works God prepared beforehand.

Because we do not see the fruit-bearing action we are given this kind of promise so that we may believe more strongly in the Gospel, and not let go of Jesus. We hold on to the promise that “love, joy, peace, etc.” are the results of God’s promise through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And it is “at hand to come.” It came when Jesus came.

307. The Flock of God’s Pasture

Ezekiel 34:31 And ye my flock, the flock of my pasture, are men, and I am your God, saith the Lord God.

The common Biblical metaphor of Shepherd and Sheep continues as the Lord promises that we shall be the Flock of His Pasture, and He will be our God. All of the pastoral, bucolic, peaceful, and tender loving care of a Good Shepherd describes in picture the nourishing and restful condition of the sheep of the flock of our Shepherd God. It informs us of the kind of relationship we have with out Lord Jesus Christ. 

The green pastures to which He leads us to lie down and find comfort and rest describes our relationship in graphic terms. This is God’s pasture, not our own, not the world’s, and there is no greener pastures anywhere else than in Christ. The sheep are contented and happy in God’s pasture, and we do not, as is the sinners’ wont, want more. This contented, safe, nourishing and peaceful rest satisfies us fully. Sin and Satan tempt us through the world with more: more money, more fame, more power, and more pleasures. However, the world cannot fill the spiritual hunger and emptiness of the human spirit. There is no life in the world; life comes from God. “Greener pastures” are empty promises. We are already in the green pastures, and that is more than enough.  When we are feeling a yearning, a craving, a wanting, we may turn to the gospel of Christ and receive everything we want and need in the Shepherd’s pasture.

We are God’s people, His flock, and He is our God. This is the essence of the covenant relationship we have with God through faith in Christ. Our God is in charge of our life, health, wellbeing, and provision of every good. There is no outside danger or inside turmoil that can defeat us, for the Lord, our Overcomer, is right next to us and in us. I could never find another flock for belonging, another pasture for pleasure, or another God for my good. Jesus is my Lord and my God.