Walking the Way: A daily devotional

Ezekiel 20:12 Also I gave them my Sabbaths as a sign between us, so they would know that I the Lord made them holy. Thought for the day – Holy days Christians have always been a bit awkward about the Sabbath. Saturday or Sunday, take your pick — we've argued about it for centuries. It's meant to be a day of rest, a day when we down tools completely. For our Jewish brothers and sisters, that's exactly what happens: nothing happens, full stop. We don't hold it quite so tightly. And I wonder if that's because we've never really understood what the Sabbath is for. In today's verse, God tells Ezekiel that He gave His people the Sabbaths as a sign between them and Him, so they would know that the Lord sanctifies them. Read that again. We don't have a Sabbath because a day is holy. We have a Sabbath because we are holy — the Lord has made us so. Not the day. The people. That's not nothing. It means our worship, whatever day we land on, is where our holiness...

Ezekiel 19:9 With hooks they pulled him into a cage     and brought him to the king of Babylon. They put him in prison,     so his roar was heard no longer     on the mountains of Israel.   Thought for the day – The Lion in the Cage and the Lion on the Throne Ezekiel 19 is not a comfortable read. It's a funeral song for kings. God tells Ezekiel to take up a lament for the princes of Israel — pictured as lion cubs raised by a lioness, growing into fierce, capable predators. And then verse 9: "With hooks he pulled him into a cage and brought him to the king of Babylon. He was placed in prison, so his roar was heard no longer on the mountains of Israel" (NIV). The lion that once made kingdoms tremble ends up as an exhibit. Muzzled. Paraded. Silent. We actually know this isn't just poetry. Archaeologists digging in Babylon found ration tablets listing "Yau-kin, king of Judah" among the palace's captive dependents —...

Ezekiel 18:2 Yet the Israelites say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Are my ways unjust, people of Israel? Is it not your ways that are unjust? Thought for the day – Say what? What is it about our faith, our Christian faith, that makes us special? I can tell you the things it's not, it's not the rules, it's not the buildings, it's not even our communities, what makes Christianity special is the fact that we have a God who holds us accountable but in ways that allows us to be free of our past. You may well be thinking, Ray, what are you talking about? In our verse today, God is challenging the understandings of the people of Israel, particularly the understanding that the sins of the fathers are persecuted on the children of the next few generations, and God is saying, no, that is not the case, the accountability lies with the person committing the sin, so the person who commits the sin will face the punishment, the person who does not sin will not face punishment, th...

  Ezekiel 17:23 On the mountain heights of Israel I will plant it; it will produce branches and bear fruit and become a splendid cedar. Birds of every kind will nest in it; they will find shelter in the shade of its branches.   Thought for the day – What is your purpose? Ezekiel’s vision is a vision of an eagle plucking the choicest leaves from a tree and planting it. It grows and grows and becomes this fantastic tree that provides shelter in the shade of it’s branches. That’s not where the vision ends but God comes back to it at the end of the chapter. And it got me thinking about what the purpose of a tree is and then what our purpose is, as our churches being places where those who are vulnerable and marginalised can find shelter. And I’m not being all social justice here. This is one of the purposes of the church. Scripture is clear about this. Right from the formation of Israel, the widow, the orphan and the foreigner have always been in the forefront of the p...

Ezekiel 16:60 Nevertheless I will remember My covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you.   Thought for the day – A Covenant That Holds In 1755, John Wesley held the first Covenant Service. He gathered ordinary Methodists — miners, weavers, servants — and asked them to renew their promise to God for the year ahead. It became a tradition we still keep: "I am no longer my own, but yours." It's a sacred prayer. But if we're honest, most years we walk into it fully aware of how badly we kept last year's promise. And that’s the backdrop of our verse today. Ezekiel 16 is one of the hardest chapters in the Bible — a long, account of Israel's unfaithfulness, spelled out in graphic detail. God isn't gentle about it. And yet, right in the middle of that catalogue of failure, we get this: "Nevertheless I will remember My covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlast...

  Ezekiel 15:2  “Son of man, how is the wood of the vine better than any other wood, the vine branch which is among the trees of the forest?  Thought for the day – Just a Piece of Wood We used to have a house that had a grape vine in the garden. Every year it would grow and try to take over the garden and every year we would cut it back. What struck me was just how soft vine wood is. It had the structural integrity of paper. Vine wood, it turns out, is good for exactly one thing: bearing fruit. Take that away, and you're left with something too soft to build with and too brittle to carve. Not even sturdy enough to hang a cup on. God says the same of His people here, and I confess it lands a little close to home at the moment — especially in ministry. It's tempting, when you've been doing this a while, to find your worth in the role: the collar, the title, the years served, the meetings chaired. But Ezekiel won't let us get away with that. Cut off from fruitfulness, none...