Walking the Way: A daily devotional

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...

Ezekiel 14:6  “Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Repent, turn away from your idols, and turn your faces away from all your abominations.  Thought for the day – Repent In our last episode we looked at the weak walls that we build as a façade to protect ourselves, and how God ha promised to tear them down. Our verse today places our motivations and our sacred cows firmly in the firing line. Our chapter today is God calling the people of Israel away from idolatry. We’ve talked about idolatry before on the WTW and I’ve always defines idolatry as the things we choose before God. The things that that stop us from worshipping and serving God to the full because they are more important than God. And this speaks to our motivations, our desires and our fears. In our verse today, we are called to repent, turn away from our idols, and turn our faces away from all our abominations. Strong words, but they are an indication of God’s feeling towards our sacred co...

Ezekiel 13:14 So I will break down the wall you have plastered with untempered mortar, and bring it down to the ground, so that its foundation will be uncovered; it will fall, and you shall be consumed in the midst of it. Then you shall know that I am the Lord.   Thought for the day – Weak walls There’s a thought-provoking image in this prophecy from Ezekiel. God is challenging the false prophets that said that Ezekiel’s prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem was a lie.  He's presenting those lies as weak walls. The idea here is that they may look solid, but actual fact, there is nothing to them. And as I was thinking about this verse this morning, it really hit home to me because It got me thinking about what we present to people to stop people thinking we might be weak. And maybe God is challenging that in us today. God is saying to us, you cannot have any pretense. You cannot put up any walls that might hide the fact that you are struggling, That you might be deceiving ...