September 3 - How Do I Get There From Here?

 Read today’s texts first:  Ezekiel 20-21; Ps. 111; Revelation 8

MAXIMize YOUR DAY

The lost won’t turn around and follow you
if you’re heading in the same direction. 

I don’t normally connect my journal entries, but a theme of life’s journey is emerging from my first three readings this month.  After expanding our peripheral vision to include our past and future, it makes sense to figure out how we get where we are going.

The answer is not hidden in some Bible code or a DaVinci painting.  The basic rule of hermeneutics is simple - the plain things are the main things and the main things are the plain things.  What is obvious according to Ezekiel and the Holy Spirit is the recurring theme from chapter 20: I gave them my decrees and made known to them my laws, for the man who obeys them will live by them (20:11,13,21).  If you really want to live and fulfill your destiny, do it God’s way with God’s help.  Obedience is not an option!

Israel was delayed, derailed and ultimately deported because of chronic disobedience.  God diagnosed their problem: you say, “we want to be like the other nations, like the peoples of the world, who serve wood and stone.”  Get a clue!  How are you going to bring the nations to the true God if you want to follow their false gods?

That question comes back to me, because I’m often guilty of the same tendency.  “Lord, when I’m tempted to live like the world, remind me that they don’t even know what life’s all about.  They won’t turn around and follow me if I’m heading in the same direction.  You can’t get here from there!”