Wednesday April 15, 2020

Your Daily Dose of Inspiration:

So many people think that they must improve themselves before coming to the Lord. They believe that they need to make themselves acceptable before He will accept them. This is folly, and a hopeless path. If we were ever able to make ourselves acceptable to the Lord, there would have been no need for Christ. All that man can change is merely external. We might be able to change what we do (though few can even accomplish that), but what truly condemns us is who we are. Our hearts are dead stones, and no man can revive them. Only God can call the dead to life. Only He may take dry bones to awake. That is what God showed to the prophet Ezekiel. The Lord brought Him down into a valley which was filled with dry bones. The Lord told Ezekiel to prophecy His word over those bones, calling them to life.

Eze 37:5-6 Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. (6) And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the LORD.

The bones then rose up and flesh was formed on them, and breath came into them, and they lived. This was done to show that it is the Lord who must raise us up from our death and set us in our place with Him.

Eze 37:12-14 Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel. (13) And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. (14) And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the LORD; I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the LORD.

The Lord spoke this to the people of Israel, but this is one of those prophecies which extends beyond them. For this is a foretelling of the completed work of Christ. It was Christ who brought life to the dead, and through Christ that we are made alive.

-Jared Freeman, “Open Tombs”