“Christ is faithful as a son over God’s house. And we are his house if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast.” Perseverance and holding onto hope is the hallmark of God’s children. Failure to do so can mean we are not actually letting ourselves be loved and held as a child of God. We can take courage and strength from the fact that he chose us!! And we don’t have to do anything in return to earn his love.
It is gracious of God to explain to us clearly the reason for His wrath. Israel has rebelled against His statues, hated them, turned to idols, said in their hearts “God cannot see”, committed evil and violence even more immoral than the nation’s around them to whom they were to be a holy blessing. They committed abominable idolatry in the house of God. And yet, God sustains those who are grieved by their evil, protecting them with a mark on their foreheads. May we not disregard the evil of our time, but feel towards them as these set apart Israelites did, with grief and sighing.
Yes, Annie, encourage each other so that our hearts don’t become hardened. That is a scary thing–refusing to listen to God anymore. The consequence? He might leave us. Look what happened in the vision of Ezekiel– people resort to worshipping false gods (power, sex, creation), rather than the Creator. In some way or another, we are all guilty of valuing the house over the builder (Hebrews 3:3). I know I am. I spend more times worrying about what to cook for Thanksgiving than getting my heart right to offer thanks to God. Idolatry is not always extreme. It can happen slowly, inconspicuously, deceiving us in small degrees. Let’s keep encouraging each other so that lurking sin will be exposed and we can fix our eyes MORE on Jesus, and LESS on the best turkey recipes.
So many places in the bible does God speaks through his people to tell us to fix our eyes or thoughts or minds on Christ and the grace to be brought to us. We see it in Hebrews three! There it tells us to fix our eyes on the faithful Jesus, the most high priest who was obedient to he who appointed him,his Father!
15 As it is said,”Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” I was struck by this verse too as well as the verses in Ezekiel about the image of jealousy. God is jealous for our love. He loved us first. He is gracious to reveal to us our unfaithfulness and and we ought to not harden our hearts toward him. I pray that all of us would turn to Christ and hunger for his love more than idolizing things of this world. It’s ironic bc God was gracious to me. Had mercy on me and helped me understand this better by a dream I had last night of my being jealous of someone. It being a shadow and imperfect version . But it helped me to see God’s jealousy being holy and fully righteous . Open our eyes to that ! Help us to see your glory , father .
This verse, Ezekiel 7: 22 “I will turn my face away from the people, and robbers will desecrate the place I treasure.
They will enter it and will defile it.” This reminds me of Matthew 21:12 when Jesus overturns the tables in the temple. I looked that up, and Jesus actually refers to Isaiah 56:7, but the similarities of the verses are quite interesting. It just makes me appreciate how much of the knowledge from the OT is imbedded in the NT…and especially in the book of Hebrews, too.
15 while it is said,
“Today if you hear His voice,
Do not harden your hearts, as when they provoked Me.”
This past Sunday, an evangelist that is from my church came back to visit and preach at our church. His name is Jay Lowder. If he is s ever in your town, go see him! God has given him a tremendous gift for reaching the lost. Many, many lives have been changed because of what God does through him!
Anyway, the above verse stood out to me because Jay told a story about a man who kept putting off getting saved. Kept saying that he’d wait until Jay came back to his town. Then kept saying he’d do it the next night, the next night, well he’ll wait til the final night of the event, etc. The final night came, and this man still didn’t come to Jesus. After the service, he told Jay that he just couldn’t do it, and he couldn’t feel anything anymore. Each time he put it off and said not yet, his heart hardened a little more, til he couldn’t feel the urging of the Holy Spirit anymore. So sad, and so scary!
Reading these chapters in Ezekiel reminds me that God has a righteous jealousy for our hearts and wants me to clear all idols that I have put before Him in my heart, too!
are we just trusting God for the things we want / using christianity as a righteous identity. Or are we prayerfully going to Christ with everything? do we kneel, starving and poor, to be fed with the holy spirit? for HeS taken our iniquities. all of our earthly needs and distractions. feed on His spirit, and as you entre the freedom of His provision, you’re life will become more than just ‘doing this so i can get a wage’ or ‘i need a meal’
when the imposter is sus
mining away, i dont know what to mine i’ll mine this anyway. in this minecraft day, so beautiful.
15 As it is said,
“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” – Hebrews 3:15
❤️
✝️
13But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
I love that god is the builder of ALL things & we are the house.
“Christ is faithful as a son over God’s house. And we are his house if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast.” Perseverance and holding onto hope is the hallmark of God’s children. Failure to do so can mean we are not actually letting ourselves be loved and held as a child of God. We can take courage and strength from the fact that he chose us!! And we don’t have to do anything in return to earn his love.
“According to their way I will do to them, and according to their judgments I will judge them, and they shall know that I am the Lord.”
It is gracious of God to explain to us clearly the reason for His wrath. Israel has rebelled against His statues, hated them, turned to idols, said in their hearts “God cannot see”, committed evil and violence even more immoral than the nation’s around them to whom they were to be a holy blessing. They committed abominable idolatry in the house of God. And yet, God sustains those who are grieved by their evil, protecting them with a mark on their foreheads. May we not disregard the evil of our time, but feel towards them as these set apart Israelites did, with grief and sighing.
Yes, Annie, encourage each other so that our hearts don’t become hardened. That is a scary thing–refusing to listen to God anymore. The consequence? He might leave us. Look what happened in the vision of Ezekiel– people resort to worshipping false gods (power, sex, creation), rather than the Creator. In some way or another, we are all guilty of valuing the house over the builder (Hebrews 3:3). I know I am. I spend more times worrying about what to cook for Thanksgiving than getting my heart right to offer thanks to God. Idolatry is not always extreme. It can happen slowly, inconspicuously, deceiving us in small degrees. Let’s keep encouraging each other so that lurking sin will be exposed and we can fix our eyes MORE on Jesus, and LESS on the best turkey recipes.
13 But encourage each other daily, while it is still called today, so that none of you is hardened by sin’s deception.
So many places in the bible does God speaks through his people to tell us to fix our eyes or thoughts or minds on Christ and the grace to be brought to us. We see it in Hebrews three! There it tells us to fix our eyes on the faithful Jesus, the most high priest who was obedient to he who appointed him,his Father!
“For every house is built by someone, but the builder of ALL things is God.” Heb. 3:4
Lord, my Rock & my Redeemer, may my life remain steadfast & built on You, the Cornerstone of ALL things.
Hebrews 3:19 So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.
Never stopping the belief is key!!
15 As it is said,”Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” I was struck by this verse too as well as the verses in Ezekiel about the image of jealousy. God is jealous for our love. He loved us first. He is gracious to reveal to us our unfaithfulness and and we ought to not harden our hearts toward him. I pray that all of us would turn to Christ and hunger for his love more than idolizing things of this world. It’s ironic bc God was gracious to me. Had mercy on me and helped me understand this better by a dream I had last night of my being jealous of someone. It being a shadow and imperfect version . But it helped me to see God’s jealousy being holy and fully righteous . Open our eyes to that ! Help us to see your glory , father .
This verse, Ezekiel 7: 22 “I will turn my face away from the people, and robbers will desecrate the place I treasure.
They will enter it and will defile it.” This reminds me of Matthew 21:12 when Jesus overturns the tables in the temple. I looked that up, and Jesus actually refers to Isaiah 56:7, but the similarities of the verses are quite interesting. It just makes me appreciate how much of the knowledge from the OT is imbedded in the NT…and especially in the book of Hebrews, too.
Wow! Amazing connections between the OT and NT, thank you for pointing this out
15 while it is said,
“Today if you hear His voice,
Do not harden your hearts, as when they provoked Me.”
This past Sunday, an evangelist that is from my church came back to visit and preach at our church. His name is Jay Lowder. If he is s ever in your town, go see him! God has given him a tremendous gift for reaching the lost. Many, many lives have been changed because of what God does through him!
Anyway, the above verse stood out to me because Jay told a story about a man who kept putting off getting saved. Kept saying that he’d wait until Jay came back to his town. Then kept saying he’d do it the next night, the next night, well he’ll wait til the final night of the event, etc. The final night came, and this man still didn’t come to Jesus. After the service, he told Jay that he just couldn’t do it, and he couldn’t feel anything anymore. Each time he put it off and said not yet, his heart hardened a little more, til he couldn’t feel the urging of the Holy Spirit anymore. So sad, and so scary!
Obedience is immediately… This seems to suggest that there are consequences.
Reading these chapters in Ezekiel reminds me that God has a righteous jealousy for our hearts and wants me to clear all idols that I have put before Him in my heart, too!
Yes! Me too…
Yes, after seeing God’s righteous anger in today’s reading, Holy Spirit, convicted me as well.
are we just trusting God for the things we want / using christianity as a righteous identity. Or are we prayerfully going to Christ with everything? do we kneel, starving and poor, to be fed with the holy spirit? for HeS taken our iniquities. all of our earthly needs and distractions. feed on His spirit, and as you entre the freedom of His provision, you’re life will become more than just ‘doing this so i can get a wage’ or ‘i need a meal’
Amen!