Love the Lord Your God…

“Thus says the Lord God: ‘This is Jerusalem; I have set her in the midst of the nations and the countries all around her. She has rebelled against My judgments by doing wickedness more than the nations, and against My statutes more than the countries that are all around her; for they have refused My judgments, and they have not walked in My statutes.’ Therefore thus says the Lord God: ‘Because you have multiplied disobedience more than the nations that are all around you, have not walked in My statutes nor kept My judgments, nor even done according to the judgments of the nations that are all around you’—therefore thus says the Lord God: ‘Indeed I, even I, am against you and will execute judgments in your midst in the sight of the nations. And I will do among you what I have never done, and the like of which I will never do again, because of all your abominations. Therefore, fathers shall eat their sons in your midst, and sons shall eat their fathers; and I will execute judgments among you, and all of you who remain I will scatter to all the winds. (Ez 5:5–10) 

‘Thus shall My anger be spent, and I will cause My fury to rest upon them, and I will be avenged; and they shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it in My zeal, when I have spent My fury upon them. Moreover I will make you a waste and a reproach among the nations that are all around you, in the sight of all who pass by. (Ez 5:13–14) 

I can just hear the Jewish leaders saying, “Who do you think you are speaking so forcefully to us?” “Who died and left you to be the one who represents God to us?” “Don’t you know who we are?” “You need to stop saying such violent and divisive things. We’re all in this together, just trying to get along.” “God is all about love and kindness.” “He gave us this land and blessed us in it.” “So what if we think, dress, live, act, love the same things as all those who clearly hate God.” “We are doing it all in Jesus’ name.”

And then Jesus came along and said,

Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers killed them. (Lk 11:47) 

In our day, we honor the Scriptures in name only, but God has brought a curse on us in spite of ourselves. No! He’s brought two curses, no wait, three. The Covid-19 is a curse brought on us because of our lack of real love of God. He’s also brought our leadership’s horrid response to the Covid-19 virus to us as a judgment against us. And it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see what’s coming with a new president, with the setup we have going right now, things are going to become really tight. How bad it will need to get before we’re stripped of all the things we keep between us and God and fall on our faces in humility and beg God for mercy?

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking the same thing those guys who heard the message of judgment when Ezekiel was preaching and the same thing the Jews who heard Jesus. Who do you think you are? In my case, I’m not a prophet, but I can read the times. I’ve been around the block a few times. I’ve seen a couple of generations on the earth and studied some more. I can see which way the wind is blowing. And, I know God. And we’re in serious trouble because we refuse to worship and serve the living God with all our hearts, minds, souls, and strength.

Instead, we are serving God like we are stopping the Covid virus. Not really. Here’s an example of what I mean. What do people who work with dangerous chemicals do when there is a spill? They dress up in HazMat suits. There is no way they are going to let those chemicals get into their systems and kill them. If we believed the Covid virus was as deadly as we say we believe it, we would act very differently than we do (goofy paper masks, children are exempt, 6 feet distancing, etc. all useless to keep a deadly virus at bay). It is the same with our walks with God. If we believed that Jesus is Lord and that he died so we can live in his presence forever, we would live very different lives. I’m just saying.

Image by Thorsten Töller from Pixabay