Chimes, August 2024
Upcoming Events at Corvallis UMC
From The Pastor’s Pen
August, 2024
God is exceedingly great and so is His army.
Ezekiel 37
Someone had to “say” or tell these words of God to the dead. (The exiles in Babylon where not physically dead but felt they had ruined their lives to death.) Through this miracle of the dry bones God showed them hope. That same hope is for you and me today!
This message from God to His people is timeless. It has always been and is always so. I have come that you may have life and may have it more abundantly. I will never leave you nor forsake you. I will take you up.
This great event of dead, scattered, gnawed , bleached and hardened by the scorching middle east sun and sand blasted!, is a story and more. It is an actual event that all could see. This presentation of total devastation, complete destruction of a chosen people now all but annihilated could be touched - dead, dry, broken bones, scattered from every direction, very few full skeletons if any. Ezekiel describes them as bones not skeletons. An exceedingly great army is what they once were and probably destroyed by Babylonian armies.
They became a restored army, Ezekiel says an “exceedingly great” army of God. They were lacking only the breath of life so God breathed His Spirit into them and they once again became a living army of the living God. God used somebody to make this happen. This somebody was a man named Ezekiel who trusted God. He did not make it happen but God worked through his faith and obedience.
Some insights we can apply to our lives as are as follows: Even when life looks like total destruction, no chance for hope, God shows up and everything changes.
Hebrews 13:5 God says, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
John 10:10 Jesus says, “I have come that they might have life more abundantly.” (Exceedingly great)
Psalm 27:10 David says to us all, “Even if my father and mother abandon me, the Lord will take me up!”
Past failures are forgiven and used for training: The army rethinks, “retreat did not work let’s try trusting and not backing down and charge when our commander-God says to.”
Suffice it to say Israel got the message. Their faith was strengthened. They kept their faith and race pure and after 70 years came home. God’s Spirit spoke to them through this great event of “living bones.”
God majors in the impossible. What is impossible in your life, in mine? May we give that to God and be still and as they say, “Let go and let God.” Such was this message to ancient Israel then and to us, the church today.
March forward!
Pastor Dexter