Ezra 9 Today

Scripture selections are taken from the Rock Church Daily Bread Reading schedule for each month. “Lena’s Journalin’” are Lena’s comments on the specific passages from her Daily Journal.

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Ezra 9:1-15
Ezra's Prayer concerning Intermarriage
1But then the Jewish leaders came to me and said, "Many of the people of Israel, and even some of the priests and Levites, have not kept themselves separate from the other peoples living in the land. They have taken up the detestable practices of the Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Ammonites, Moabites, Egyptians, and Amorites. 2For the men of Israel have married women from these people and have taken them as wives for their sons. So the holy race has become polluted by these mixed marriages. To make matters worse, the officials and leaders are some of the worst offenders."
3When I heard this, I tore my clothing, pulled hair from my head and beard, and sat down utterly shocked. 4Then all who trembled at the words of the God of Israel came and sat with me because of this unfaithfulness of his people. And I sat there utterly appalled until the time of the evening sacrifice.
5At the time of the sacrifice, I stood up from where I had sat in mourning with my clothes torn. I fell to my knees, lifted my hands to the LORD my God. 6I prayed, "O my God, I am utterly ashamed; I blush to lift up my face to you. For our sins are piled higher than our heads, and our guilt has reached to the heavens. 7Our whole history has been one of great sin. That is why we and our kings and our priests have been at the mercy of the pagan kings of the land. We have been killed, captured, robbed, and disgraced, just as we are today.
8"But now we have been given a brief moment of grace, for the LORD our God has allowed a few of us to survive as a remnant. He has given us security in this holy place. Our God has brightened our eyes and granted us some relief from our slavery. 9For we were slaves, but in his unfailing love our God did not abandon us in our slavery. Instead, he caused the kings of Persia to treat us favorably. He revived us so that we were able to rebuild the Temple of our God and repair its ruins. He has given us a protective wall in Judah and Jerusalem.
10"And now, O our God, what can we say after all of this? For once again we have ignored your commands! 11Your servants the prophets warned us that the land we would possess was totally defiled by the detestable practices of the people living there. From one end to the other, the land is filled with corruption. 12You told us not to let our daughters marry their sons, and not to let our sons marry their daughters, and not to help those nations in any way. You promised that if we avoided these things, we would become a prosperous nation. You promised that we would enjoy the good produce of the land and leave this prosperity to our children as an inheritance forever.
13"Now we are being punished because of our wickedness and our great guilt. But we have actually been punished far less than we deserve, for you, our God, have allowed some of us to survive as a remnant. 14But now we are again breaking your commands and intermarrying with people who do these detestable things. Surely your anger will destroy us until even this little remnant no longer survives. 15O LORD, God of Israel, you are just. We stand before you in our guilt as nothing but an escaped remnant, though in such a condition none of us can stand in your presence."

Copyright Statement: Holy Bible, The New Living TranslationCopyright © 1996 by Tyndale Charitable Trust. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers. All rights reserved.

~ Lena’s Journalin’ ~
STOP! Please note this is not about racism. NOT at all. God is not offended in who’s white, peach, yellow, red black, colored, etc. His interest goes way beyond the outward color of skin, He is after hearts. Hearts, if anyone has noticed, are the same color, which has no bearing if they weren’t the same color, because this is a faith issue.
There are truly only 2 races. The race of Adam and the race of Jesus Christ. There are only two kingdoms- The kingdoms of this world, and the kingdoms of our Lord. That’s it. Narrows it down a bit, huh? Quite.
So why is the Lord so against one nation being intertwined in covenant together with another nation? Well, if there are only two, what does that mean? Believers and unbelievers, in Christ.
We were all born in Adam and can be miraculously changed, converted, switch kingdoms in Christ. Once we do, we do for covenant love. The reason we switch is to also bring others to make the switch. There’s a great rescue which is the new order of everyday.
Marriage was originally designed by God to bring into agreement, this work of covenant rescue, the saving of lives. If one is not “saved” and the other covenant partner is, the work is hindered, tainted, in its purity of effectiveness, maybe even thwarted. Rather than two becoming one in the work of God, they are trying to become one with each other and in each other and the work is greatly ignored, because the greater work becomes the working out of the marriage itself, rather than the two working together to strengthen God’s kingdom and grow it up. They spend their lives trying to agree together about being together and what faith they hold separately and how it works for them.
The tragedy? The work of God dwarfed or ceased from being able to be worked by me. I forsake it, to work on my marriage instead. Of course marriage needs work anyway, but not with this focus and no advancements for the Lord. Are we married in the eyes of the Lord or in the eyes of men? That becomes evident in the work.
What is being reproduced? A strong army of Saviors? Or strife and contention? Are we (it takes a me to make a we) One in Him? Are we able to go up and take cities, nations? Or do we spend our life just trying to take our own home?
The key word here is “Let”, we let it happen. That’s what can happen with an untrained free-will. We allow things, no biggie, not a big deal, they are in love, ya know? In love with whom? God? Or themselves? What we allow is allowed, what we don’t allow is not allowed. If we just let the chips fall where they lay, we’re going to pay a price for it later on. There will be consequence for choices made, that don’t seem that bad. We may never even know, who could have been saved, won over, healed, delivered by our Covenant Godly union.
Now, what if we did not know? What if we’re already there? Could it be we can save a nation by saving a man or a woman? Could it be God will forgive sin and wrong choices made? Of course! He’ll redeem what we’ve mistaken. That does not mean divorce, it means come into covenant with the Lord for that one soul at least! It means ask for the grace of God to be a light to that one, to shine the true unhypocritical love of God in living proof daily. Intercede that that one will be turned into another nation, converted, redeemed, and switch allegiances.
Now what about our seed? Teach, train, live as examples before them of the covenant love of God. Make right choices that will affect them for eternity. Be an example of loving obedience.
They are watching. They watch our choices, they watch our priorities, they watch our excuses, to serve God or not, when it’s convenient or not. They watch that. They watch what we’ll overcome odds for. Our example is powerful and yet for them it gets watered down, like passing a story along. If we compromise, they do the more. If God is a 2nd burner in our lives, He’ll be the 3rd for them, unless a miracle occurs in spite of our poor example. The Divine design of God is people being examples, living proof to other people.
When going to church is a choice we make or don’t make, they quite possibly will not make that choice when they have the chance later in life. If we don’t choose the fruit of God’s spirit in activation in our homes, the children will not believe God’s word. He made them to believe by seeing living proof.
What’s truly important to us? We’re living it. If work is #1 we live it. We can say all we want that God is #1, but the proof is in the evidence of our lives daily lived out.
I’ve seen people time and time again go to work not feeling well, but miss church assemblies week after week, because they did not feel well…They’d overcome it for work, but for the kingdom work it is on the 2nd burner. I understand the reasoning behind it is, I’m off on Sunday to recover for the week because I worked when I was ill and now I’m saving up more strength to go work more. Do we believe in healing? Do we get truly refreshed in God’s presence? Does Christ give us strength? Or does more rest? Do we believe God’s word?
Who are we really working for? Pharaoh or Jesus? That’s not an easy question, it ruffles feathers, big time. The proof of what we believe is shown in our daily lives. It is amazing what people will become well for. Think about it.
It’s all about covenant. Your good, at my expense.
Who do I have covenant with?

Daily Repetitive Verses:

Isaiah 58:12 – in multiple translations….
The Amplified Bible
And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of [buildings that have laid waste for] many generations; and you shall be called Repairer of the Breach, Restorer of Streets to Dwell In.
The Holy Bible, New International Version®
Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.
THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language
You'll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, rebuild the foundations from out of your past. You'll be known as those who can fix anything, restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate, make the community livable again.
The New King James Version
Those from among you Shall build the old waste places; You shall raise up the foundations of many generations; And you shall be called the Repairer of the Breach, The Restorer of Streets to Dwell In.
GOD'S WORD
Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the foundations of past generations. You will be called the Rebuilder of Broken Walls and the Restorer of Streets Where People Live.
New Life Bible
And your cities which were destroyed long ago will be built again. You will set up the stones of the bases of the old buildings. You will be called the one who builds again the broken walls, and who makes the streets on which people live like new.