Unmasked Blessings

To be honest, I just love blessings in disguise … well when I can unmask them that is. Today the co-worker I usually go eat with couldn’t do lunch as usual so I went to lunch alone. But the great thing was I spent some unexpected time with God. Something that was much needed seeing as how I didn’t get a chance to spend time with Him this morning. Anyway, done rambling about that, when I was eating I started to read the Proverb of the day and was blessed by that and brought light to some things in my own life. Then I wanted to read a Psalm, so I went to Psalm 100. When I was there I saw that I had made a note in my Bible that sent me to Ezekiel 34. It was like a little treasure map, but a treasure that I didn’t know I was looking for. It turned out to be exactly what I needed to read. As soon as I read it I wanted to share it with anyone reading this.

“For thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I, I Myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out My sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land. And I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the ravines, and in all the inhabited places of the country. I will feed them with good pasture, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing land. There they shall lie down in good grazing land, and on rich pasture they shall feed on the mountains of Israel. I Myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I Myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord GOD. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy.”
- Ezekiel 34:11-16

One thing I used to do when I would send encouraging notes to my friends was take a section of scripture and just use it as a guide to encourage them. I want to do that because it is such a sweet passage of scripture.

For thus says the Lord God:
How often do we just stop and realize that these are the words of God? We recognize the red letters in the New Testament as coming from the mouth of Christ, but here… here it says “Thus says the Lord God.” Wow, how I miss that far too often. It makes me think of earlier in Ezekiel 33:30 “Come, and hear what the word is that comes from the Lord”. We are invited to hear and examine the words of the Lord. How precious!

Behold, I, I Myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out My sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness.
God has sought us out. If we are His He searched for us. He pursued us and sought us out as a shepherd searches for one of his sheep when they wander out. It says that He will rescue us from the places we have been scattered. The day of clouds and thick darkness… that is a scary place to be, but He is there to rescue us. Ezekiel 33:30 sounds a whole lot better now, does it not. The Lord Himself has just told us that when we are scattered about, in the midst of a trial or a hard time, He is there. “I, I Myself…” The Lord Himself seeks us out. That excites me to no end and just makes me want to jump for joy. But there is more.

And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land. And I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the ravines, and in all the inhabited places of the country. I will feed them with good pasture, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing land. There they shall lie down in good grazing land, and on rich pasture they shall feed on the mountains of Israel. I Myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I Myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord GOD.
Our God, the God of the universe is going to bring His people out of other countries and into His land (our land). God promises to feed us. He promises to take care of us. More than any man could even take care of us. He is the ultimate provider. We, as girls, desire to have a man take care of us and provide for our needs. God promises to do that. Philippians 4:19 says “And my God will supply every need of yours according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” Oh my gosh, that makes me excited! God. The God of the universe, you know, the One who created all things … He WANTS to take care of us and provide for us. In Ezekiel He tells us that He will provide food for us by the ravines and the mountains. He will give us a place to lie down. So we get to eat and sleep at peace with Him. He does not go back on His promises. Psalm 23:1 “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” That says it all. He is our Shepherd, the good Shepherd. The more you read in Psalm 23 the more encouraging it gets. He tells us that we get to rest, He leads us, He restores us, we have no fear with Him, He comforts us, He provides for us, He anoints us, He overflows what we need; He is such a good Shepherd. He again reminds us in vs 15 of Ezekiel 34 that He will make us lie down. He will make us rest in Him. Sometimes we run ourselves ragged, He didn’t tell us to do that, we did that on our own. But He makes us lie down and rest in Him. He wants good things for His children. Just like we read in Matthew 7 and Luke 11 we are reminded that our own fathers give us good things, but our heavenly Father gives us so much more and such better gifts than even our earthly fathers do. Our heavenly Father knows what we need before we ever ask, He just wants us to ask for it. He provides in times we do not know what we need. He is such a good God!

I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy.
He seeks out the lost. People come to Christ all the time, but our Lord and Savior is seeking out the lost and He is drawing them into Himself. It is nothing we could have ever done. Our salvation is not merely based on what we do, it is Him working in us and through us and through our brothers and sisters. We can do nothing without Him. He is going to bring the strayed back to himself. He is going to bind up the wounded. Psalm 34:18 says “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” Psalm 147:3 “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” He wants to bind up the injured. He wants to heal us when our hearts are broken. He wants to draw us into Himself. He says He is going to strengthen the weak. II Corinthians 12:9 says, “But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.’” Ok, so there is so much to unpack in that verse but I want to just look at the last half, “My power is made perfect in weakness.” He is our strength. There are a ton of verses that tell us how powerful our God is and a ton of verses that tell us He uses the weak to do crazy awesome things. But here is the thing, Moses didn’t think he was doing anything crazy awesome at the time. Neither did Noah or Paul or Abraham. Even the women that we look at as being great women of the faith: Ruth, Ester, Abigail, Mary … These women knew they were working for the King, yet they did not know that in their state of imperfection and weakness God was making them into strong women that we would be looking up to. His power is made perfect in our weakness. It is ok to be weak, God is the biggest, badest, strongest being ever! He cannot be defeated and cannot be shaken. He is the supreme ruler of the universe. He formed you in your mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13). He chose you before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4). He loves the weak and comforts them and gives them strength but the fat and the strong He will destroy. They do not seek Him for provisions or for strength. God wants us to rely on Him. He wants us to look to Him for all of our needs, wants, and desires. He is the greatest thing since sliced bread (well, He is way better)!

Our God loves us and wants us to find our satisfaction in Him. “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost,” (Luke 19:10). He wants to bring us to Himself, He is drawing us closer and asking us to let Him be everything we want and need. He can fill us up to overflowing; “because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” (Romans 5:5b). We cannot fill ourselves up with love, He pours His love into our hearts using the Holy Spirit whom He gave to us. It is not about us at all. It is all about Him, “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the unglodly.” (Romans 5:6) … “but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8). Did you catch that? We were sought out by God because we were lost. If we are saved we were once sought out. But here is the kicker, Ezekiel 34:11-16 tells us He continues to seek us out when we mess up or when we stray or when we lose our way. He at the right time sent Christ to die for our sin. Not just your sin but mine and everyone you know and don’t know and everyone in between … yes, even the person you cannot stand to be in the same room with, Christ died for their sin because they have just as much importance and value as you do in His eyes. Christ loves us so much He died for us and then rose again to prove to the world that nothing is too much for God to deal with. Our God is a powerful God.