Biblical responsibility

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living ^©

At the end of seven days the word of the LORD came to me: “Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me. When I say to a wicked man, `You will surely die,’ and you do not warn him or speak out to dissuade him from his evil ways in order to save his life, that wicked man will die forn his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood. But if you do warn the wicked man and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his evil ways, he will die for his sin; but you will have saved yourself.
(Ezekiel 3:16-19 (NIV))

When God spoke to Ezekiel and told him to warn Israel of their wrongdoing, God made it clear that if He sends someone to deliver His Word, that person carries the weight of those people as his responsibility. That is also true for today.

When God sent Ezekiel, Ezekiel did not have the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to deliver. He had the teachings of the Law to deliver. God sent Ezekiel to deliver prophetic words that would greatly impact their lives.

Today, we have words that will impact lives even more than in Ezekiel’s time. We can speak in general terms, not as prophets, but as people empowered by the Holy Spirit to warn people of their impending danger if they do not accept Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior. Where we differ from Ezekiel is that we have a direct route to God that we can offer to anyone who is willing to receive it.

If God places us in situations that He desires for us to warn and to witness, we need to respond. If we do, then the decision and the consequences are the responsibility of the person we witnessed to. If we do not tell them, then the responsibility is ours to bear.

If we have truly accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, then we need to heed what God asks of us to do. It has a far greater impact than we realize.

Copyright 1998 – 2012 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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Petitioning God

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living ^©

So we fasted and petitioned our God about this, and he answered our prayer.
(Ezra 8:23 (NIV))

What is different about this and how we ask God for something today?

Toady, it seems that we simply pray one or two times for something and when it doesn’t come about when we want it to, we simply give up!

Ezra wrote about fasting and petitioning. Exactly what is the difference from then and now? Fasting requires a commitment. It requires a willing act to deliberately give up something in the hopes of attaining something else. Fasting requires you to give up physical food in order to obtain spiritual blessings. Don’t take this wrong, but, when was the last time that you saw your church have a Sunday afternoon Fast? We have a tendency to get together and eat, and, yes, sometimes we overindulge. We do not get together as a body of believers and fast. We do not give up something in the hope of obtaining something greater. To quote an old saying, we want our cake and we want to eat it, too.

When was the last time that you saw someone with a petition? They feel strongly enough about something to take it upon themselves to get other people to feel the same way. Have you ever petitioned God for something? Petitioning calls for a fervor. It calls for a relentless desire to obtain what you seek.

Do you see a trend in what Ezra wrote about? He wrote about people who were passionate about what God could do for them. They did not relent. They stayed the course of prayer, fasting and petitioning until God answered them.

Are you willing to stay the course?

Copyright 1998 – 2012 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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