February 23, 2023

Passage Read: Ezra 6-9
Meditation Verses: 9:13-14

Thought

Ezra says they are in difficult circumstances, though now they have been returned to their own land. They have been released from exile and permitted to return to their ancestral homes, which is very good. But other books indicate that they cannot make ends meet, they are selling their children and themselves into slavery and borrowing heavily to make ends meet. What they are able to earn, a significant portion disappears before they make it home. They live in fear of their neighbors, and their children are learning ungodly ways. All these are signs to Ezra of the judgment of the Lord for their continued sin, walking in the ways of their faithless fathers who brought them to destruction and exile. He recognizes that it is because of God's grace and mercy that they have not suffered the full weight of God's anger.

Application

Our nation is in a similar state, though we haven't been overthrown or exiled. We too enjoy the mercy of God so that the full force of His wrath has not come upon us. But do we recognize we are adopting the ways of the godless, by intermingling with them in so many ways? Do we realize how far short of God's Word and will we have fallen? Or are we blinded by His mercy to our danger? Dear God, please bring in true repentance and humility, that all of us who call ourselves by Your Name would commit ourselves to walk in Your ways and stop making so many excuses in order to love the world and delight ourselves in all is pleasures.