The promise of God’s presence: "KISS (keep it simple stupid)"
Ezekiel 43:9 “Now let them put away from me their prostitution and the lifeless idols of their kings, and I will live among them forever.”
As I reflect upon this text today I can hear the call of God upon us today to stop prostituting ourselves to the world and worshipping the lifeless idols within our culture that have sent us into exile. At the same time I can’t help but hear the way in which we have taken the rigid angle of text like the book of Ezekiel and allowed our sinful nature to develop a practice of religion that has become the prostitute and become our lifeless idols that are leading many of our churches today into exile and away from God. It seems we have to keep it very simple and the more complicated we make it the more we are tempted into prostituting ourselves and worshipping lifeless idols. It has to be about Jesus, period. It has to be about joining Jesus in the work of loving the world to heaven. It can’t be about our comfort, our buildings, our political agenda, our way being the right way; it has to be about Jesus. If we keep it about Jesus then we won’t prostitute ourselves to the world or worship lifeless idols, but if we keep it about Jesus then we can affirm the promise of this verse that God will live among us forever. This is the promise of God through Jesus Christ; God came in Jesus to live among us forever by the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Lord, I come this morning thinking about how we can take such simple, profound truth and turn it into a way prostitution to the world and end up worshipping lifeless idols such as a building, an idea, a place, a memory, a tradition, or religion. Give me the grace to keep it simple today by focusing on you and your work of grace within my life and the world. Protect me from the temptation to complicate this simple and profound promise of your abiding presence in my life. Keep me focused upon your deliverance in my life and help me to communicate your desire to continue to deliver us from the exile of our lives. Be with your Church today that she may awaken from exile, stop complicating the gospel and turn back to Her first love. Give me opportunities today to speak of your grace and to point to you; help me to see the way in which we are prostituting ourselves; help me to see those lifeless idols; and give me the strength to expose them so that we may experience the promise of your presence residing with us forever. Amen!
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