Pallet talk John 5

2895. krabattos -- a camp bed 
... 2895 -- a small bed used by the poor; "" () a rude pallet made of thick padded quilt
or mat" (M. Vincent); "a Macedonian word (Lat ) for a bed, pallet, or ... 
//strongsnumbers.com/greek2/2895.html

Jesus said to him, “Get up, pick up your pallet and walk.” Immediately the man became well, and picked up his pallet and began to walk. John 5:8

This is a well-known story of Jesus healing the man at the pool of Bethesda. For 38 years the man hanged out at the pool hoping to be healed. That's a LONG time. He wasn't able to get into the pool by himself. I imagine he had people take him there and they probably stayed a few days, but then were off to make their livings and take care of their other burdens of life. Him life, however, consisted of laying there, begging for food and help. How did he go to the bathroom? How did he do anything? They must have had a nursing staff or the place would have been a complete stenchy mess. Maybe it was. But Jesus sees a guy laying on a padded quilt of some sort and asks him if he wants to be healed. Dumb question, right? Maybe not. Maybe we get to the rut of life and are afraid to climb out. We can't imagine life any other way. But Jesus gives him only 3 instructions.

1) Get up. Well, he thinks, if I could do that I wouldn't be laying here. He had to have the faith to stand up, believing that the strength would be there if he would just do it. His legs would have no strength. His back would have no support. His feet and ankles hadn't born weight for at least 38 years. Was Jesus out of his mind?
2) Take up your pallet. That meant bending over and bearing weight. That meant balance, arms strength, and a strong back.
3) Walk. With weight, with balance, with strength. Do something he hadn't done for years.

All 3 of these things would require faith. Faith that Jesus knew what He was asking. Faith that he wasn't going to struggle to rise up, look the fool when he fell down, or stagger like a drunk under the weight of his burden. Realistically, he would at best look a fool. He could really hurt himself. But the alternative was to lie there for the rest of his life. He didn't even know this was Jesus! He knew nothing but that he wanted to believe this man that offered him the thing he had wanted all his life. Healing.

We may not have physical infermities. We may be held down by the sickness of soul, the weakness of lack of faith, and knowledge of our limitations. Jesus comes to us and asks if we want to get over it. He tells us to get up. To accept his healing and strength and to stand. Prepare for the next thing. Take up our pallet. Get off our backsides and move on. We aren't going back down except to rest. We are moving on. And walk. Get going. Get on with life. Take the pallet and take it home and put it away. We don't need to lay out in public showing our weakness any more, but walk in the strength, power, balance, and under the direction of the Lord. When we do, Jesus comes and tells us who He is! And when people tell us we aren't supposed to be doing this, we tell them that Jesus told us to! We tell them that Jesus said to walk in his strength and power every day of our lives. That we are to follow His directions and not man-made rules that limit God's power. We have a new life.

There was a wonderful testimony of a Muslim convert to Christianity. He spent his years trying to figure out how to properly worship Allah. When he converted, he had the same concerns. How do you properly worship God? And God's answer was to walk in freedom. There were not chains of ritual and format, hours of the day to bow in worship or certain Sabbath rules to keep. Jesus sends the Spirit so that we can worship Him in Spirit and in Truth. That is every day in every way, with the worship coming from the heart and obedience in heart and not format. He was liberated and rejoicing that his worship was so much more than before! May we get up, no longer depend on the sickbed, and walk in the Spirit as He has commanded so that He may reveal Himself to us in new and glorious ways.

Repairer of the Seams Ezekiel 27

Ezekiel 27:26-27

Your rowers have brought you into great waters; the east wind has broken you in the heart of the seas. Your wealth, your wares, your merchandise, your sailors and your pilots, your repairer of seams, your dealers in merchandise and all your men of war who are in you, with all your company that is in your midst, will fall into the heart of the sea.

There is the reference to the repairer of seams in the NASB version. Other versions refer to shiprights and builders. But we will go with the repairer of seams. Also mentioned in 27: 9, the old men and the wise were repairing the seams in the boat or the sails, knowing that if the weak spots were not repaired, the whole thing was going down. And we all know that the same thing can happen with cloth.

There are 3 types of seam failures. I just finished repairing 2 antique quilts for a lady. They showed each types of failure. One form is where the stitching thread breaks. This is actually the easiest to repair. The thing holding the 2 pieces of cloth together breaks, but the fabric itself is not damaged. The line is usually obvious where the repair can be made. We just need another thread that will hold things together. These failures usually come because of stress on the seam when the quality of the thread is bad. Like our lives, we can have stresses that pull on the fabric of our lives. That which is not of God is weak and the strain makes us snap. The seam slowly begins opening up, and without repair, will continue to enlarge a hole in our lives. Sometimes other seams may have to be opened up to lay flat the one that needs to be repaired, and then the opened seam can be sewn shut and if done well, no one will ever see that there was ever a problem. God is like that. He can take the place of the old, brittle beliefs and notions of our lives and replace them with His strength when the things of the world cannot hold up. He can handle it. He might have to do some unsewing to fix the problem, but He can repair all of our holes.

Then there is the shallow seam. The thread was sewn too closely to the edge of the fabric and the stress placed on it causes the edge of the seam to unravel. This is a much more serious problem. That thread which is to hold things together is right and true, but misplaced. That quarter or 5/8 inch seam was not sewn correctly and leaves a weak spot which eventually can be breached. Sewing on the original line again will accomplish nothing.The solution here can be more tricky. If the seam was supposed to be deep, taking the regular seam around the weakness can solve the problem. But if the seam was narrow to start with, placing the original seam can be just as hazardous as it has just become a narrow seam like the one that unraveled. Whole pieces may have to be picked out and replaced, and then requilted. This process is far more time consuming, and unless you have kept pieces of the original fabric, it will be hard to make the piece look right. The patches may be obvious, but at least the quilt is still useful. We can be like this. We are inconsistent. We run life out of alignment and a little too close to the edge. And we fray and unravel. If this is an occasional problem, the repairs are sometimes easy and sometimes obvious, but we can be fixed and used. If the seam was consistently shallow, there is nothing that can be done to strengthen the seams. Some fabric may be able to be salvaged and used in another quilt, but this piece is only good for sitting around. Any stress will pull it apart. Repairs are futile.

And then there is the worst failure. That of rot. These quilts were from close to the turn of the century, and there is a characteristic of most quilts from that era. The black fabric disintegrates. It rots away. There are parts of it there, or there are shapes that show that there was fabric there once, but it is gone now. The batting is exposed, the fabrics around it make it obvious that something was supposed to be there, was once there, and has not held up over time. If there was little of the offending fabric in the overall quilt, new patches can be appliqued into place. Sometimes old fabric can be salvaged from another quilt or fabric collection, but more often than not we don't have that available. Reproductions or close matches can be put into the holes. But if enough of the quilt was made with fabrics that were inherently flawed, like the chemicals used to dye fabric black back then, the quilt will become worthless and unrepairable. It might be set aside sadly, folded as a memory, but it will not be able to be used for its intended purpose. But if there were only a few pieces used, the holes can be filled with time and different fabric and a lot of patience.

These quilts were examples of that. One's edges had been used and abused to the point that I had to cut a whole row of blocks off and rebind it. The center of the quilt, away from the edges, was in quite good shape. The other seams and patches that had worn down were patched. Seams were repaired. Useable fabric from the cut off portion was salvaged from the cut off edge and used to replace rotted or abused spots in the quilt. With the new binding, that quilt became useable again. The second one had more of a disintegration problem. There was need for far more patching, more applique over rotting pieces. The edges had to be rebound as well, but the quality and age of the fabric showed that it was not original to the quilt. There were far more narrow seams where the patches frayed. It was a work that I wanted to save, but the more I patched, the more I realized just how fragile this work was. It was returned to the owner with a note that this piece had to be handled with care not not hung up or used. It was just for show and memories. There were seams that couldn't be patched, but were not serious enough to deal with or were so tenuous that working on them would probably cause more harm. I really began wondering if it was worth my time and her money to have taken this second piece on. And that is how it is with some broken lives. We question God for investing in them when it seems He will get no real reward for all of His trouble.

But that is our God. He looks fondly on we old quilts and though the world puts no earthly value into us (when you look for value of quilts of that era, they are worth little to nothing on today's market), He sees us as precious, as worth it. He paid for us with the blood of His Son, washed us up, patched our fragile, worn and torn seams and patches, and either uses us or puts us on display as examples of His extreme mercy. And for that, we well up in extreme gratefulness. We will be damaged by this life, but God is our good repairer of the seams, wise in His dealing with us, knowing where we need reseamed, patched, places covered over, or parts cut off to stop the bleeding. He then knows where to put us to display His glory. It may be on the bed, on the wall, or in a case or closet, but we are His precious treasure. And we need to love each other, repairs and all, as fellow possessions of the King. We need not judge each other's frailties...we have enough of our own. Some of our repairs don't show up to those who see us, but we know that we are just as likely to come to need for repair because of what we were originally made of, who sewed us together in the first place, and how closely we were quilted. The workmanship we received was not of our own doing. Pride is foolish as we did not make ourselves. But our Master Repairer mends us all when the use and abuse of life takes its toll.

Rewarded with Purple Clothes Daniel 5

Daniel 5:7 The king called aloud to bring in the conjurers, the Chaldeans and the diviners. The king spoke and said to the wise men of Babylon: Any man who can read this inscription and explain its interpretation to me shall be clothed with purple and have a necklace of gold around his neck, and have authority as third ruler in the kingdom.”

The handwriting on the wall. This is the story of where that phrase came from.

Belshazzar's feast is interuptted by this hand...he had taken the cups from the temple of the Lord and decided to use them in his drunken partying. And God did not take that lightly. There is the hand and the writing that he could not read. He knew it was important and needed to be read, but he had no way of knowing what it was. So he issued this reward for its interpretation. Purple, royal clothes. Third in line for power. Unfortunately for him, that person might be second that very evening, for he did not live through the night. But his wife remembered the story of Daniel interpreting for his father the king, so Daniel was blessed with the opportunity to have another shot at revealing his God to these heathen kings. God was ready to speak, but even the kings knew that someone else more in touch with God had to intercede for them as they did not know this God.

This was not the first time God had his people bear bad news to kings. Joseph had to tell of famine, and Daniel had to tell Belshazzar that God would require his live as he was not worthy to be king because he had seen God's dealings with his father, Nebuchadnezzer. He had gone from powerful to eating grass as an animal, and allowed to return to power, humbled before the God of Daniel. But Belshazzar ignored God's dealings and profaned the temple and the instruments that were holy unto the Lord.

So in a way, he gave away the kingly clothes almost prophetically, for he would not longer be wearing them. Someone more worthy would have them. And that person would be Daniel. Daniel did not seek the glory or privilege, just to speak for God when asked by the king to do so. This is what is now called “speaking truth to power.” You tell powerful people what they don't want to hear. It's the hardest thing for a person to do. He knew that if he told this king what God said it could mean his head, or another trip to the lion's den. But he did not fear to tell Belshazzar the words of God. And God protected him again. Those who stand for the Lord don't always walk away unscathed. Many have spoken truth to power and were killed, imprisoned, or thrown down wells like Jeremiah. But for now God used the instrument of Daniel to make His point to the nation. Often we think we deserve the rewards that come with standing on the Lord's side...but when called to speak for the Lord, we need not worry about the rewards or consequences of that speech. We will be rewarded. The consequences cannot be eternal ones, but just temporary. We, like Abraham, should sometimes refuse the world's rewards so they don't believe that they have provided for us, but God alone.

Sometimes we are rewarded, sometimes we pay dearly, for our stand for the Lord. Like Peter, we ask Jesus when he tells us what we have to pay, what will happen to the other guy. (John 20) And He lovingly tells us to mind our own business. Follow Him. Let Him decide if you will wear royal robes or graveclothes. It doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. We are just to obey, to speak, to reveal the mind of God to those who call upon us to read His writing to them. We can't be afraid to tell them the truth...that they are sinners if we need to...and warn them or comfort them or whatever we are called to speak. Just make sure it is God's Word in God's time. And if your favorite color isn't purple, that's ok. The robes in heaven aren't, for God will not be sharing His kingdom with anyone, for no one will inform Him of anything He doesn't already know. He won't be seeking wise men, but be surrounded by all those made wise by Him.

It's our place...at His feet. And a joyous place that will be.

Drunken Nakedness Habakkuk 2

Woe to you who make your neighbors drink, Who mix in your venom even to make them drink so as to look on their nakedness. You will be filled with disgrace rather than honor. Now you yourself drink and exposed your own nakedness. The cup in the Lord's right hand will come around to you, and utter disgrace will come upon your glory. Habakkuk 2:15-16

Sounds like the bar scene, doesn't it? How many guys urge gals to have another drink, and then slip them a mickey? It happened to a gal I knew in college, and probably to someone you know who went off with someone they did not know and drank with them. It is a sad story for many gals, but all too common. Even a cell phone company is using this scenario as a commercial, the gal waking up in bed to the sounds of an electric toothbrush, grabbing the contract in the bed next to her, and finding out she had signed it. You could tell she barely remembered the night before due to a drink or two.

But it is the ones who use these drinks to take advantage of others that Habakkuk was speaking to. There is nothing new under the sun, people. Wicked folks were using strong drink to take sexual advantage of others since the beginning of time. There are prurient interests in seeing people naked all over. Even the prime-time tv shows are showing more and more skin, pushing the limits of soft-core porn. Colleges are publishing magazines with it. Newsstands carry Cosmo and other things more revealing for wandering eyes.

So those who entice people to shed the covering get one of two responses. The editors of Playboy get accollades and are called artists, while those who post encounters on Facebook get blasted. But both those who take advantage, whether by paying someone to strip down or by force or deception, both will be exposed for what they are sooner or later. Both are lechers, and God will make them drink of the cup that they force on others. They will be put to shame.

Never has that been more sadly true than in the media right now. A Christian family, good, God-fearing people, had a son use women long ago. But the cup has come around to this son. He has been exposed and disgraced. Unfortunately, it has taken the testimony of the whole family down with him. That is how it works. Sadly, the scripture, “Be sure your sin will find you out,” has come to pass. I do not condemn them. Every family has their skeletons in the closet to some degree. We have influence, but not control, over members of our family. We have our own. Drunkenness, abuse, adultery, divorce, debt, suicide, mental illness, illegitimacy...they hang on limbs of our family tree. And I'll bet they hang on most of yours. If not, be eternally grateful! Some of God's closest relationships here on earth were with people who exhibited many of those traits. Noah drank himself naked, David took someone's wife, abused her, and committed adultery. Elijah was suicidal after being chased by Jezebel. Lot committed incest...you get the point. It doesn't mean that there were not consequences. Certainly just reading these things makes your opinions of them diminish...tarnish coats the knights in shining armor. It in no way excuses their behavior. IN NO WAY! But God has the ultimate perspective. He knows we are but dust, and in case you don't know it, there is no good use for dust. We throw it out. It is dirty and destructive and can ultimately lead to damage to the surfaces or crevices to which it attaches itself. The very computer you are reading can be brought to an abrupt end by dust in the works. But the question is, are we grieving with this family or relishing the scandal? Are we glad that this son renounced these things years ago and that they were dealt with, or are we feeling pious that no such thing has happened in our home? Are we getting all comfortable with the idea that they didn't bring this to light so they deserve this horror? What if everything that has gone wrong in your family was exposed to the world? How embarrassed would you be if the times you screwed up were put on public display? Every call from the principal? Every scream? Every thought? Every relative? The good news is that repentant people are forgiven even these vices. Jesus took the penalty. But it cost Him plenty.

There will be consequences. There were in Habakkuk's day, and there still are in ours. But God doesn't leave us there. For those who cling to the Lord, He will be their strength and salvation. He will secure their footings once again. Those who continue to sin and not repent, those will be thoroughly destroyed. So we have a choice. Will we be humbled and repent or will we continue to be blind-drunk, placing ourselves in the hands of those who would only use and abuse us? Will we use and abuse others, tricking them into doing things they would not do if they were in control of themselves? Are there sins we need to repent of and renounce before we are humbled publicly?

The cup God hands you, that of destruction and humbling, or of rejoicing, will depend on it.

Bonds of love Hosea 11:4

I led them with cords of a man, with bonds of love, And I became to them as one who lifts the yoke from their jaws; And I bent down and fed them. Hosea 11:4 NASB
I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love; I lifted the yoke from their neck and bent down to feed them. Hosea 11:4 NIV

There are words in each of these translations that I like, so I give you both versions to chew upon.

How we hate to be bound, restrained, in any way. I think of a horse when I read this passage. I am not sure that that is how it is meant to be read. I don't know what cords we are really talking about here, but the idea is the same. We are tethered to a greater force, to a leader who has a place for us to go. We aren't going alone in our own direction. We are being led and the leader is taking us there. He is going with us. I picture a man walking a horse, standing next to his neck. Up close and personal. There is a relationship here. A unity like horse and rider. A connection. We are looking at lifting the yoke off. The work is done. We are being taken to the stable to be fed and combed and petted and put to rest for the night. Our duties of the day have been fulfilled, and the tender owner praises his beast for its daily work. This is a leading to rest. How often in scripture God tells us to rest! He wants to be tender with us, refreshing us, feeding us, leading us to green pasture. More often He refers to us as sheep. The shepherd would have to bend down to hand-feed the sheep something other than pasture grass. In any case, he has us on a rope, but it is for our good and benefit. We usually don't go the way the master desires unless we are pulled along or given the restraining boundaries of a lead rope.

Yep, that's us. Even as Christians we tug hard against the ropes of God's mercy. We want to wander around. We may not know where we are going, but we are going there anyway. We resist the call to come in for the night and get our needs met and have the stresses of the day melt into a gentle grooming and a bite to eat. To take the yoke off and quit striving so hard. To let the Master make the decisions of when it is time to work and when it is time to quit. To let Him decide if pasture grass is enough for the day, or if we need an oat bag or a handful of treats (chocolate or a nice mocha latte) to calm our nerves or give relief to our weary muscles. Yet we tug against the ropes like a stubborn donkey, digging in our heals and telling God we want to go another direction. We don't realize that the direction He is pulling us in is for our good. But we have other ideas. We just know we are tied, refusing to see that we are tied with bonds of love. We just know that they are bonds, and we want to be free.

There have been several articles I have read lately that have talked about the slave, the bond-servant, the under-rower that we are called to be in Christ. This is a slave with no rights of his own. He is owned, given a task or tasks, and serves the master who owns him. That is our position in Christ before God. We were purchased and They are our owners. They are our bosses. They have defined the limits of our lives. But we recoil against such a thought. We don't want to be owned. We are Americans and are slaves to no one! But this is the kind of ownership that God has for us...one of tender relationship. He gives us a job in accord with, or exceeding, our abilities. He equips the called and gives them large important tasks to do. He calls us to be workers in His field, plowing, planting, and watering, and weeding, all the while marveling while the crop grows around us. Then the harvest comes, and we rejoice in the fruit of our labors. Parties are held, and feasts are eaten as we rejoice that all that work paid off! That work may be in raising children, leading a Sunday school class or working Vacation Bible School. It may be in working for the Lord in a factory, a quilt shop, or an insurance company. We are led into schools, coffee shops, and playgrounds to meet other sheep whose shepherds have abandoned them to the wolves around them. We may not know why God led us to where He has us (Lord knows that Iowa is the LAST place I thought I would live!), but we can trust His heart that He has led us there for our good and mostly for His glory. He is a caring master. He does not beat us and abuse us, but breaks us like a bucking bronco so that we can be of value to Him and to ourselves and others. How we hate that, but oh, the delight of having purpose in life! Oh, the tender relationship between animals and their caretakers.

This chapter is actually one of hope and mourning. God tells Israel how He wants to provide them with the shelter that they need, and how He doesn't want to be angry with them. He lures them in with thoughts of shelter, safety against their enemies, food, and home. He mourns that they resist Him so. His heart aches for them to come to Him so He can be good to them. Instead they wander in the deserts, food themselves for the beasts who do nothing but attack and destroy. He beckons, speaking softly with food held out in His hand, to draw them in and win their trust. The food of the Word can be feasted upon, satisfying our deepest needs and giving us the nourishment and knowledge of the nature of this shepherd. We should have known Him all along, but in our youthful rebellion and desire to run free, we ran away and lived wild. He sees us out there, lassos us, and gently pulls us home, knowing that if we continue in our wildness we will eventually come to destruction. He calls us to be broken, to be tamed, and to come under His protection and rest from our foraging and hiding from every specter that throws a shadow on our paths. We can trust, we can rest, we can be fed until we are satisfied for the first time in our lives for some of us! We can fellowship with others like us, protected from the enemies that prowl the land around us.

These are the bonds of love. So why do we fight the one who longs to love us. Rest.

Divine Design Ezekiel 43

If they are ashamed of all that they have done, make known to them the design of the house, its structure, its exits, its entrances, all its designs, all is statutes, and all its laws. And write it in their sight, so that they may observe its whole design and all its statutes and do them. Ezekiel 43:11

Divine design.

There has been talk in the world of Christian women about God's design for us. There is a book with this subtitle. God has placed an order for how the world is supposed to work, and unfortunately for most of us, we refuse to read the directions and build appropriately.

There are a few types of fabric work that throw out the rule book when it comes to making things. There are artists who brag about breaking the rules. But many of these works end up looking like a mishmash of stuff. There is no pattern, no crispness, no order. Often these are “art pieces” that hang on a wall and may draw us to wonder, but serve no other real purpose. They are mere curiosities. Personally, when there is an amazing structure to a piece, it draws me in. Compared to a more free-form work, there is an admiration for the designer, vs. perceiving a sense of laziness or rebellion in the other artist. I was going to type the word creator, but the thought of creation conjures up a plan and construct. Purposefulness. Artist in this day and age almost has come to mean one who does their own thing in resistance to the “norm” and this rebellious spirit is rejoiced over. Instead of creating a higher beauty, it dissolves into meaningless lack of form and definition. It can be unsettling, confusing, and ugly.

When it comes to God, He had a plan. He knew how he wanted His house to look. He had the plans, picked out the curtains (literally), and had the rooms planned and furnished. There was no second-guessing about it.He had had one house built, but their sin led to the destruction of their temple and their nation. God wanted to reestablish His presence among His people, but only when they were ready. When was that? When they repented. When they acknowledged their sin before Him and were begging for the place to return that they could take their sacrifices to and be forgiven. God had no intention of letting non-repentant sinners know what He had on His mind. They could not build something that God could accept, let alone live in, in their state. And they would have rejected the design, anyway. They wouldn't have sacrificed their materials to have it made. Their hands were dirty, and you cannot build something pure when the materials and workman are contaminated.

And in that time, they had to come and offer sacrifices for their sin before they could enter and hear the Word of the Lord.

So confession was their secret code. When confession, true, heart-felt spilling out of their sins before God, took place, the blueprints could be handed over. It is the prayer of Psalm 51 that cleanses our hearts before God. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, Jesus reminds us. The truth and beauty of God's plan are handed over and seen for the amazing grace that they contain. Not only are the plans for how to worship God appropriately given, but also the mind of God is handed to them in His laws and statutes. As we can see in modern culture, handing people God's Word without a repentant spirit guiding them leads only to mocking God's ways. Why marriage? Why abstinence? Why honor your parents, take a day off each week, or not steal or otherwise take things from your neighbor? Why not look at what your neighbor has and covet it, or take his wife while he's out of town? We ask a lot of whys in this day and age, questioning if God has any say over life in America or the rest of the world. We call it culture. God calls it Righteousness, the way we ought to live regardless of all other factors. He laid out good and evil, right and wrong, truth and error. He set boundaries for our good, whether we call it good or not. Isn't it good to have sex? Yes, within boundaries. Isn't it good to have stuff? Yes, within boundaries. Isn't it good to worship a higher power? Yes, if it is THE Higher Power and no other one.

When it comes down to it, we get bent out of shape when sports teams, politicians, or the person who cuts in line ahead of us don't follow the rules. The rules are the rules! They can't get away with that! We were robbed! They cheated! But when it comes to God's rules, we question their validity, let alone their benefit. And it has reached the place where sin and disorder has gotten so out of hand that we get rid of the law because we can't rein in the lawless. So unless the mind is repentant and submissive, making more rules only leads to more lawlessness, and the situation become more intolerable.

Do you long to know God's design? Do you long to have a heart that doesn't want to resist His Word when it makes you uncomfortable and your mind tells you to question Him? Do you want to know how to build the temple of your heart, furnished with the throne for Him to sit on? Be ashamed of your sin. That is how the Prophet Ezekiel was told to identify the righteous and a rebuilding can begin. And then the pattern can be laid out, the fabric cut to measure, and the construction can begin. I think you will like the end result. In fact, I guarantee it (even more than Men's Warehouse).

Ezekiel 18:4-9 Clothing the naked

The soul who sins will die. “But if a man is righteous and practices justice and righteousness, and does not eat at the mountain shrines or lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, or defile his neighbor's wife or approach a woman during her menstrual period- if a man does not oppress anyone, but restores to the debtor his pledge, does not commit robbery but gives his bread to the hungry and covers the naked with clothing, if he does not lend money on interest or take increase, if he keeps his hand from iniquity and executes true justice and My ordinances so as to deal faithfully- he is righteousness and shall surely live,” declares the Lord God. Ezekiel 18:4b-9

This is one long sentence, but it is one thought, so I will not take our clothing verse out of its context.

It is hard to define righteousness, but here Ezekiel defines it for us in light of our care for the needy hand-in-hand with religious purity. The verses before this talk of God no longer cursing the sons for the sins of the fathers. This would be in context of whole tribes and nations being doomed, as well as Jewish children suffering the fate of their idol-worshiping parents. Over and over we look at the lives of the kings. Some followed God, but their children did not, and vice versa. But the point is, where the hearts of the people go in regard to Whom they will worship, so went the culture. Here we see that those who refused to “look up” to idols followed God in other ways as well, from sexual purity to taking care of the needs of those around them.

In this day and age, we speak of looking up to people...movie stars, politicians, religious leaders (both true and false teachers), teachers, community leaders, and philanthropists. Some of these are good to look up to, and some are not. But the truth remains that those we look up to sway our thoughts, and therefore, our behavior. Those who look up to those who promote non-Christian thought are dragging away a generation or two because they are not comparing those thoughts with the thoughts of God. We do well not to look up to anyone but God because people will let us down. Even the most godly among us will say and do things that will make us scratch our heads in wonder. But God is in His Holy temple...let all the earth keep silent before Him.

So when we look only to the Lord as our source and sustainer, we will act graciously to those around us. There will be no taking advantage of women, no coveting things and wives of people close to us. We will not look to take advantage of another's misfortune, but see to it that they are restored when they need to borrow for a while. We will not look to take, but to give and see people have their daily needs met. And that includes seeing that they are clothed. They don't need to be humiliated before their fellow man. They don't need to be cold. They are to be fed, and given justice. If their employer doesn't pay them, they should be defended and cared for until right prevails. If they need a personal loan, don't make it a benefit to yourself...give the loan and accept repayment without charging them. This proves that you did it to meet their need and not to benefit for yourself, taking advantage of the situation. God says He hates that. It makes it all the harder for the poor man to get out of his poverty. It makes him shamed, indebted to his fellow man...a slave of sorts...to those who should be helping out of a sense of brotherhood and love, not greed and disdain.

He keeps himself from iniquity. That is grossly unfair behavior toward another. He is fair in his dealings with a brother and with God. God states over and over how much He hates iniquity. That is usually the one trait of God that most of us have in common with Him. We hate unfairness in its many forms. And we despise those who would take advantage of someone else for their own greedy gain. Unfortunately we confuse proper profit for hard work and ownership for unjust gain. People will march against a company because they make a profit, often assuming that the people that work for them are being treated badly. We need to know who is being greedy sometimes...and it isn't always the employer. But God knows the heart. Jesus talked of an employer who paid people what they needed to live even though their brother worked longer hours. Those who worked declared it unfair. But Jesus called the generous act good. So we need to do our job and not keep accounts on someone else's life. Others will have more or less than I, but that is not my concern. Am I dealing justly with those around me? Am I meeting the needs of those who do not have the things they need for life and comfort of heart and soul? Am I giving without concern of what I will receive back in return, even if it is nothing of advantage to me? God sees and says that if I am that sort of person...a godly person, for this is how God gives to us (what can I EVER pay back to God?) that I will live. Live for His glory. Live for the joy of being a friend of God and man. And that's a great life.