Now that we are just about to close out 2018 A.D. and we’re looking forward to 2019A.D. is there anything that we can do to improve on our status with God, through His Only Begotten Son, Jesus?
As we consider the events of this year, is there anything that we did or didn’t do that we thought we perhaps should have done better?
As we take a “spiritual Inventory” how was our prayer life? How was our “Meditation” time? How was our Bible reading time? Just how focused on God were we during most of the year? Today let us refresh our vision as we take in a message being called: “Starting A Better Year With God”
Old Testament Scripture Reading: Ezra 7:6 – 10 (KJV)
Ezr 7:6 This Ezra went up from Babylon, and he was a scribe skilled in the law of Moses, which the LORD God of Israel had given; and the king granted him all he requested because the hand of the LORD his God was upon him.
Ezr 7:7 Some of the sons of Israel and some of the priests, the Levites, the singers, the gatekeepers and the temple servants went up to Jerusalem in the seventh year of King Artaxerxes.
Ezr 7:8 He came to Jerusalem in the fifth month, which was in the seventh year of the king.
Ezr 7:9 For on the first of the first month he began to go up from Babylon; and on the first of the fifth month he came to Jerusalem, because the good hand of his God was upon him.
Ezr 7:10 For Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the LORD and to practice it, and to teach His statutes and ordinances in Israel.
New Testament Scripture Reading: 2Timothy 4:1 – 8 (KJV)
2Ti 4:1 I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom;
2Ti 4:2 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.
2Ti 4:3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
2Ti 4:4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
2Ti 4:5 But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.
2Ti 4:6 For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.
2Ti 4:7 I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:
2Ti 4:8 Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.
1) Ezra the priest was a servant of God who like many others, wore “many hats” and was diligent after a time of gross spiritual decay among the nation of Israelites in calling the people to return to the Word of God, which is the means for all spiritual growth and even during a time when the covenant people were under the dominion of a “Gentile King” who had little regard for that which was written; it was the committed behavior of Ezra to model and teach what it meant to walk with God and start over afresh no matter what else was going on.
2) Everything we see marred by sin is the result of the malignant devastation caused by the fall of Adam. The salvation we have received by faith in Jesus Christ ALONE, provides us so that It could be said that our ability to see such and not go to the extreme of casting the blame on God but rather to realize that He has redeemed us to be a ministering force of healing, grace, Mercy, compassion, peace, psychological stability, and hope to the ones being affected by the fall who are not yet saved.
3) As the Apostle Paul writes his final letter to Timothy, (and to us by extension) reminds us that we must pay no attention to the backlash of the fallen world, regardless of how we are perceived by others with no ability to behold the mysteries of salvation, but that we must rather realize these things and minister all the more to reach as many as possible, while time remains as did Ezra as well.