SCRIPTURE: Ezra 9-10; Ps. 131; Luke 21
Ezra 9:8
“Now for a brief time God, our God, has allowed us, this battered band, to get a firm foothold in his holy place so that our God may brighten our eyes and lighten our burdens as we serve out this hard sentence.
OBSERVATIONS: The people of Israel were having a hard time reestablishing their identity in the midst of recovering the land. They realized that they had intermarried and brought foreign concepts to the collective thinking of their land. Their policies and doctrines and even their beliefs were polluted with the foreign concepts of their spouses.
APPLICATION: Our denomination has lost the bulk and the strength of its identity. Rather than bringing ram offerings and seperating husband from wife, we must find ways in our day to renew our spiritual identity and our cultural role within the larger body of Christ.
PRAYER: God, renew my understanding of who you have called me to be. From there, I will endeavor to discover who you are calling my church to be. Then, and only then, can I offer to lift a hand to renew the denomination. Be Christ to me, for I pray in your name, Amen.
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