“The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the stayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them.” Ezekiel 34:4
“Wow,” he sure has a lot of stuff. This was the commentary of a middle-class teenager as he spoke of the stuff that a rick kid possessed. But little did he know that a kid down the street, who had very little was saying about him, “Wow, he has a lot of stuff.”
Question, “Why do you and I have what we have?” This certainly could have been the question God asked the leaders in Israel during Ezekiel’s day. The above verse is a scathing rebuke of not only those leaders, but it could be of my life as well.
It seems very clear that the leaders were using all that was in their possession for themselves. God was going to judge them for not using what God had given them in the right ways.
Think it through:
1. Why has God blessed you and I with all that we have?
Answer: To meet our needs and to meet the needs of the people around us (so that God might be glorified). In the book of Philippians 4:19 Paul writes, “My God shall supply all of your needs according to His riches in glory.”
Our God delights in meeting the needs of His people. Our God delights in giving us extra resources so that we can meet the needs of the poor so that they might see God’s grace at work. When this happens, people come to Jesus. I am reminded of how Jesus is our Great Shepherd who gives his life for the sheep, John 10:9-14.
2. What causes us to waste the extra resources we possess?
Answer: “We want more than we need.” It is in this moment that my heart cries out, “Lord help me to conqueror the old man who is always lying to me about what I need.” The fact is, I have a constant battle between wants and needs.
Today, I want to become a person who praises God for meeting needs, showing me others needs, and uses me to meet the needs.
Our response:
1. Take time to consider what God says is really our needs.
2. Take time to evaluate the difference between needs and wants.
3. Release the wants and use the revenue to meet others needs for the glory of God.