Dear Church,
On Sunday we celebrated Pentecost, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and studied how the Holy Spirit as the Breath of God makes a difference in our lives.
In Ezekiel 37:1-14 God took Ezekiel into a valley of dry bones. We learned what we need to do to experience the breath of God:
Be willing to acknowledge what isn’t pretty. Israel was in a state of spiritual deadness, but they didn’t want to acknowledge it. Are you willing to take a hard look at the condition of your life?
Rely on God for life’s answers and on His Sovereignty to see you through. After God led Ezekiel on the “Tour of bones,” God asked him a tough question in verse 3. “Can these bones live again?” Ezekiel responded in verse 3, “O Sovereign LORD, You alone know.” Ezekiel left the answer for a hopeless situation in the hands of an Almighty God.
Express the Word of God over our circumstances. Ezekiel 37:4: Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD!” God asked Ezekiel to talk to the hopeless circumstances and command the circumstance to pay attention to the Word of God. God gives us authority to speak directly to our problems. Mark 11:23 says we can speak to mountains in our lives and see them removed.
Ask for the breath of God to breathe over your circumstances. Verse 9 of our text: “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.'”
Nothing spiritual takes place-no miracle takes place-without the “BREATH” which is the Spirit of God. Mass miracles took place on the Day of Pentecost because the Spirit of God blew into town and rested on all those who had been praying for the Spirit to come. Acts one records how the believers were meeting together, praying for God’s Spirit to be poured out upon them.
Take the Lord to be the Lord of all of your life.
The whole reason the Israelites were in the dry, brittle state they were in was because they had turned their backs on God and chosen their own way. God’s Spirit doesn’t manifest His power in our lives when we go our own way.
Hope always in the Lord. This connects again with the sovereignty of God, but revisit verse 1 of Ezekiel 37. “The hand of the LORDwas upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones.” God took Ezekiel to a tough place on purpose for a purpose greater than himself.
I love Andrew Murray’s thoughts on this subject when he says about life’s difficult circumstances:
First, He brought me here. It is by His will that I am in this strait place. In that fact I will rest. Next, He will keep me here in His love and give me grace to behave as His child. Then, He will make the trial a blessing, teaching me the lessons He intends me to learn, and working in me the grace He means to bestow. Last, in His good time He can bring me out again. How and when He knows. Let me say I am here, by God’s appointment, in His keeping, under His training, for His time. (Andrew Murray,Though the Mountains Shake by Amy Carmichael, p. 12)
You may be in a dark valley. God wants to breathe on you right where you are. The Holy Spirit doesn’t have to have favorable conditions in order to move in your life. He can come into the impossible, into the desolation, into the dryness of your life and bring resurrection. What do you need to do in order to receive the breath of God in your situation?
Love in Christ,
Pastor Melissa
