What Did You Expect?

Daily Reading: Ezekiel 7

Behold, the day! Behold, it comes! Your doom has come; the rod has blossomed; pride has budded.  Violence has grown up into a rod of wickedness. (Ezekiel 7.10-11)

Devotional Thought: In our world today - just as in Ezekiel's day - "Pride has budded [and] violence has grown up into a rod of wickedness."  What did we expect?

Enacting laws that benefit the rich over the poor, the powerful over the vulnerable... Placing COVID patients in nursing homes filled with helpless residents... Demoralizing police in at-risk areas... Allowing rioting to go unchecked... Refusing to prosecute criminals... Standing by while the genocide of abortion takes sixty-three million lives...Generations of powerful men preying on women... Promoting disrespect and even violence through music, games, and movies... Making it easy for criminals to get guns...  Looking the other way while a nation hides the origins of a pandemic.

Read the following scriptures and you will understand how wickedness takes root in a culture:

·       Proverbs 22.8: Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity, and the rod of his fury will fail.

·       Hosea 8.7: For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.

·       Galatians 6.7: Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.

·       Matthew 26.52: Then Jesus said to him, "Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword."

Let us heed the words of scripture and return to the ways of righteousness: "Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the Lord, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you" (Hosea 10.12).

Prayer: "Let justice flow. Let mercy stand. Oh God come heal our land."  Amen.  (Rozier, et. al.)

Psalm of the Day:  Psalm 26.1-8

1  Vindicate me, O Lord, for I have walked in my integrity, and I have trusted in the Lord without wavering.

2 Prove me, O Lord, and try me; test my heart and my mind. 

3 For your steadfast love is before my eyes, and I walk in your faithfulness.

4 I do not sit with men of falsehood, nor do I consort with hypocrites.

5 I hate the assembly of evildoers, and I will not sit with the wicked.

6 I wash my hands in innocence and go around your altar, O Lord,

7 proclaiming thanksgiving aloud, and telling all your wondrous deeds.

8 O Lord, I love the habitation of your house and the place where your glory dwells.