Ezekiel 14
Set your Heart Free!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Tuesday, June 18.
God cares about your circumstances, but He cares even more about your heart. Often enough our priorities are backwards (Matthew 16:26). That’s because our hearts, by nature, are idol factories. This heart condition is one of the primary reasons why we are instructed to bring everything to the Lord in prayer (Philippians 4:6-7). Even if your heart’s desire is to get God to work on your behalf, God responds to your prayer by cleansing your heart as His holy habitation. He is a jealous God and is unwilling to share your heart with any idol, even a well-intended one. The prophet emphasized this to the exiled elders of Israel in Ezekiel 14:3-6:
Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their hearts and have put right before their faces the stumbling block of their iniquity. Should I be consulted by them at all? Therefore speak to them and tell them, “Thus says the Lord God, ‘Any man of the house of Israel who sets up his idols in his heart, puts right before his face the stumbling block of his iniquity, and then comes to the prophet, I the Lord will be brought to give him an answer in the matter in view of the multitude of his idols, in order to lay hold of the hearts of the house of Israel who are estranged from Me through all their idols.’” Therefore say to the house of Israel, “Thus says the Lord God, ‘Repent and turn away from your idols and turn your faces away from all your abominations.’”
God may not answer your prayers the way you think He should, but He is seeking first what’s in your best interest. Are you seeking first His kingdom and His righteousness (Matthew 6:33)?
Seize the moment and trust God’s unrelenting resolve to set your heart free from idols. “Pray without ceasing” so that you may be cleansed continuously (1 Thessalonians 5:17).
God bless you!
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YOUTUBE:
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