Our Daily Devotion for Tuesday, September 15th, 2020

37 The hand of the Lord was on 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. 2 He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. 3 He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”I said, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.”4 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! 5 This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. 6 I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’” So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. 8 I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.9 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’” 10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.       Ezekiel 37:1-10   NIV
 
In this prophesy, entitled The Valley of the Dry Bones, Ezekiel did not make an attempt to answer God when asked “can these bones live?” – he did know that he trusted God, and that God himself knew the answer. When God told Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones, an outsider would possibly had thought this was foolish behavior. But not Ezekiel. As he prophesied, the bones came together in a proper order ; tendons and flesh covered them ; God breathed life into them, and they became “a vast army” – this can viewed a couple of ways : God bringing together and strengthening the army of Israel ( which at the time was fighting on many fronts). Also, this is possibly a prophesy of the saving power of Jesus : through his victory over death , a body “dead” in sin can be reborn !!!
 
Let us pray please :  Holy and Sovereign Lord, may we attain the great faith that Ezekiel had, that we , as an army of soldiers fighting for You, continue the work that is needed here in our world, as the army of Israel did in theirs. Help us to fight injustice , gird up the afflicted and downtrodden, help us to heal this land with words and actions of kindness, of faith, and of love.  All this we pray in the name of Jesus, The Anointed One.  Amen

Yours in Christ  ,  Rollie

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