You can learn a lot about a person by how he/she responds to adversity. Ezra 9 provides a glimpse at the genuine love and supreme faith Ezra has for his God. Ezra has a passion to truly know God, he didn’t live a legalistic form of religion, but a faithful and disciplined life that allowed him intimacy with God. Richard Foster writes in Celebration of Discipline,
“The grace of God is unearned and unearnable, but if we ever expect to grow in grace, we must pay the price of a consciously chosen course of action which involves both individual and group life. Spiritual growth is the purpose of the disciplines (Page 8).
I don’t know about you, but when it comes to living a disciplined life like Ezra, I fall very short. Here are some examples of Ezra’s disciplined response to the Jew’s sin of intermarriage. Notice that his response was natural and immediate. Ezra was presented with the nation’s sin and immediately fell, broken before the Lord. Many of the disciplines noted below are detailed in Foster’s book mentioned above.
- Ezra was a man devoted to prayer – Ezra prayed on his knees much like the apostles and prophets: David, Daniel, Stephen, and Paul. (9:5)
- He was a man deeply wrought by the sins of God’s children (9:3)
- He was a man of confession and repentance - even though Ezra hadn’t shared any kind of relationship with the Jews, he included himself in the prayer of repentance (9:6-15)
- He was a man who sought God’s guidance (10:5)
- He was a man of submission (9:5)
- He was a man of fasting – with a heart centered on God’s will and forgiveness (9:4)
- He was a man of reform – riding the nation from their pagan practices (Chapter 10).
Which one of the disciplines above could you work on this week?
Explore:
- Of what sin were the Israelites guilty?
- How did Ezra react to the news about Israel’s sin?
- What did Ezra confess to God?
- Why did the Lord not want the Israelites to intermarry with their neighbors?
- What does Ezra’s reaction to Israel’s sin reveal about his character?
Apply:
- What specific steps can you take this week to sharpen your sensitivity to sin in your life?
0 responses so far ↓
There are no comments yet...Kick things off by filling out the form below.
Leave a Comment