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The Lord took hold of me, and I was carried away by the Spirit of the Lord to a valley filled with bones. He led me around among the old, dry bones that covered the valley floor. They were scattered everywhere across the ground. – Ezekiel 37:1-2

 

Ezekiel saw a massive valley of dry bones. What a picture of today’s Church—disconnected, dry, divided, and dead! The once-powerful army of the early Church has disintegrated into a fractured, feeble graveyard of spiritual relics.

Now must come the breath and life of God! Someone once said, “God does not breathe on anything that is not connected.” As believers in the Church of Jesus Christ, we must come back into relationship with one another, crossing racial, denominational, and even national lines of boundary. In Ezekiel, the connecting together of the dry bones brought muscle, tendons, breath, and balance back to the body. Then the revived body stood upright, a great army filled with the Spirit of God (Ezekiel 37:10).

How easy it is for the Church to become disconnected by economic status, race, or educational level. James corrected the believers who were favoring the rich over the poor in their congregational seating arrangements (James 2:3). The “royal law” tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 19:19); thus, the Church must provide for the daily physical and emotional needs of others. There can be no favoritism in extending the love of Christ to one group of people over another.

You cannot live disconnected from the rest of the Body of Christ. Look around, hook up, get involved, and feel the precious breath of God invigorating and empowering you!

2020-12-31T10:53:32-07:00

Open for me the gates where the righteous enter, and I will go in and thank the Lord. – Psalm 118:19

Drawing close to the Lord should be your lifetime pursuit. Sometimes, however, that process is hindered. James writes about two stages you may have to pass through as you attempt to enter God’s presence.

First, James says to “humble yourselves before God” (James 4:7). Pride, lust, and friendship with the world will block your prayer requests. Also, you may be asking with wrong motives: “You want only what will give you pleasure” (v. 3). However, if you humble yourself and submit your life to God, then your requests will be made from right motivations.

Next, James says to “resist the Devil, and he will flee from you”

(v. 7). Satan may be hindering your requests from coming to pass, even though God has granted them. When Daniel prayed, his prayer was actually answered from the first day, but Satan hindered it from coming to pass for twenty-one days (Daniel 10:12-13).

After you humble yourself and resist the devil, you will be able to “draw close to God, and God will draw close to you” (James 4:8). God loves you and is waiting for you to draw near through the gate of the Lord!

2020-11-20T00:00:00-07:00
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