September 10 – Being a blessing

I will make a covenant of peace with them and eliminate harmful beasts from the land so that they may live securely in the wilderness and sleep in the woods.  I will make them and the places around My hill a blessing. And I will cause showers to come down in their season; they will be showers of blessing. Also the tree of the field will yield its fruit and the earth will yield its increase, and they will be secure on their land. Then they will know that I am the Lord, when I have broken the bars of their yoke and have delivered them from the hand of those who enslaved them. (Ezekiel 34:25-27 NASB)

This is one of many prophecies about the coming of Jesus, the Messiah, who would set God’s people free.  All of us who live in the time after Jesus’ sacrifice can now benefit from this amazing promise.  Read this with spiritual eyes, and see that the harmful beasts are demons who want to devour our lives.  The problems that prowl around us and threaten to destroy us, are now eliminated when we determine that this promise is ours.

Living securely in the wilderness means that we don’t have to run away from evil any more, since Jesus has given us authority over demons.  Now evil has to run away from us.  Even when we are in an area that once felt unsafe, we can be in complete peace, because we have made a covenant of peace with Him.

Showers will come, blessings that will nourish and strengthen us, and make us more fruitful.  Rains will come from season to season, and all these things will happen when we are gathered around His hill – His hill being wherever His presence is.  Gathering with others of the same faith in church, drinking from His Word, being attentive to what He wants and what He has to teach us, is what it means to be on His holy hill.  Not only will we be blessed, but we will be a blessing to others who are far from God and be drawn to Him because of us.

The earth, the plants and the sky will all work together in harmony to create fruit and safety for the people of God.  This corresponds to another passage, “Beware that your hearts are not deceived, and that you do not turn away and serve other gods and worship them.  Or the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and He will shut up the heavens so that there will be no rain and the ground will not yield its fruit; and you will perish quickly from the good land which the Lord is giving you.”  (Deut. 11:16-17)  As good as God’s blessings are, we can’t afford to turn away from Him and idolize any other thing or person.  We curse ourselves when we degrade God by treating what is holy dismissively.

God wants the world to know and see that He is God through us.  It glorifies Him to break off our yokes of oppression off of us.  Since our greatest desire should be to honor and lift Him up, let’s make it our life’s work to live on His hill so that these blessings can rain down, and become evident to everyone around us.