PASTOR RYAN LADEN – DEVOTIONALS
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We need to grab hold of this truth. Before the Lord calls anyone to follow his command, he provides us with all we need. From one end of the Bible to the other, we see the Lord proclaiming our new identity as his redeemed children of grace before any instruction or calling is given out by the Lord.
Before anyone is called to follow the second commandment, the Lord proclaims himself to be the Lord God Almighty, the I AM, the God who rescues and pursues his people. Because of who God is, and because of what the Lord has done for us, we are then able to turn toward him by faith. And as we turn to the Lord, we also turn away from sin and rebellion.
Listen again to the challenge to not make any gods as found in the second commandment:
4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
(Exodus 20:4-6 ESV)
Why?
Why should we not seek to create our own versions of the Lord? Because the Lord loves us deeply and will not abide the pain and destruction that always follows worship of idols and false gods made up by mankind. Because of his deep and abiding love for us, the Lord calls us to reject all would be replacements and to instead, rest in his embrace.
Ezekiel
The Lord used one of his messengers (prophets) to remind his people who were undergoing a time of discipline and correction (because of their embrace of idols and false gods), that as always, the Lord will provide all they need to step away from their misplaced commitments.
25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. 28 Then you will live in the land I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God.
(Ezekiel 36:25-28 NIV11)
Cleanse
The first point being made here that I want to focus on centers on the idea that the Lord will do the work included in this promise.
God will provide cleansing, purification, new life, spiritual vitality, and direct leadership. The child of God cannot meet any of these needs on their own. It is the Lord who brings life to those who are spiritually dead due to our self-worship and personal idolatry.
Stone to Flesh
A stone heart will not bring life to anyone. Sin causes our love for God and our love for others to grow cold, to die of exposure. For those who have recognized the depth of their mess due to sin, they understand this metaphor of a stone heart.
Such a cold, hardened, and lifeless heart cannot be revived by trying harder or cleaning up. The only cure for a heart that has died is replacement. And that is what the Lord has provided for us through his life, death, and resurrection.
We receive his new life, his new heart.
My Spirit In You
The Lord promised to put his spirit in you. Your spirit has become an addict to sin, selfishness, and rebellion against the Lord. We do not need to get into touch with our broken spirit in some vain attempt to revive what is dead in us.
Instead, we need what Jesus Christ told the teacher of Israel that he must have if he wanted to receive the gift of eternal life. We must become filled with the Spirit of God if we are going to be born anew, born again from the weight of our stoney hearts.
We cannot obey our way into the gift of the Spirit of God, instead, we must see that the Spirit is what enables us to seek after the truth and the ways of the Lord. We need to embrace his work daily if we want to be led into the places that the Lord has next for us.
I will be your God
From start to finish, all that the Lord does in our lives is about the gift of relationship. The Lord calls us, fills us, enables us, empowers us, and sets us free as he gives to us the gift of his Holy Spirit. The Lord does not call us to obey and then be. Instead, the Lord shows us who we are and then leads us into action, helping us to live as the children of God, for which we were created.
In Christ,
Ryan Laden
PASTOR RYAN LADEN
Works at MTN. CHURCH
Former Senior pastor at Warnbro Community Church
Studies at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary
Studied at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary
Studied at Baylor University
Studied at Texas Tech University
Went to Castle Hills First Baptist
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