Our Bible verse for today: “So my people come to you in crowds, sit in front of you, and hear your words, but they don’t obey them. Their mouths go on passionately, but their hearts pursue dishonest profit. Yes, to them you are like a singer of passionate songs who has a beautiful voice and plays skillfully on an instrument. They hear your words, but they don’t obey them.” Ezekiel 33:31-33 (CSB)
Our thought for today: “Live what you profess to believe.”
If ever there was a prophet of doom and gloom, Ezekiel was that guy. Ezekiel ministered in the southern Kingdom of Judah from 593-571 B.C. This was before, during, and after the fall of Jerusalem at the hands of the Babylonian army. Ezekiel preached to the people, warned the people, pleaded with the people, and even threatened the people, but all to no avail. They just wouldn’t listen. One commentator described these people as being exceedingly sinful and thoroughly hopeless.
What’s interesting about this though is that the people were very religious. They came to the church services, they gathered around Ezekiel, they sat under his preaching, they listened to all he had to say, they even passionately mouthed pious religious platitudes in response, but it meant nothing. It was all a religious show. Their hearts were actually far from God. They left those worship services unaffected and unchanged, and they obeyed nothing they had been commanded to do (or to stop doing). They were religious phonies and they ended up paying a big price for it.
Their story is not just an old one, it’s a modern story too and it pertains to many people in our churches today. As the singer Jimmy Buffet once said, “There’s a fine line between Saturday night and Sunday morning!” Many people in our churches come to the services, sing the songs, listen to the sermons, nod their heads in agreement, and even mouth superficial Christian clichés, but then they live like the devil Monday through Saturday.
A life well spent is a life where the individual actually lives what he or she professes to believe. There shouldn’t be a fine line between Saturday night and Sunday morning. There should be no line at all. Your church face should be your everyday face. The person you are in the pew on Sunday should be the same person you are at work on Monday.
I encourage you to actually live what it is you profess to believe.
Oak Hill Baptist Church