You are not your own.

You are not your own,

you were bought with a price.

So glorify God in your body.

I Corinthians 6:20

I have been reading in Ezekial the last few days, and his life, much like Hosea's strikes me... God gets ahold of him, and tells him how things are going to be. For Ezekial, that means he will symbolize the punishment of Isreal by laying on his side 390 days. More than a year; doing something that seems, to our human minds, totally futile. Is there no other way for God to make His point?

I could not imagine being in Ezekial's position. It is no wonder he sat overwhelmed for a week. Maybe it is a wonder he did not feel overwhelmed for longer.

I think my first thoughts are very, very earthly focused. We only have a few decades here, it does not seem "fair" that God use a man like this.... but such thinking is naive, and does not honour God. I need to not only be willing to be used like Ezekial was, should the Lord so choose; but I am sinning when I think that this life I live is my own.

Consider how often Paul refers to himself as a bondservant to Christ. Consider 1 Cor. 6:20 - this life I live, is God's!

This is not the modern gospel. Tell a man he is loved. Tell him he will experience joy, and peace, at the foot of the cross. But do not tell him he may have to lie on his side for a year. Do not tell him that God may choose to glorify His great name, by making an example of the man. Was God working for Ezekial's good when He told him to prophesy? (Romans 8:28) He must have been. It is just not the sort of good we expect. Nor is it always good in this life....

May I be humbled, to say with the Apostle Paul that this is not my life. May I live to glorify Him that bought me, with my every word and deed! Oh, that the great fire might burn, that God might use me, however He may, to glorify His great name!