December 7 Daily Devotional

Bible Reading

Ezekiel 36:25-38:

²⁵Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.
²⁶A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
²⁷And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.
²⁸And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God.
²⁹I will also save you from all your uncleannesses: and I will call for the corn, and will increase it, and lay no famine upon you.
³⁰And I will multiply the fruit of the tree, and the increase of the field, that ye shall receive no more reproach of famine among the heathen.
³¹Then shall ye remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations.
³²Not for your sakes do I this, saith the Lord GOD, be it known unto you: be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel.
³³Thus saith the Lord GOD; In the day that I shall have cleansed you from all your iniquities I will also cause you to dwell in the cities, and the wastes shall be builded.
³⁴And the desolate land shall be tilled, whereas it lay desolate in the sight of all that passed by.
³⁵And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are become fenced, and are inhabited.
³⁶Then the heathen that are left round about you shall know that I the LORD build the ruined places, and plant that that was desolate: I the LORD have spoken it, and I will do it.
³⁷Thus saith the Lord GOD; I will yet for this be enquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them; I will increase them with men like a flock.
³⁸As the holy flock, as the flock of Jerusalem in her solemn feasts; so shall the waste cities be filled with flocks of men: and they shall know that I am the LORD.

Devotional

"And makes me heartily willing and ready henceforth to live unto him" (Heidelberg Catechism 1).

God has not saved us to leave us to ourselves, to live as we please, but we are saved to serve him.

He makes us willing. The service we render him is not forced, not compulsory, but it is a willing service, cheerfully and joy­fully rendered. It is a service from the heart, because God made us willing. Paul, indeed, calls himself a bondservant, a slave, of Christ. But he does not bewail his lot. It seems to us we detect a certain pride in the words of Paul spoken to his fellow voyagers in that great storm, "There stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve." Would we not consider it an honor to serve a great earthly king? How much greater honor is it to serve the King of kings! He also makes us ready. He gives us the needed wisdom and strength and enables us to do his will. He does this by his Holy Spirit. He puts his Spirit within us and his law in our inward parts, and writes it in our hearts, and thus causes us to walk in his statutes. "God worketh in us both to will and to do." We live unto him, that is, to his honor and glory. How great, how good, how wonderful is God. May we serve him with gladness.

Prayer

O Lord, teach us to know the truth as it is in Christ Jesus, that in him we are a new creature, having put off the old man, who is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and having put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. May we not live in sin, to the lusts of men; but to the will of God. May we not serve sin; but yield our members servants to righteousness and holiness. May we be true servants of Jesus Christ, living to the honor and glory of his name. Amen.

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Scripture in Devotional: Acts 27:23; Ezek. 11:19; Jer. 31:33; Phil. 2:3; Ps. 100:2.

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