Are We Ready To Give Up?

I want us to think about your life for just a minute, are you living a life for God?  A life where you feel the presence of God guiding and directing you?  Or are you living a life that you may feel the presence of God once a month but you’re not really sure if that is the presence your feeling? Are you living the life that your friends tell you is great, it’s centered around getting the stuff that you want?  Is your life full of giving to others and sharing love with those around you?  You see the world we live in tells us that if we really want to live a life that is full and meaningful that we must go and find a high paying job, get a big house, a great car, and have lots of so called friends.  Yet if we look to the bible we begin to realize something, that it promotes giving up our lives in order to have true life.  If we want to live a life that is going to bring us true life then we must first give up our life on earth that is leading to death.  But what is great is that we serve a God who brings us true life.

We read about an experience the prophet Ezekiel had that he wrote about you can read about it in Ezekiel 37:1-14.  I am going to give a brief description of what happened.  God had carried Ezekiel to a valley full of bones and told Ezekiel speak these words to these bones.  “‘Dry bones, listen to the word of the Lord! ⁵ This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Look! I am going to breathe into you and make you live again! ⁶ I will put flesh and muscles on you and cover you with skin. I will put breath into you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’ ”  So I spoke these words, just as he told me. Suddenly as I spoke, there was a rattling noise all across the valley. The bones of each body came together and attached themselves as they had been before. ⁸ Then as I watched, muscles and flesh formed over the bones. Then skin formed to cover their bodies, but they still had no breath in them. Then he said to me, “Speak to the winds and say: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come, O breath, from the four winds! Breathe into these dead bodies so that they may live again.’ ”  So I spoke as he commanded me, and the wind entered the bodies, and they began to breathe. They all came to life and stood up on their feet—a great army of them.”

Everything that God was showing Ezekiel, was to let Him know that there is a rebirth of the spirit, you see what was happening here is not about a physical resurrection but about a spiritual resurrection.  If we want to be living a life for God and have a really meaningful life here on earth we must first realize that we are dead inside.  That without giving or dying to our own wants and even needs then we are not really going to be living for God.  You see at this time in History Israel was no longer living for God they wanted to live for the world, they saw what the world had and it looked good to them, but instead of being good it brought death.  If you want that life where God is molding you using you and you feel His presence each day you must first give up your life and give it to God.