Ezekiel 34:14-17 "I will feed them with good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel shall be their pasture; there they shall lie down in good grazing land, and they shall feed on rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord God. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.” This episode talks about how great of a Shepherd our Lord is. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
The Lord Is My Shepherd
Ezekiel 34:14-17 "I will feed them with good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel shall be their pasture; there they shall lie down in good grazing land, and they shall feed on rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord God. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.”
This is another promise from God. There are so many of them in the Bible. I feel so incredibly lucky to have a God that cares about us so much that He would promise to take care of us. God is not just talking about giving us what is left over, or a mediocre life. It says that He shall feed us with good pasture and with rich pasture. He talks about how our pasture shall be on the Mountain heights of Israel. The Lord is saying that we shall be set apart. He will feed us and make sure we have a place to live. The Lord will be our shepherd, he will make sure we have all we need. A place to eat and a place to lie down.
The next part says that God will search for the lost and bring back those that strayed. Do you feel like you are lost? Do you feel as though you have strayed far from home and can’t find your way back? Don’t worry, the Lord isn’t expecting you to find your way back on your own. He is out there searching for you and He is ready to help. The Lord says in this verse the He will be our shepherd. He is a loving Father that doesn’t pass off his responsibilities. He didn’t just create us and then appoint someone to take care of us and then move on to something else. He has appointed people to be His instrument here one earth, but even when God has done that He has always stayed involved, always walked with us in our journey. When God appointed Moses to lead His people out of Egypt, His spirit was in front of them the whole time. Day and night, His spirit was there leading the way.
A prime example of when God has gone out to seek the lost is when He found Mary Magdalen. She was raised Jewish and her father used to read her stories and teach her the Jewish ways when she was little. However, when Jesus found her she was far from her Jewish roots. According to the Chosen episode I saw, she was possessed with demons and she would sometimes go crazy. She didn’t know what was going on, but she was longing for something. I just don’t think she knew what she was longing for. Then Jesus came and called her home. It is a really beautiful episode if you ever get the chance to watch it.
Another way that we can tell how much God loves us is found in John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” God sent Jesus, His only son, down to earth to show us the way and to die on the cross for our sins. We were all lost to God because of original sin and so He sent His son down to save us. He does not give up on us, ever. He keeps searching for us until He finds us and calls us home.
We tried very hard to raise our boys Catholic and to bring them to church and religious education. However, they really struggled going to mass each week and we struggled as well. They weren’t always well behaved and sometimes it was really hard to get anything out of mass when we were trying to deal with certain behaviors. However, once COVID shut down the churches and the religious education class it became impossible to get them to go. Actually, we stopped trying to get them to go. I am sure I told myself that it was ok if they didn’t go because the obligation to attend mass was waived for a while and it was probably not safe for them to go any way. Maybe this was part of it, but the bigger truth is that I didn’t want to fight anymore. I also wanted to enjoy mass and be able to listen and pay attention. So I just stopped waking them put to go. Of course I had no idea that COVID would last so long and with each passing week it got harder and harder to get them to go back to church. I will keep trying, however, I take comfort in knowing that God will seek them and bring them back in His time.
The next part of the verse says, “I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.” God will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak. This is something we really need right now. This is a promise that is really useful during a pandemic. There are lots of people injured and weak that are crying to God for help. I have known several people that have cried out to God over the last 24 months and He has saved them. He has fixed their cancer, cured their MS symptoms, healed them from COVID. He has been very busy lately. Although I suspect He is always busy.
I also know many that have felt weak over these past few years and have turned to the Lord for the strength that they needed. He has always come through. He doesn’t always answer our prayers in the way we think He will, but He does always answer them. I heard the witness the other day of a woman who said she was married for 25 years and then she got a divorce. She said that although he Lord didn’t answer her prayers the way she would have liked, sparing her from he divorce, He did provide her the strength she needed to make it through the whole process. He not only provided strength but he provided practical things like a one million dollar lean on her house to be taken off so she could sell it. She was able to rent an apartment to live in with no down payment and no job. The Lord found her a job after being a stay at home mom for so many years. All of these things were miracles and she was so very grateful.
The one part of the verse that I didn’t understand was, “but the fat and the strong I will destroy.” It seemed strange to me that God would destroy the fat and the strong, so I looked up what it meant. What I found said that what this meant was that God was going to destroy those that were getting fat and strong because of taking advantage of others. The people that would eat all the food and not share with their fellow man, or take what they had and lord it over other people. Use their strength and power to keep others down. This makes more sense. Then the Lord says that He will “feed them with justice.” It makes sense that if people are acting like that then God would enact Justice on them. He is after all the God of Justice. This is why we can rest assured that we don’t have to be scared of evil doers, because God will take care of them for us. He is a loving God that always looks our for us and provides for us. Thank you God!
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we are so grateful you provide for us and look out for us. We are grateful you seek us when we are lost and you bring us back when we stray. You are a great shepherd and we are so lucky to have you. Help us to seek you Lord. We love you Lord, you are amazing! We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to spending time with you again tomorrow. Have a blessed day!