Ezekiel 20

Ezekiel 20:25-26 ESV

Moreover, I gave them statutes that were not good and rules by which they could not have life, and I defiled them through their very gifts in their offering up all their firstborn, that I might devastate them. I did it that they might know that I am the Lord.

God's yearning desire is for people to know him. Because of our fallen nature it seems that the only way we will do that is when we first come to the end ourselves. That was the purpose of the Law. It was never to produce righteousness. External rules are impotent to do that. The rules were intended to expose sin, bring people to the end of themselves and move them to humble, brokenness leading to faith. That is the path to knowing God.

Creator God will do whatever it takes to bring us to that point for the sake of his own name. What he will not do is allow us to continue in hypocritical self-righteousness. That brings discredit to his name, and is destructive to those who practice it and to those who see them. The problem is that often those practicing the self-righteousness of legalism cannot see past their own imagined holiness. Thus God acts to bring them to the end of themselves. If the Law fails to reveal their own neediness then discipline will. Thus God rebukes and disciplines those he loves.

Father, thank you for your relentless, unfailing love. Today may those around me see Jesus in me.

By His grace,
Rick weinert