Part 2: Calling
Day 12: The calling of Ezekiel
Ezekiel 2-3:15
What is significant or noteworthy in the calling of Ezekiel is the explicit attention to the Holy Spirit entering Ezekiel. After the Spirit enters him, he hears God speaking and receives his mission and message. This is not a superhuman effort of Ezekiel’s to go and preach to the people of Israel, it is something God gives. He supplies the power to do this by sending the Holy Spirit.
Under the covenant of the Old Covenant (the Old Testament agreement between God and Israel), the Holy Spirit would come and go as the situation called for. His arrival and empowering of Ezekiel are to be noted. We, who benefit from being in the New Covenant (the New Testament agreement between God and all nations), only have known of the Holy Spirit as a permanent gift to those who believe and the source of power for the church.
With the sin of Adam and Eve, heaven and Earth are ripped apart and God meets with his creation in the temple. The temple is the place heaven and earth meet. So, when the Spirit of God is present there is a temple event that should catch the attention of the reader. We who have the Holy Spirit in us are all living temples unto God and together we are the Living Temple of the church universal. We have a mission just like Ezekiel does but we go into it knowing that the presence of the Holy Spirit is a permanent fixture in our lives.
A Prayer for the Holy Spirit: O GOD, Holy Ghost, Sanctifier of the faithful, visit, we pray thee, this congregation with thy love and favor; Enlighten their minds more and more with the light of the everlasting Gospel; graft in their hearts a love of the truth; increase in them true religion; nourish them with all goodness; and of thy great mercy keep them in the same, O blessed Spirit, whom, with the Father and the Son together, we worship and glorify as one God, world without end. Amen.
Under the covenant of the Old Covenant (the Old Testament agreement between God and Israel), the Holy Spirit would come and go as the situation called for. His arrival and empowering of Ezekiel are to be noted. We, who benefit from being in the New Covenant (the New Testament agreement between God and all nations), only have known of the Holy Spirit as a permanent gift to those who believe and the source of power for the church.
With the sin of Adam and Eve, heaven and Earth are ripped apart and God meets with his creation in the temple. The temple is the place heaven and earth meet. So, when the Spirit of God is present there is a temple event that should catch the attention of the reader. We who have the Holy Spirit in us are all living temples unto God and together we are the Living Temple of the church universal. We have a mission just like Ezekiel does but we go into it knowing that the presence of the Holy Spirit is a permanent fixture in our lives.
- Do you remember coming to faith in Christ? Did the Holy Spirit dwelling in you bring any immediate change?
- Has the Holy Spirit ever prompted you to something that was way out of the ordinary for you?
- Has the Holy Spirit ever given you new eyes to see a passage in a different light?
- Ezekiel eats God’s word and it tastes like honey, what is your own appetite for God’s word?
A Prayer for the Holy Spirit: O GOD, Holy Ghost, Sanctifier of the faithful, visit, we pray thee, this congregation with thy love and favor; Enlighten their minds more and more with the light of the everlasting Gospel; graft in their hearts a love of the truth; increase in them true religion; nourish them with all goodness; and of thy great mercy keep them in the same, O blessed Spirit, whom, with the Father and the Son together, we worship and glorify as one God, world without end. Amen.