Jul 147 min read

I Told You to Live

“When I passed by you, I told you to live…”

In Ezekiel 16, we see that God indeed has a heart—a large, vast heart in which none are missed. He has the heart of a rescuer, a restorer. In His precise searching for us, He does not come upon us haphazardly. This is not a game of chance; He has always been watching us. He has always been in the room. He comes upon us on purpose, at just the right time and in the right place—there was a Divine Appointment set upon the calendar of Heaven long before we were even born; and He kept it, with fierceness, calmness, and power.

We do not belong to anyone else.

In this account in Ezekiel 16, we see God passing by, saving with a single word, rescuing a whole nation which is, indeed, a pre-shadowing of us as a person, scattered, yet bound in dire suffering and at the point of spiritual/physical death. An erasure by evil, is what we would have become, but for God. Due to His heart, we rather became unblottable as a Royal Heir because of God’s Book (Lamb’s Book of Life). We are listed and will be counted among the everlasting, not forgotten as dust.

“When I passed by you, I told you to live…”

There was a wind, just like the Word said there would be. But no matter the storm, the hurricane, the tornado that drops out of the blue sky on an otherwise normal day…we see God has the heart of a Father. We see the friction of good versus evil when He steps down here. He not only saves in the midst of this scene, but He picks us up off the ground, and heals us cell by cell, memory by memory, smoothing away our doubts as to His existence. In this slow process, He also adopts; claims us as His Own; welcomes us into His House; seats us at His table; and, gives us His Name.

Look forward.

There is a reason why.

He blesses, flourishes, builds, adorns, and establishes you as Royalty that is untouchable—this is who Christians are. However, we are still, at least in some part, mortal. Time passes in a way that is nearly un-handleable for us in scope and we tend to lose the details of our rescue. The good news is that…

God already accounted for our

human frailty from the start.

Back to the same account in Ezekiel 16, we also see the Prodigal emerge from within the human heart of the adopted, of the rescued. This is the trickiest part—our endurance, our steadfastness of faith. For we, as a people, as a nation, are fickle. We tend to forget Our Name over time. We tend to drop our own identity in Christ and grumble in our spirit against the Only One Who has indeed blessed us. In so turning away from God, forgetting Him, or simply becoming tired and stubborn, lacking the discipline of faith, we tarnish from within, lose our luster and shine, and once again need God’s saving. We sit down midstream.

A REVIVAL becomes due, once again, or we cannot move.

In Ezekiel 16, God says to you and to I today, “When I passed by thee…I told you to live.” It was really Me. Do you remember it? And are you living?

You see, God knew upon your initial saving that you would come to a place in the middle of your days when you would need His refreshment again. He knew, and expected, that your human soul would need a personal revival. Therefore, in His infinite wisdom, He repeats Himself in the passage: “Yes, I said unto thee, ‘Live’.” He knew we would come to a place of doubt and of faded memory, a point when the encounter wasn’t as crisp in our minds. He wants us to know He really said it, He really saved us, and He really meant it: LIVE.

You were not imagining it. God is real.

And today, He gives you that assurance:

Did you hear Me? Were you listening to Me? I said unto thee to truly and unquestionably, “Live.”

I said (past tense), is backdated. He wants you to remember, to purposefully think. Roll back in time upon the very moment of your Salvation. No one else was there—just God. God cared, God miraculously broke through the spiritual/natural divide and saved you. He also said something to you on no uncertain terms, that you were commissioned to live free, as unto He (the Lord), not only on that day, but forever.

Your Salvation counters human reason.

It favors God’s reason.

Re-choose, this day, in Whom you will BELIEVE.

You see, if it were up to the world, you would have vanished and no one would have missed the vacancy. If it were up to the enemy, you would have turned from Grace. Neither happened.

Rather, you are still here, you still love God—proof and evidence that He indeed encountered you at your lowest estate and spoke to you—LIVE. You did not perish, you did not disappear. You are still living for and unto God Who claimed you as His Own.

Moreover, remember please that God took it upon Himself to search the world over for you and He deemed you His Child. He found you in the muck, at the nick of time. He rescued you from your own sin, the sin of others, and the wickedness of the enemy. He pulled you up and established thee as securely as His Own Son and Daughter shall ever after be.

But even way back then, He repeated Himself in the first place so you would be sure to hear His Voice. So you would listen once again today, and be undoubtedly certain, stable, and established in your Christian faith; on the Rock; so that you would keep your time.

God is using you. Believe this.

He knew, over time, saved people would come to take His Salvation, at least somewhat, for granted and doubt would creep in due to being in this earthen place for so long. He knew, over time, mere people would become jaded, hardhearted, tired of the drill…that souls would enter into the iron. Just because one is made Royalty does not mean that station is always easy, simple, or sensical.

However, the Spirit of God is upon you and upon I, as it always shall be.

In the New Testament, “patient endurance” here is key to everlasting victory. All you have to do is stand on what you already know. God fights your battles for you. Our patience must merely outlast peril, or it is not patience at all. You see, patience is from God and therefore does not end. Faith does not end. Love does not end. Salvation does not end. God has no end, no beginning: He is. And since He told you to LIVE, He means and will ensure it means forever.

The irony of the battle against the enemy is that what was meant for your destruction became an everlasting promise—someone threatened you? Well, it actually turned into everlasting life for you.

“Watch this…” God said.

God, when He passed by you the first time, said unto your spirit the holy everlasting word, “Live”. And your spirit, infused with His Word, His Holy Spirit, His heart, will indeed do just that. The threat against you is what really died. The enemy is the one who really lost and is forgotten as dust—with no name.

You belong to God. You will never die as God’s chosen, and He will ensure you never forget Who it was that saved you in the first place.

I encourage you to keep the faith; like God, it never grows old, it never goes away.

Amen.

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SCRIPTURES:

None [human] eye pitied thee, to do any of these unto thee, to have compassion upon thee; but thou wast cast out in the open field, to the lothing of thy person, in the day that thou wast born.

And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live; yea, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live.

I have caused thee to multiply as the bud of the field, and thou hast increased and waxen great, and thou art come to excellent ornaments: thy breasts are fashioned, and thine hair is grown, whereas thou wast naked and bare. Now when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness: yea, I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord God, and thou becamest Mine (Ezekiel 16:5-8, KJV).

By your steadfastness and patient endurance you shall win the true life of your souls (Luke 21:19, AMPC).

For you have need of steadfast patience and endurance, so that you may perform and fully accomplish the will of God, and thus receive and carry away [and enjoy to the full] what is promised (Hebrews 10:36, AMPC).

Moreover [let us also be full of joy now!] let us exult and triumph in our troubles and rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that pressure and affliction and hardship produce patient and unswerving endurance (Romans 5:3, AMPC).

For whatever was thus written in former days was written for our instruction, that by [our steadfast and patient] endurance and the encouragement [drawn] from the Scriptures we might hold fast to and cherish hope (Romans 15:4, AMPC).

[For it is He] Who rescued and saved us from such a perilous death, and He will still rescue and save us; in and on Him we have set our hope (our joyful and confident expectation) that He will again deliver us [from danger and destruction and draw us to Himself] (2 Corinthians 1:10, AMPC).

Because you have guarded and kept My word of patient endurance [have held fast the lesson of My patience with the expectant endurance that I give you], I also will keep you [safe] from the hour of trial (testing) which is coming on the whole world to try those who dwell upon the earth (Revelation 3:10, AMPC).

REFERENCES:

King James, public domain.

DAWN DYSON