Kansas City, Missouri, United States - Reflecting God – Embrace Holy Living - "Divine Empowerment" Wednesday, 17 December 2014 - Scripture: Micah 3: Haters of Good, Lovers of Evil1-3 Then I said:
“Listen, leaders of Jacob, leaders of Israel:
Don’t you know anything of justice?
Haters of good, lovers of evil:
Isn’t justice in your job description?
But you skin my people alive.
You rip the meat off their bones.
You break up the bones, chop the meat,
and throw it in a pot for cannibal stew.”
4 The time’s coming, though, when these same leaders
will cry out for help to God, but he won’t listen.
He’ll turn his face the other way
because of their history of evil.
5-7 Here is God’s Message to the prophets,
the preachers who lie to my people:
“For as long as they’re well paid and well fed,
the prophets preach, ‘Isn’t life wonderful! Peace to all!’
But if you don’t pay up and jump on their bandwagon,
their ‘God bless you’ turns into ‘God damn you.’
Therefore, you’re going blind. You’ll see nothing.
You’ll live in deep shadows and know nothing.
The sun has set on the prophets.
They’ve had their day; from now on it’s night.
Visionaries will be confused,
experts will be all mixed up.
They’ll hide behind their reputations and make lame excuses
to cover up their God-ignorance.”
8 But me—I’m filled with God’s power,
filled with God’s Spirit of justice and strength,
Ready to confront Jacob’s crime
and Israel’s sin.
9-12 The leaders of Jacob and
the leaders of Israel are
Leaders contemptuous of justice,
who twist and distort right living,
Leaders who build Zion by killing people,
who expand Jerusalem by committing crimes.
Judges sell verdicts to the highest bidder,
priests mass-market their teaching,
prophets preach for high fees,
All the while posturing and pretending
dependence on God:
“We’ve got God on our side.
He’ll protect us from disaster.”
Because of people like you,
Zion will be turned back into farmland,
Jerusalem end up as a pile of rubble,
and instead of the Temple on the mountain,
a few scraggly scrub pines.
"Divine Empowerment" by Bob Broadbooks
The Christ, of whom we speak, has come to empower us to be more than our natural humanity would allow. In exchange for your total surrender of self, God wants to fill us with his Spirit so that we will be enabled to live a life that far exceeds any ordinary existence. This is not possible through human striving. It is only reality as His Spirit flows through us unimpeded by our former selfishness.
According to today's Scripture, we can expect this Spirit-fullness to provide at least three things—spiritual power, a sense of justice and moral courage. We will have power to give witness for Christ and exert a holy influence on His behalf. We will have an inner awareness of matters of justice and fairness. Finally, we will be given the “might” of moral courage to confront evil, to speak out and work for solutions just as Jesus did.
Dear Jesus, in this moment, may we know that this work is done in our hearts.
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