October 23

Read: Ezekiel 36:32-36

The nations will know that I am the Lord… when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes (Ezekiel 36:23, R.S.V.).

Not For Your Sakes

God has a personal concern in my spiritual welfare. His reputation is at stake in the success or failure of every man who names His name.

The unfaithful Israelites profaned God’s name by their spiritual failure which sent them into captivity and exile. The heathen said of them, “These are the people of the Lord, and yet they had to go out of his land” (Ezekiel 36:20, R.S.V.). God proposed to put His Spirit in them and thus cleanse their lives in order to demonstrate to the heathen world that God was God.

It is not for our sakes — not for our sakes alone that God proposes to sanctify us wholly. He wants to fill us with His Holy Spirit in order that we may be blessed and happy and useful. But that is not all. God wants to sanctify us wholly in order that our lives may be a testimony to HIS grace and power. He declares, “The nations will know that I am the Lord… when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes.”

God is dishonored when His people are disobedient, unblessed, and defeated because of sin in their lives. He can do more than that for them and He wants an unbelieving world to know what He can do. God proposes to sanctify His people because without that help we are such poor representatives of His grace and power.

Prayer For Today

Lord, help me to listen receptively to Your earnest prayer for the disciples — and for me: “I pray for them… which thou hast given me… I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth” (John 17:9, 15-17).