You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally. – Ezekiel 34:4

Today's Scripture Reading (October 2, 2026): Ezekiel 34

Sometimes it is so easy to be so busy living that we lose sight of what we are supposed to be doing. Sometimes we need to take a beat, re-evaluate our activity, and ask: Is the important stuff getting done, or are we just working on busy activities that fill our days but don't really get us anywhere? Being busy isn't enough. However, it also isn't about what we can do alone. Life's tasks are often too big for any of us, and we need a reminder that life is about the team we have built around us.

Ezekiel compares leading Israel to leading sheep. The Prophet outlines the shepherd's job, a task too big for any one person, yet it still needed to be accomplished. If it weren't, then a nation would be lost. In Ezekiel's reality, the shepherds had already failed, and the people were in trouble as a result.

According to Ezekiel, the shepherd's job was to encourage the people, help the hurting heal, and seek the lost. It wasn't optional; it was a task we were called to complete.  So, the question Ezekiel wanted the Shepherds to ask was, "How are we doing?" Even though he was stuck in Babylon among the exiles, the people still needed Jewish shepherds who were caring for the hurting Jewish population.

I have to admit that sometimes the hardest part of the job description is being encouraging. It is so easy to slip into the negative instead of encouraging those around us. Right now, the negative seems to rule our news; it is so easy to wish the weak were stronger rather than taking steps to help them become strong. One thing I want those around me to understand is that our task is to develop leaders, not to steal established leaders from other organizations.

The sheep need us to lead with everything that God has given to us. I hope that we are ready to do it. I dream of the day when we team up to make sure everyone in our communities reaches their potential. Maybe Ezekiel's question is what we need to ask. How are we doing?

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Ezekiel 35

My people come to you, as they usually do, and sit before you to hear your words, but they do not put them into practice. Their mouths speak of love, but their hearts are greedy for unjust gain. – Ezekiel 33:31

Today's Scripture Reading (October 1, 2026): Ezekiel 33

The Christian Church has failed. God is not dead; rather, his church has steadily refused to die. Our pride drives us, and that pride has created the ideal setting for our failure. It is time to admit that our critics are right. The church really is filled with hypocrites. Of course, this is no surprise. The church's pews are filled with very fallible humans, and humans have a habit of falling short. The church has been left with a choice to make: we can either stay in our comfort zones, or we can let ourselves be stretched, knowing that stretching means that we will fail, and that failure is actually a good thing. By allowing ourselves to be stretched, we become more like Christ. That is also why we can't live up to what we say we believe. We try to live up to that standard; we want to be more like Jesus, but we fail. You fall off a bicycle many times before you finally learn to ride it. We realize that if you never fall, you never learn. The Christian life is similar; in our failures, we learn what it means to be like Jesus.  

However, that isn't really the problem. The actual problem in the Christian Church is more that we often just don't seem to care. We preach a gospel and then refuse to follow it when it is not convenient. We keep looking for reasons why we don't have to follow our own rules. This refusal to even try to live the Christian life is the reason the church fails. Specifically, we don't seem to want to love. I can find no other reason for the behavior that the church seems to exhibit. Vast populations of people have never felt the overwhelming love of Christianity for only one reason: we have never been willing to offer it to them.

As Ezekiel looks at the exiles, this is precisely what he sees in his church. The people are willing to speak about right things, to say that they love, but they are not willing to walk that road. Love requires a selfless spirit, but Ezekiel says that the people's hearts are filled with greed, and greed focuses our hearts on ourselves, making true love impossible.

I believe that the church's obsession with orthodoxy is part of our greed. And as long as we strive to be orthodox, to believe what is right, we will find that we are unable to love because our orthodoxy forces us to concentrate on ourselves instead of on each other. Our orthodoxy stops us not only from seeing the other, but also from loving the other. In the end, love is never about right belief, but rather about right practice. Our problem is that while we want to make sure we are orthodox and believe rightly, God has called his church to love unconditionally. 

In the end, I am convinced that if we love, no one will care that we are hypocrites and that we frequently fall as we try to learn to walk with Christ. But if we refuse to love, then we will be judged harshly, and we will deserve every negative word. The church has failed. And unless we are willing to love, there is no road back to success for us.  

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Ezekiel 34