Day #246 - Recapture

The Presence - A Devotional for living in Thanksgiving, Worship and Wonder

“Therefore speak to them and tell them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: When any of the Israelites set up idols in their hearts and put a wicked stumbling block before their faces and then go to a prophet, I the Lord will answer them myself in keeping with their great idolatry. I will do this to recapture the hearts of the people of Israel, who have all deserted me for their idols…’ Then the people of Israel will no longer stray from me, nor will they defile themselves anymore with all their sins. They will be my people, and I will be their God, declares the Sovereign Lord.’ ””

‭‭Ezekiel‬ ‭14:4-5, 11‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Photo by Jan Kopřiva on Unsplash

Have you ever lost your way with God?

I remember being in a season as a young man where someone who was in grief was sharing out of his pain and it really affected me. I started to doubt God’s desire to heal and felt my faith waning. I went to a church service where Bill Johnson taught about the church being Bethel, or house of God, from the life of Jacob. In a moment the idols of my heart were exposed and removed. God recaptured my heart. 

Looking back, what that young man shared with me didn’t cause me to doubt God as much as it gave me an excuse to doubt Him. In Ezekiel, God is saying here to His people that when we set up idols in our hearts, He will allow prophets in our lives who He will answer us through who confirm our idols. This is a rather sobering reality. We can’t trust our experiences. There is a false presence that we can enter into. The crazy thing is that God will allow this to expose the powerlessness of our idols.

His main purpose is to recapture us. Then we “no longer stray” and we don’t defile ourselves in our sins. Ultimately we become a people once again of “the true Presence” where we are His people and He is our God. Is there anything greater than us being His people and He being our God? This is what we have been created for. Idols rob us of the intimacy that God intends to share with us.

God is so good to recapture our hearts and expose the emptiness of idolatry. He will even use the idols in our lives to expose our wrong ways, but only so that He will win us back over to Himself. His judgements in our lives are to bring us back to “the Presence.”

Lord God, recapture my heart. Thank You for loving me enough to expose the idolatry in my heart so that You might win me back. There is no one like You. I am Yours and You are mine. In Jesus name, amen.