Ezekiel 35:4 I will turn your towns into ruins and you will be desolate. Then you will know that I am the LORD.

How do you show others that you care for them? Recently, a book entitled “The Five Love Languages” told us that there are five basic ways that we can show love to others; 1) Words of praise and encouragement, 2) Giving of gifts, 3) meaningful touch, 4) Acts of service, and 5) Quality time spent together. Each of us enjoys these expressions of love, some expressions more than others. These expressions communicate care and concern in different ways to others.

There are, however, other ways to demonstrate love to others. One of those ways is by discipline or punishment for wrong doing. In this passage, God is telling Ezekiel that He is going to discipline the nation of Israel for their disobedience, so that they would know that He cared enough to take actions that would draw them back into reliance upon Him.

In the Book of Hebrews, chapter twelve, God tells us that He will do the same thing for us because we too are His children and He loves us enough to discipline us in order to draw us back to Himself in obedience and love.

Like disobedient children we often struggle with God’s discipline because rather than view His discipline as an act of love for our own good, we choose to view His discipline as an arbitrary act used to inflict pain and/or discomfort on us. If we choose to adopt God’s perspective on discipline we can have closer fellowship with Him because we are brought into reliance upon Him, where we belong.

May we rely upon you constantly Father.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 18th, 2006 at 5:00 am and is filed under Daily Readings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.