Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Ezra Chapter 5

It is so wondrous to me the understanding that our God is giving to me now as I read His word...it used to be that I would sit down to study the Bible and it was such a struggle...but now there seems to be a whole lot of enlightenment going on.  I think that our God must be happier with me, that he is giving me a larger portion of understanding and/or discernment that I can better comprehend His word....Live in His word, pray without ceasing (constantly be in conversation with God), follow His rules....believe me I am not perfect, but I am aware of what I am supposed to be doing....and while I am struggling to do this always, I know that I am not.  But I am striving in that direction.   I need to just do it....I will let you know how this works out for me.

Now Chapter 5.....the people of Israel had gotten a bit slothful and were content to live in their little shacks if you would, and God spoke to them thru prophets (who are spoken of in Haggia), and told them, why are you content to live like this, get up and go to the woods and bring back timbers to continue building my temple so that I may be glorified...the people had been a bit lacking in their attitude, but God, was able to help them change their thought patterns,  I think He may have helped them to realize that having a slothful attitude towards anything can get you into trouble.  Just like it had when the temple was originally destroyed and the people were take away to Babylon.

It was discovered by the governor ( Tattenai ) of the area beyond the Euphrates River that the Jews had taken back up the construction of the temple and the walls surrounding it. And the governor and his companions went to the location of the construction and asked the men who had told them to resume the building.  And basically the men told them who had instructed them and that the eye of God was on them and had told them to not stop the building until a report was sent to King Darius.  

 So again a letter was written by this governor to King Darius, telling Darius of the resumed building and that they just wanted let him know this.  So, and this is paraphrased a bit, Darius wanted to know who had said they could resume building and the Jewish people said that when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the temple and took the people away and all the goblets and vessels of gold and silver and the vessels and all were put in Babylon's temple for their gods and that when Cyrus became king, in his first year, he decreed that the Jews could return to Jerusalem and that they could take all the vessels of gold and silver with them, and that they were told by Cyrus, that they where to rebuild the temple on the original foundation, which the original foundation was still there.

They, the Jews, then asked that a search be made in the archives of Babylon to find the decree that King Cyrus had made for the rebuilding of the temple, and they would wait to hear the results from King Darius.  And there ends Chapter 5...wow, we made it thru a whole chapter.  Awesome!

Now...go and be a blessing, show someone a kindness today, maybe show a few people a kindness today...

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