READING: Ezra 9-10, Acts 1
“Here we are before You with our guilt.”
Ezra 9:15
Today is one of those days when I read the Word, and all I can do is read it over and over again while slowly falling to my face. In fact, I’m almost embarrassed to write anything about this text, as if I have anything to add to it.
Ezra learned that many of the Hebrews had intermarried with pagan women “so that the holy seed has become mixed with the surrounding peoples” (Ezra 9:2). God had clearly warned against that choice (Deut. 7:3), but the leaders had chosen to continue in some of the sins that had brought God’s judgment in the first place. All Ezra could do was grieve deeply and pray a prayer that has driven me to the ground today. Read these words, and consider your own sinfulness as you do:
“My God, I am ashamed and embarrassed to lift my face toward You, my God, because our iniquities are higher than our heads and our guilt is as high as the heavens. Our guilt has been terrible from the days of our fathers until the present. Because of our iniquities we have been handed over, along with our kings and priests, to the surrounding kings, and to the sword, captivity, plundering, and open shame, as it is today. . . . Here we are before You with our guilt, though no one can stand in Your presence because of this.” (Ezra 9:6-7, 15)
If that were the end of the story, all of us would be in trouble. Prostrate and desperate would be our only justifiable position; our iniquities truly are “higher than our heads,” and our guilt truly is “as high as the heavens.” Read, though, these words of hope that apply first to the Hebrews of Ezra’s day, but that are wonderful and amazing for us, too, as we consider God’s love:
“But now, for a brief moment, grace has come from Yahweh our God to preserve a remnant for us and give us a stake in His holy place. Even in our slavery, God has given us new life and light to our eyes. Though we are slaves, our God has not abandoned us in our slavery. . . . You, our God, have punished us less than our sins deserve and have allowed us to survive.” (Ezra 9:8-9, 13)
We’re sinners, but God forgives us.
We abandon Him, but He doesn’t abandon us.
We deserve death, but He gives us life.
Our guilt is as high as the heavens, but the God of grace rules over the heavens.
All we can do is weep with Ezra the tears of repentance and gratitude. On our faces.
ACTION STEPS:
- Meditate on Ezra’s prayer, thinking about and confessing your own sin.
- Spend some time on the ground before God.
PRAYER: “God, here I am before You with my guilt, though I cannot stand before You. I grieve my sin. Forgive me.”
TOMORROW’S READING: Nehemiah 1-3, Acts 2:1-21
