{"id":4969,"date":"2023-08-24T12:08:16","date_gmt":"2023-08-24T17:08:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nazareneblogs.org\/pastorscott\/?p=4969"},"modified":"2023-08-24T12:08:16","modified_gmt":"2023-08-24T17:08:16","slug":"devotional-on-ezra-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-ezra-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on Ezra"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure style=\"width: 1600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-vssc43p2OIA\/XuT4yp3RHCI\/AAAAAAABFQE\/pvtjbBtz4F8k57xs5yhZZjxlIgStnawugCPcBGAsYHg\/s1600\/IMG_20180807_102919.jpg\" width=\"1600\" height=\"900\" class=\"size-large\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">2018 &#8211; Sightseeing the Schoodic Peninsula, Maine &#8211; Acadia National Park<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nGod and \u201cgood old boy\u201d politics<br \/>\nEzra 5: Who issued you a permit to rebuild this Temple and restore it to use?<br \/>\nYears ago our small south Texas congregation was preparing for a building project. For a larger church, this would have been a drop in the bucket, but for us, it was a big deal. One key element was that we needed a city code variance to build a few feet closer to the street than was normally allowed. The whole project depended on that variance. We went to the city planning commission and presented our case. They took it under advisement and then turned us down. This put our project back to stage zero. Disappointed, we went back to the drawing board. A couple of weeks later I noted that the small grocery store across the street from our church was getting ready to do some remodeling. It just so happened that they needed (you guessed it) a zoning variance that was almost exactly the same as the one we had had rejected. No doubt, small town politics had a hand in it and their variance was approved. We went back to the city and asked to be put on the agenda for the next meeting. When our turn came, one of the members asked, in a perplexed voice, \u201cIsn\u2019t this the exact same plans that we turned down a few weeks ago? What makes you think we\u2019ll accept them now?\u201d I patiently replied, \u201cWe think you should reconsider in light of your giving the grocery store next door to us a variance to do the exact same thing.\u201d There was a moment as the facts of the matter became apparent to the commission, then one of them said, \u201cI think we should give the church its building permit.\u201d Isn\u2019t it interesting how the Lord can navigate through small town politics? In light of the passage before us, we see that he\u2019s just as good in working through big government. Never count God out of the equation.<br \/>\nTake Away: The Lord can handle building permits, city ordinances, and such.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>God and \u201cgood old boy\u201d politics Ezra 5: Who issued you a permit to rebuild this Temple and restore it to use? Years ago our small south Texas congregation was preparing for a building project. For a larger church, this would have been a drop in the bucket, but for us, it was a big [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1495,7],"tags":[126,157,433,517,1064],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4969"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4969"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14632,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4969\/revisions\/14632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}