{"id":4971,"date":"2023-08-25T12:13:28","date_gmt":"2023-08-25T17:13:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nazareneblogs.org\/pastorscott\/?p=4971"},"modified":"2023-08-25T12:13:28","modified_gmt":"2023-08-25T17:13:28","slug":"devotional-on-ezra-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-ezra-6\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on Ezra"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure style=\"width: 1600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-jGYFx52nKRk\/XuZ45F1SnzI\/AAAAAAABFQ4\/g2SauCHy5z83zvuOosSxXnys6u8wteRpACPcBGAsYHg\/s1600\/IMG_20180807_102935.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 construction projects<br \/>\nEzra 6: \u2026you are to help the leaders of the Jews in the rebuilding of that Temple of God.<br \/>\nOrders to stop rebuilding the Temple brought the project to a halt for about 3 years. In time, two prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, began to urge the people to get back to work. Now, the precise chronology of the letters and which king wrote what is a bit muddy, but that doesn&#8217;t diminish the actual story here. First, the king receives a letter that causes him to issue a stop order to the Jews who are rebuilding the Temple. Then, upon the urging of the prophets, the work is started again. The regional governor writes to the king to report what\u2019s happening, and, upon review, the king finds that years earlier they had not only been given permission to rebuild, but were ordered to do so. He responds by directing the governor to allow the work to continue, and beyond that, to assist in any way he\u2019s asked to. The temporary halt to the program actually results in the full support of the current king and speeds up the process. Even though there\u2019s a bit of a mystery in these passages about who is king when there\u2019s a clear message that God works even through what we see to be road blocks to our obedience to his will. This is a difficult lesson for us to learn, as we want green lights all the way before we even start. It\u2019s hard to understand how God&#8217;s &#8220;go&#8221; and how the on-the-ground circumstances that force a &#8220;stop&#8221; can be working together, but, sometimes, that\u2019s just how it is.<br \/>\nTake Away: The Lord works through circumstances beyond our control to accomplish his purposes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>God and construction projects Ezra 6: \u2026you are to help the leaders of the Jews in the rebuilding of that Temple of God. Orders to stop rebuilding the Temple brought the project to a halt for about 3 years. In time, two prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, began to urge the people to get back to [&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\/4971"}],"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=4971"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4971\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14634,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4971\/revisions\/14634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}