Ezra 1:3: “Who is there among you of all His people? May his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem which is in Judah, and build the house of the LORD God of Israel (He is God), which is in Jerusalem.”

October 24th, 2023 by Pastor Ed in devotional

After Cyrus king of Persia conquered Babylon, God put it in Cyrus’ heart to allow His people (who had been living for 70 years in exile in Babylon) to return to their own land. But notice that Cyrus didn’t command the people to go; he granted them permission to return to Jerusalem, to the city of the king. It was an offer, an invitation, and they had a choice to make.

God extends very much the same invitation to us, inviting us every day to return to Him and to walk with Him. Is He inviting you today? Has God been patiently waiting for you to return? Why do you hold back? Did He hold anything back when He gave Himself for you on the cross? Perhaps what He is inviting you to seems too difficult, just as the journey and task ahead of the Hebrews was not an easy one. No matter how tempting it is to despair or give up, God has promised that whatever He calls us to He will help us accomplish, as Hebrews 13:20–21 tells us, “Now may the God of peace . . . make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight.”

Many years ago a woman in western Montana was riding in a stagecoach with her baby. The weather was bitterly cold, and, in spite of all that the driver could do to protect her, he saw that the mother was falling unconscious from the cold. He stopped the coach, took the baby, wrapped it warmly, and put it under the seat. Then he seized the mother by the arm, dragged her out onto the ground, and drove away, leaving her in the road. As she saw him drive away, she jumped up and ran after him, crying out for her baby. When he felt sure she was warm again, he allowed her to overtake the coach and resume her place by her baby. Imagine her gratitude when she realized he had saved her life? He had done as God sometimes does when He shakes us out of soul-lethargy and moral sleep, which if He left us in, would end in death. God, like the stagecoach driver, sometimes allows things that nearly devastate us to enter our lives. But if we will accept His invitiation to follow Him, wherever and however He leads, we will grow and be saved.

“Lord, we want to walk with You this day. We choose to follow You. Show us what we might do to further Your kingdom today.”