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.”

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Ezra 1 KJV

¹ Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying,  ² Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, The LORD God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and he hath charged me to build him an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. ³ Who is there among you of all his people? 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 the God,) which is in Jerusalem. ⁴ And whosoever remaineth in any place where he sojourneth, let the men of his place help him with silver, and with gold, and with goods, and with beasts, beside the freewill offering for the house of God that is in Jerusalem. ⁵ Then rose up the chief of the fathers of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests, and the Levites, with all them whose spirit God had raised, to go up to build the house of the LORD which is in Jerusalem. ⁶ And all they that were about them strengthened their hands with vessels of silver, with gold, with goods, and with beasts, and with precious things, beside all that was willingly offered. ⁷ Also Cyrus the king brought forth the vessels of the house of the LORD, which Nebuchadnezzar had brought forth out of Jerusalem, and had put them in the house of his gods; ⁸ Even those did Cyrus king of Persia bring forth by the hand of Mithredath the treasurer, and numbered them unto Sheshbazzar, the prince of Judah. ⁹ And this is the number of them: thirty chargers of gold, a thousand chargers of silver, nine and twenty knives, ¹⁰ Thirty basons of gold, silver basons of a second sort four hundred and ten, and other vessels a thousand. ¹¹ All the vessels of gold and of silver were five thousand and four hundred. All these did Sheshbazzar bring up with them of the captivity that were brought up from Babylon unto Jerusalem.