Ezekiel’s audience is an exiled people longing for their homeland. Their pain is all the more poignant, for even if they could go back, there would be nothing but a barren waste where once the glorious Temple stood. Yet visions bring hope. After lifting the aspirations of the people through the vision of the new temple and its design, Ezekiel becomes an architect of time, measuring the year once again according to sacred festivals and how the people are to observe them.

What can you do to preserve that precious sense that all space and time in which you live can be sacred? Habits and rituals for personal prayer and worship are very important. They create boundaries of time and space that give life a deepening sense that God’s eternity is entering into our time.

Ezekiel 45—46

Mondays are dedicated to the reading of the Hebrew Prophets.
In the Easter Season this year we read Ezekiel 33—48.

What are “Bible Breaths”? Learn More…
Example: Holiness of here and now

For all the Firestarters I recommend the ebook.  You will have the entire program of well over a thousand of these introductions with you on your phone or tablet. Check the menu options at the site for more information.

Principles are outlined about the transfer of land as a possession. In 25:23 God declares: “The land shall not be sold permanently, for the land is mine: for you are stranger and sojourners with me.” Reflect upon this principle and its connection to private property.

Everything we have comes from the Lord and belongs to God. The Gospel parables about stewardship further develop this understanding. Keep this in mind as you read about slavery from verse 39. While our understanding of slavery has grown over the centuries to be completely excluded, still, masters in Biblical times were enjoined “not to rule over them [slaves] with rigor, but you shall fear your God.” The master for right living is the Holy Spirit who will teach us all things, always prompting us to the law of universal love and equality which Jesus held up for us the night before he was crucified.

Leviticus 25:29—26:2

Learn about Bible Breaths Learn More…
Example: Embracing with compassion 25:35

The Saturday passages follow the reading list that Jewish people use in their synagogue worship
throughout the world. They are taken from
“The Torah,” the first five books of the Bible from Genesis to Deuteronomy
that are read each year beginning with autumn.

For all the Firestarters I recommend the ebook.  You will have the entire program of well over a thousand of these introductions with you on your phone or tablet. Check the menu options at the site for more information

Fishing—this is what the disciples are about. Here, however, it is a symbol—for now they are Fishers of People. Though they do not recognize Jesus on the shore, they recall the impact on their hearts of the miracle that happened when Jesus gave a similar command three years ago.

The word in Greek for the great quantity of fish is plethos, from which the word plethora comes. Only one other time in the whole Gospel of John is this word used. In 5:3 John tells of the many invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed at the pool of Bethesda.

What changes does Jesus command you as to where you are doing your fishing? Do you believe in the great catch of souls that God has planned for you to draw into the Kingdom, because of your faith, hope, and love?

John 21:1–14

Create your own Bible Breaths Learn More…
Example: Casting on the other side v. 6

Fridays are dedicated to the Gospels.
In the Easter Season this year we read the final third of John’s Gospel.

For all the Firestarters I recommend the ebook.  You will have the entire program of well over a thousand of these introductions with you on your phone or tablet. Check the menu options at the site for more information.