DONNIE DAILY GEMS FOR FRIDAY AUGUST 28:
WORD OF WISDOM
Blessed are the flexible for they shall not be bent out of shape.
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DAILY DEVOTION
Trouble is Transportation
"The LORD directs our steps, so why try to understand everything along the
way?..."
(Proverbs 20:24, NLT)
When troubles come our way, it's easy to get discouraged, but God uses
difficulties to move us toward our destiny. You won't become all you were
created to be without trouble. You don't grow in the good times; you grow in
the tough times, the dark times. Trouble prepares you for the next level.
Trouble develops something in you that you can't get when it's easy and
everything is going your way. In the difficult times, your spiritual muscles
are developed, and you gain strength, endurance, and wisdom.
Every challenge you've been through has deposited something in you. Through
every relationship that didn't work out, through those times when somebody
did you wrong, you gained insight. The times when you failed, when you blew
it weren't wasted-you gained experience that will transport you in the
future. The truth is that trouble was transportation. It was all a part of
God's plan.
A Prayer for Today
Father, thank You that You are the Most High God who is directing my steps.
Thank You that the difficulty I'm experiencing now is developing something
in me that I can't get when it's easy. I believe it is transporting me to
the next level of my destiny. In Jesus' Name, Amen.
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DAILY BIBLE READING
Ezekiel 5-8 New King James Version (NKJV)
A Sword Against Jerusalem
5 "And you, son of man, take a sharp sword, take it as a barber's razor, and
pass it over your head and your beard; then take scales to weigh and divide
the hair. 2 You shall burn with fire one-third in the midst of the city,
when the days of the siege are finished; then you shall take one-third and
strike around it with the sword, and one-third you shall scatter in the
wind: I will draw out a sword after them. 3 You shall also take a small
number of them and bind them in the edge of your garment. 4 Then take some
of them again and throw them into the midst of the fire, and burn them in
the fire. From there a fire will go out into all the house of Israel.
5 "Thus says the Lord God: 'This is Jerusalem; I have set her in the midst
of the nations and the countries all around her. 6 She has rebelled against
My judgments by doing wickedness more than the nations, and against My
statutes more than the countries that are all around her; for they have
refused My judgments, and they have not walked in My statutes.' 7 Therefore
thus says the Lord God: 'Because you have [a]multiplied disobedience more
than the nations that are all around you, have not walked in My statutes nor
kept My judgments, [b]nor even done according to the judgments of the
nations that are all around you'- 8 therefore thus says the Lord God:
'Indeed I, even I, am against you and will execute judgments in your midst
in the sight of the nations. 9 And I will do among you what I have never
done, and the like of which I will never do again, because of all your
abominations. 10 Therefore fathers shall eat their sons in your midst, and
sons shall eat their fathers; and I will execute judgments among you, and
all of you who remain I will scatter to all the winds.
11 'Therefore, as I live,' says the Lord God, 'surely, because you have
defiled My sanctuary with all your detestable things and with all your
abominations, therefore I will also diminish you; My eye will not spare, nor
will I have any pity. 12 One-third of you shall die of the pestilence, and
be consumed with famine in your midst; and one-third shall fall by the sword
all around you; and I will scatter another third to all the winds, and I
will draw out a sword after them.
13 'Thus shall My anger be spent, and I will cause My fury to rest upon
them, and I will be avenged; and they shall know that I, the Lord, have
spoken it in My zeal, when I have spent My fury upon them. 14 Moreover I
will make you a waste and a reproach among the nations that are all around
you, in the sight of all who pass by.
15 'So [c]it shall be a reproach, a taunt, a lesson, and an astonishment to
the nations that are all around you, when I execute judgments among you in
anger and in fury and in furious rebukes. I, the Lord, have spoken. 16 When
I send against them the terrible arrows of famine which shall be for
destruction, which I will send to destroy you, I will increase the famine
upon you and cut off your supply of bread. 17 So I will send against you
famine and wild beasts, and they will bereave you. Pestilence and blood
shall pass through you, and I will bring the sword against you. I, the Lord,
have spoken.' "
Judgment on Idolatrous Israel
6 Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 2 "Son of man, set your face
toward the mountains of Israel, and prophesy against them, 3 and say, 'O
mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord God! Thus says the Lord God
to the mountains, to the hills, to the ravines, and to the valleys: "Indeed
I, even I, will bring a sword against you, and I will destroy your [d]high
places. 4 Then your altars shall be desolate, your incense altars shall be
broken, and I will cast down your slain men before your idols. 5 And I will
lay the corpses of the children of Israel before their idols, and I will
scatter your bones all around your altars. 6 In all your dwelling places the
cities shall be laid waste, and the [e]high places shall be desolate, so
that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, your idols may be
broken and made to cease, your incense altars may be cut down, and your
works may be abolished. 7 The slain shall fall in your midst, and you shall
know that I am the Lord.
8 "Yet I will leave a remnant, so that you may have some who escape the
sword among the nations, when you are scattered through the countries. 9
Then those of you who escape will remember Me among the nations where they
are carried captive, because I was crushed by their adulterous heart which
has departed from Me, and by their eyes which play the harlot after their
idols; they will loathe themselves for the evils which they committed in all
their abominations. 10 And they shall know that I am the Lord; I have not
said in vain that I would bring this calamity upon them."
11 'Thus says the Lord God: "Pound[f] your fists and stamp your feet, and
say, 'Alas, for all the evil abominations of the house of Israel! For they
shall fall by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence. 12 He who is far off
shall die by the pestilence, he who is near shall fall by the sword, and he
who remains and is besieged shall die by the famine. Thus will I spend My
fury upon them. 13 Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when their slain
are among their idols all around their altars, on every high hill, on all
the mountaintops, under every green tree, and under every thick oak,
wherever they offered sweet incense to all their idols. 14 So I will stretch
out My hand against them and make the land desolate, yes, more desolate than
the wilderness toward Diblah, in all their dwelling places. Then they shall
know that I am the Lord.' " ' "
Judgment on Israel Is Near
7 Moreover the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 2 "And you, son of man,
thus says the Lord God to the land of Israel:
'An end! The end has come upon the four corners of the land.
3 Now the end has come upon you,
And I will send My anger against you;
I will judge you according to your ways,
And I will repay you for all your abominations.
4 My eye will not spare you,
Nor will I have pity;
But I will repay your ways,
And your abominations will be in your midst;
Then you shall know that I am the Lord!'
5 "Thus says the Lord God:
'A disaster, a singular disaster;
Behold, it has come!
6 An end has come,
The end has come;
It has dawned for you;
Behold, it has come!
7 Doom has come to you, you who dwell in the land;
The time has come,
A day of trouble is near,
And not of rejoicing in the mountains.
8 Now upon you I will soon pour out My fury,
And spend My anger upon you;
I will judge you according to your ways,
And I will repay you for all your abominations.
9 'My eye will not spare,
Nor will I have pity;
I will [g]repay you according to your ways,
And your abominations will be in your midst.
Then you shall know that I am the Lord who strikes.
10 'Behold, the day!
Behold, it has come!
Doom has gone out;
The rod has blossomed,
Pride has budded.
11 Violence has risen up into a rod of wickedness;
None of them shall remain,
None of their multitude,
None of [h]them;
Nor shall there be wailing for them.
12 The time has come,
The day draws near.
'Let not the buyer rejoice,
Nor the seller mourn,
For wrath is on their whole multitude.
13 For the seller shall not return to what has been sold,
Though he may still be alive;
For the vision concerns the whole multitude,
And it shall not turn back;
No one will strengthen himself
Who lives in iniquity.
14 'They have blown the trumpet and made everyone ready,
But no one goes to battle;
For My wrath is on all their multitude.
15 The sword is outside,
And the pestilence and famine within.
Whoever is in the field
Will die by the sword;
And whoever is in the city,
Famine and pestilence will devour him.
16 'Those who survive will escape and be on the mountains
Like doves of the valleys,
All of them mourning,
Each for his iniquity.
17 Every hand will be feeble,
And every knee will be as weak as water.
18 They will also be girded with sackcloth;
Horror will cover them;
Shame will be on every face,
Baldness on all their heads.
19 'They will throw their silver into the streets,
And their gold will be like refuse;
Their silver and their gold will not be able to deliver them
In the day of the wrath of the Lord;
They will not satisfy their souls,
Nor fill their stomachs,
Because it became their stumbling block of iniquity.
20 'As for the beauty of his ornaments,
He set it in majesty;
But they made from it
The images of their abominations-
Their detestable things;
Therefore I have made it
Like refuse to them.
21 I will give it as plunder
Into the hands of strangers,
And to the wicked of the earth as spoil;
And they shall defile it.
22 I will turn My face from them,
And they will defile My secret place;
For robbers shall enter it and defile it.
23 'Make a chain,
For the land is filled with crimes of blood,
And the city is full of violence.
24 Therefore I will bring the worst of the Gentiles,
And they will possess their houses;
I will cause the pomp of the strong to cease,
And their holy places shall be defiled.
25 [i]Destruction comes;
They will seek peace, but there shall be none.
26 Disaster will come upon disaster,
And rumor will be upon rumor.
Then they will seek a vision from a prophet;
But the law will perish from the priest,
And counsel from the elders.
27 'The king will mourn,
The prince will be clothed with desolation,
And the hands of the common people will tremble.
I will do to them according to their way,
And according to what they deserve I will judge them;
Then they shall know that I am the Lord!' "
Abominations in the Temple
8 And it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth
day of the month, as I sat in my house with the elders of Judah sitting
before me, that the hand of the Lord God fell upon me there. 2 Then I
looked, and there was a likeness, like the appearance of fire-from the
appearance of His waist and downward, fire; and from His waist and upward,
like the appearance of brightness, like the color of amber. 3 He stretched
out the form of a hand, and took me by a lock of my hair; and the Spirit
lifted me up between earth and heaven, and brought me in visions of God to
Jerusalem, to the door of the north gate of the inner court, where the seat
of the image of jealousy was, which provokes[j] to jealousy. 4 And behold,
the glory of the God of Israel was there, like the vision that I saw in the
plain.
5 Then He said to me, "Son of man, lift your eyes now toward the north." So
I lifted my eyes toward the north, and there, north of the altar gate, was
this image of jealousy in the entrance.
6 Furthermore He said to me, "Son of man, do you see what they are doing,
the great abominations that the house of Israel commits here, to make Me go
far away from My sanctuary? Now turn again, you will see greater
abominations." 7 So He brought me to the door of the court; and when I
looked, there was a hole in the wall. 8 Then He said to me, "Son of man, dig
into the wall"; and when I dug into the wall, there was a door.
9 And He said to me, "Go in, and see the wicked abominations which they are
doing there." 10 So I went in and saw, and there-every sort of creeping
thing, abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel,
[k]portrayed all around on the walls. 11 And there stood before them seventy
men of the elders of the house of Israel, and in their midst stood Jaazaniah
the son of Shaphan. Each man had a censer in his hand, and a thick cloud of
incense went up. 12 Then He said to me, "Son of man, have you seen what the
elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the room of his
idols? For they say, 'The Lord does not see us, the Lord has forsaken the
land.' "
13 And He said to me, "Turn again, and you will see greater abominations
that they are doing." 14 So He brought me to the door of the north gate of
the Lord's house; and to my dismay, women were sitting there weeping for
[l]Tammuz.
15 Then He said to me, "Have you seen this, O son of man? Turn again, you
will see greater abominations than these." 16 So He brought me into the
inner court of the Lord's house; and there, at the door of the temple of the
Lord, between the porch and the altar, were about twenty-five men with their
backs toward the temple of the Lord and their faces toward the east, and
they were worshiping the sun toward the east.
17 And He said to me, "Have you seen this, O son of man? Is it a trivial
thing to the house of Judah to commit the abominations which they commit
here? For they have filled the land with violence; then they have returned
to provoke Me to anger. Indeed they put the branch to their nose. 18
Therefore I also will act in fury. My eye will not spare nor will I have
pity; and though they cry in My ears with a loud voice, I will not hear
them."
