06/13/2026 – “Come ye after Me.” Mark 1:17 / “Where the Selective Affinity Dies and the Sanctified Abandon Lives” / Comments from the Bible reading in Ezra, which lead to the profound message in Ezekiel 33.
“One of the greatest hindrances in coming to Jesus is the excuse of temperament. We make our temperament and our natural affinities barriers to coming to Jesus. The first thing we realize when we come to Jesus is that He pays no attention whatever to our natural affinities. We have the notion that we can consecrate our gifts to God. You cannot consecrate what is not yours; there is only one thing you can consecrate to God, and that is your right to yourself (Romans 12:1). If you will give God your right to yourself, He will make a holy experiment out of you. God’s experiments always succeed. The one mark of a saint is the moral originality which springs from abandonment to Jesus Christ. In the life of a saint there is this amazing wellspring of original life all the time; the Spirit of God is a well of water springing up, perennially fresh. The saint realizes that it is God Who engineers circumstances, consequently there is no whine, but a reckless abandon to Jesus. Never make a principle out of your experience; let God be as original with other people as He is with you.
If you abandon to Jesus, and come when He says “Come,” He will continue to say “Come” through you; you will go out into life reproducing the echo of Christ’s “Come.” That is the result in every soul who has abandoned and come to Jesus.
Have I come to Jesus? Will I come now?“
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
“Sincerity means that the appearance and the reality are exactly the same.”
Studies in the Sermon on the Mount
Soli Deo Gloria!
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Comments:
Commentary on our reading: Ezra 6-8; John 21
Let’s look at a declarative statement excerpt from Ezra – 7:6 , followed by the commentary from “The Apologetics Study Bible.”:
“…The king (Antaxerses) had granted him everything he (Ezra) requested because the hand of the LORD his God was on him.” Ezra 7:6
Note: Antaxerses was the pagan king of the empire of Persia from 465 to 424 B.C., yet this verse states he acknowledged that Ezra was led by the “hand of the LORD.”
Now, let’s contrast that with far too many self professed christian theologians of our day, the Bible commentary on Ezra 7:6:
“7:6 The people of Israel had a high view of their Scriptures. While they credited Moses with authorship of the Pentateuch, they credited God as the source of Moses’ text. Unfortunately, this belief is not common among many scholars today, who consider the Bible to be merely a human text.”
The absurdity started with an increasing wave of theologians disavowing the “infallibility of God’s Word.” So, if you aren’t saying man wrote it, wouldn’t that mean they are asserting that God makes mistakes?
But the absurdity has progressed seemingly at a geometric growth rate. The examples are endless, but did you know that Wikipedia now has a categorical write up for “christian atheism.” Say what?, this is schizophrenic! Check this out, including the notable theologians who call themselves christian while disavowing even the existence of God. (link below)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_atheism
So, how does this craziness relate to us that see it for what it is? I submit that it puts us in the position of “the watchman” in Ezekiel 33. Personally, that strikes me as an imperative call for “fear of the Lord” that demands action to stand fast, declaring His truth through all human risks, including my life in this world. “Be prepared.”
Check out Bible Hub’s commentary on Ezekiel 33:
https://biblehub.com/ezekiel/33.htm
But note, overall it is a promise of hope and restoration:
“Ezekiel 33 is a profound chapter that underscores the responsibility of a watchman, highlights God’s call for the Israelites to repent, and heralds the fall of Jerusalem. The chapter serves as a turning point in the book of Ezekiel, where the focus shifts from prophecies of doom to a message of hope and restoration.” (eternal complete restoration)