Them bones them bones, them dry bones

At our weekend away, Nigel Styles did some brilliant talks on 'Regeneration' - looking at God's promises of new life done through the power of his word. The first talk done on Ezekiel 36:16-37:14 really struck me- God promises new life, to hopeless people, for his sake, by his word.

The image of God's word breathing life into the valley of dry bones in Ezekiel is such a powerful allegory provoking us to rejoice in the gospel and to renew our urgency to tell it!
I was stuck by how chapter 36 shows us that God promises new life and is acting for the honour of his name- he shows his love and power so that we remember he is the Lord! And then what a great promise of new life he gives! He gathers sinful people to cleanse them and change them to be his holy people, with him for eternity!

Thus in reading chapter 37 we see that the remedy for a sinful and utterly hopeless world is to preach the gospel as God's word brings new life. I found this both humbling and empowering.

• Humbling because it reveals our shameful hearts that forget the great news of Jesus and we shy away from talking about him. If anything the power shown in the image of God's word bringing new life to skeletons in a horrific valley shouts out at me- How dare we not tell others such great news?!
• And yet it is empowering because we are telling God's words (not ours) which although may appear as foolishness, we know they are utterly imperishable. Furthermore God is doing the work- God promises renewal and he does bring about change from within. So we just need to speak and pray- knowing everything is in his hands. In fact what a great privilege it is that God uses us to speak to others-we are included in God's plan of bringing regeneration.

However as I went back to work on Monday, fired up by hearing the truth of the gospel all weekend, I felt less empowered when I actually began talking to a friend about my weekend. I did the whole 'I was on a church weekend away where we learnt from the Bible...' And then surprisingly she said 'Cool, so what did you learn?'. Hmmm. Had a bit of a blank, and attempted to tell her about the valley of dry bones and then tell her what the message that brings life is (ie.Jesus!), but then never quite got there. (grrr) But at least it was a start... I find it so hard actually bringing Jesus into conversations at work- talking about going to Church is easy, but talking about Jesus is so much more difficult.

But then that's what makes the Ezekiel passage so powerful- when we persevere and talk about Jesus, even if we don't see it immediately, new life will be brought to dry bones.