Be Like Ezra

This past fall, I was reading through the Bible with the Sweeter Than Honey Bible reading plan. I came to the little book of Ezra.

On September 26, I read Ezra 4-7: Finding Your Jerusalem. We all have our "Jerusalem." It's that place God has planted us to be His witness.

Sometimes the work is easy there. But oftentimes it is not. Many times we may find the work quite difficult with much opposition. Any work for God is bound to have adversaries.

In Ezra 4:1-6, we read of the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin and the weapons these adversaries used. These same weapons can be used by our adversaries to prevent our work for God and His Kingdom.

See if you can identify the weapons of the adversaries in these six verses.

Any work for God is going to have adversaries.

​See if you can identify the weapons of adversaries in these six verses:

“Now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the returned exiles were building a temple to the Lord, the God of Israel, they approached Zerubbabel and the heads of fathers’ houses and said to them,

‘Let us build with you, for we worship your God as you do, and we have been sacrificing to Him ever since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assyria who brought us here.’

But Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the rest of the heads of fathers’ houses in Israel said to them,

‘You have nothing to do with us in building a house to our God; but we alone will build to the Lord, the God of Israel, as King Cyrus the king of Persia has commanded us.’

Then the people of the land discouraged the people of Judah and made them afraid to build and bribed counselors against them to frustrate their purpose, all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of Persia. And in the reign of Ahasuerus, in the beginning of his reign, they wrote an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem.” Ezra‬ ‭4:1-6‬ ‭

Weapons of adversaries:

• Compromise
• Discouragement
• Fear
• Frustration
• Weariness
• Accusations

The adversary wins when the work for the Kingdom of God stops.

“Then the work on the house of God that is in Jerusalem stopped, and it ceased until the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia.” Ezra‬ ‭4:24‬ ‭

Let's not let the weapons of adversaries stop the work of God in our lives today! 

We find in chapter 6 that the Temple is finally finished and dedicated. This was accomplished despite the adversaries. In verses 13-18, we read that the people worked “with all diligence.” They also “celebrated the dedication of the house of God with joy.”

I love this verse in chapter 7 that really just defines Ezra’s life and should define ours as well:

“For Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the Lord, and to do it and to teach His statutes and rules in Israel.” Ezra 7:10

“This Ezra,” as he is called in verse 6, was a direct descendent of Aaron, Moses’ brother. Do you know what happened 16 generations before Ezra? The Israelites left Egypt and crossed over the Red Sea on dry land. God’s people had wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. They had just come out of captivity in Babylon for 70 years, and much had happened between those two events. But now they were back in Jerusalem ready to serve their God (our God) in the rebuilt Temple.

Let’s be like Ezra today! Look at the 3 things verse 10 says he did:

1. Study
2. Do
3. Teach

​He studied the Word, but he didn’t just study it—he was a doer of the Word as well. (James 1:22–25) Then, he also was a teacher of the Word. Ezra is a great example for us—study, do, and teach.

How will you be like Ezra today?

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