COMFORT IN TRIALS
Blessing Your Bread and Your Water,
and Taking Sickness Away from Our Midst
Exo. 23:25 And you shall serve Jehovah your God, and He will bless your bread and your water; and I will take sickness away from your midst.
God as the Shepherd Seeking and Searching Us Out
In God’s recovery by life, He first sends the watchman to His people to repent, turn, and live, and then He Himself appears as the Shepherd. In our own personal experiences it is exactly the same. First we may hear a warning from the Lord causing us to repent. Then we realize that the Lord Jesus is not only our Savior but also our Shepherd, seeking and searching us out.
Ezekiel 34:11 says, “For thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I, even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out.” As the Shepherd, the Lord not only seeks but also searches. Because of our fallen condition, we were all buried under many evil things, so we needed God to search for us. In Luke 15 we have both the shepherd (signifying Christ as the Shepherd) seeking the lost sheep and the woman (signifying the Spirit) lighting the lamp and searching within the house for the lost coin. The prodigal son then was drawn home by the searching of the Spirit. (Life-study of Ezekiel, msg. 16)
Giving Us Bread to Nourish Us and Water to Satisfy Us
God will give us bread to nourish us and water to satisfy us, will cause us to grow and be fruitful, and will take away our sicknesses that we would not suffer a premature death but would grow in the divine life to maturity, to full age, in order to gain the all-inclusive Christ as our possession for our enjoyment. (Holy Bible Recovery Version, Exo. 23:25, Footnote 1)
Our food is the Word and our drink is the Spirit. Without food and drink it would have been impossible for His people to take possession of the land and live in it. The same is true in our Christian life. Without proper food and drink we cannot enjoy Christ, experience Christ, gain Christ, and possess Christ. (Life-study of Exodus, Msg. 75)
Binding Up That Which Was Broken, Healing That Which Was Sick，
and Causing Us to Be Satisfied, Restful, and Peaceful
Ezekiel 34:16a continues, “I will seek that which was lost, and bring again that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick.” Here to strengthen means to heal. As the Shepherd the Lord will bind up that which was broken and heal that which was sick. How we need the Lord’s binding and healing! Frequently in the church meetings we have the sense that we are under the tender binding of the Lord and that the wounds and the broken places are being bound up by Him. At other times we may sense that we are experiencing His strengthening, His healing. Praise the Lord that while we are eating, drinking, and resting, we are under His binding, strengthening, and healing. As the Lord recovers us by life, we have genuine revival, we have the enjoyment of Christ, which causes us to be satisfied, restful, and peaceful, and we experience the Lord’s binding and healing. (Life-study of Ezekiel, msg. 16)
Prayer:
Lord Jesus, thank You for coming to be a Shepherd, seeking me, searching me out, caring for me in every way, and bearing all my responsibilities. Oh Lord, I need Your word as my food and Your Spirit as my living water. Quench my thirst and fill my hunger. I also need Your binding and healing, which causes me to be restful, and peaceful