Never Dead

He asked me, "Son of man, can these bones live?" I said, "Sovereign LORD, you alone know." – Ezekiel 37:3

Have you ever wondered if your bones could live again?  I know it’s an odd question.  I have been in times when I just felt old and nearly dead.  I’m talking about when I was just so tired, my spirit was crushed, there was an attack on every side and the attack was physical, mental, and spiritual.  There was no help and those you thought you could always rely on were a part of the attack.  It seems as though I was just sleep-walking through the days as everything pounced upon me, fitfully sleeping although exhausted, and then doing it over again.  Time was moving as each day passed but I was just beat down, existing day-to-day.  I wondered if my bones would ever live again. 

The Lord asked Ezekiel if those dead bones could live and Ezekiel answered that only the Lord knew.  The Lord then tells Ezekiel to prophesy for those bones to come together and have life and he does and they do.  The Lord of life wants everything to live.  Especially those whom are the jewels of His Creation, which is you and me.  “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live!” (v9)  The Lord desires that we be alive and living and it is He and He alone that provides that life.  “I am going to open your grave and bring you from it … I will put My Spirit in you and you will live.” (v13-14)

In this current time there is this push to live your life and do what you need to do to make your life fulfilled.  So many phrases such as “you only live once” (YOLO) are said and re-said to prompt this doing what you think makes you alive.  Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes that it is all vanity.  Every effort we make to fulfill our live without God is in vain.  Here, in this valley of dry bones with Ezekiel, God shows us that it is only Him that builds life and it is only His Spirit that provides life.  Every effort we partake to live a complete life without an invitation to God to participate, to lead, and to infuse in Spirit only leads to death, and we were never intended to just exist wondering if we could be alive.

Deuteronomy 30:20 says “The Lord is your life”.  David wrote in Psalms 27:1 “The Lord is the stronghold of my life.”  “The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Ro 6:23)

The Lord made a new army out of those dry bones. In each of us He makes a new life filled with His own Spirit.  “If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Cor 5:17)  Wherever the Lord is, there is life.  As Christians who hold the very Spirit of God in our hearts, we are never dead.  We are eternally alive and it is God and God alone that provides our life.