Our Daily Bread Devotional 2nd March 2024 Saturday ODB Message
Our Daily Bread Devotional 2nd March 2024 TOPIC: Speaking as God Helps Us
BIBLE IN A YEAR: Numbers 26–27; Mark 8:1–21
KEY VERSE: Then there came a voice from above the vault over their heads as they stood with lowered wings. Ezekiel 1:25
TODAY’S SCRIPTURE: Ezekiel 1:22–28
22 Spread out above the heads of the living creatures was what looked something like a vault, sparkling like crystal, and awesome. 23 Under the vault their wings were stretched out one toward the other, and each had two wings covering its body. 24 When the creatures moved, I heard the sound of their wings, like the roar of rushing waters, like the voice of the Almighty,[a] like the tumult of an army. When they stood still, they lowered their wings.
25 Then there came a voice from above the vault over their heads as they stood with lowered wings. 26 Above the vault over their heads was what looked like a throne of lapis lazuli, and high above on the throne was a figure like that of a man. 27 I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire, and that from there down he looked like fire; and brilliant light surrounded him. 28 Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him.
This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. When I saw it, I fell facedown, and I heard the voice of one speaking.
Our Daily Bread Devotional 2nd March 2024 Insight By Monica La Rose
When Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon first attacked Jerusalem, he took most people from Jerusalem into exile (2 Kings 24:10-14). Ezekiel was one of those captives. The book of Ezekiel opens five years later (Ezekiel 1:2) when Ezekiel was thirty years old—the year he would’ve been installed as a priest in Jerusalem. Instead, he was with the other exiles in a camp by a river in Babylon (v. 1). Yet God appeared to the prophet, revealing to him that not just in Jerusalem but even in this land of exile, He’s present in glory—“like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day . . . . This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord” (v. 28).
Our Daily Bread Devotional 2nd March 2024: MESSAGE
One wouldn’t normally think of butterflies as being loud creatures: after all, the flapping of a single Monarch butterfly’s wings is practically inaudible. But in the Mexican rainforest, where many of them begin their short lives, their collective flapping is surprisingly loud. When millions of Monarchs flap their wings at the same time, it sounds like a rushing waterfall.
The same description is made when four very different winged creatures appear in Ezekiel’s vision. Though fewer than the number of butterflies, he likens the sound of their flapping wings to “the roar of rushing waters” (Ezekiel 1:24). When the creatures stood still and lowered their wings, Ezekiel heard the voice of God calling him to “speak [God’s] words to [the Israelites]” (2:7).
Ezekiel, like the other Old Testament prophets, was charged with the task of speaking truth to God’s people. Today, God asks us all to share the truth of His good work in our lives with those He puts around us (1 Peter 3:15). Sometimes we’ll be asked a direct question—an invitation to share that’s as “loud” as a waterfall. Other times, the invitation might be more of a whisper, such as seeing an unspoken need. Whether the invitation to share God’s love is as loud as a million butterflies or as quiet as just one, we must listen, as Ezekiel did, with ears tuned to hear what God wants us to say. (ODB Message By: Kirsten Holmberg)
REFLECT: Who’s inviting you to speak into their lives—even if only faintly? How will you respond?
PRAYER: Thank You, Father, for inviting me to share about You.
READ MORE TOPICS: OPEN HEAVENS, OUR DAILY BREAD, IN TOUCH, SEEDS OF DESTINY, STREAMS OF JOY, JOEL OSTEEN, MOUNTAIN TOP LIFE, DCLM DAILY MANNA, UCB WORD FOR TODAY