“And I will make the land desolate because they have acted faithlessly, declares the Lord God.”
– Ezekiel 15:8
What an indictment? What a picture? And what a word, did you hear it? I will make the land desolate, God says. Why? Because they have acted faithlessly. I read that and I think, I don’t want to do anything faithlessly. I don’t want to live a faithless life, and what’s the opposite faithful.
That’s what they’ve not been, God is saying. And they’ve not been faithful. They’ve not been full of faith in me. They’ve not trusted me. And they’ve not followed me. They’ve not worshiped me. They’ve had no faith in me, so very simply, let me just encourage you to ask the question today. How are you tempted to act, to live, to think faithlessly? And what are the ways in which you are tempted to not trust God, to not obey God?
Prone to Act Faithlessly
And I think it would be really valuable to say, “God, here’s how I am prone to act faithlessly,” and to ask God for help to be faithful today. To be full of faith in the way we think today, full of faith in the way we speak today, full of faith in the way we act today, full of trust in God in his ways and his word and his purposes in the world.
God, we want to get to the end, see your face as we stand before you in judgment and hear you say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” We don’t want to be faithless servants. On that day, we don’t want to look back and see a life where we didn’t trust in you to the full or we didn’t follow you to the full. God, we want to live faithful lives. So God, I pray for my life today and for every single person listening to this right now.
Ezekiel 15:8 Calls Us to Be Faithful
God, to help us not to live faithless lives today. God, show us what a faithful life looks like today. Help us to live full of faith in you, full of trust in you, not doubting you, not questioning you, not in any way hesitating to follow you. Help us to do all that you’ve called us to do today, with faith in you, with total trust in you, our lives completely trusting in you.
God, we pray that you’d help us to faithfully hear your word, meditate on it, obey your word, help us to faithfully pray, to intercede. Help us to faithfully share the gospel. God, help us to faithfully be holy in obedience to everything in your word. Help us to be faithful in our thoughts and our desires and our words. God, we pray that you would help us to faithfully follow you, to obey your command, to make disciples of the nations.
Ezekiel 15:8 Helps Us to Make Disciples
God, help us to make disciples, we’ll make disciples today. Help us to be faithful, to do this in our lives, in our families, in our churches. And God, we pray that you would forgive us for our faithlessness. The fact that there are 3 billion people who’ve never heard the gospel, we have not been faithful, God.
We’ve not been faithful to your command to make disciples of all the nations, to be witnesses to the ends of the earth. God, we pray that you forgive us and help us to be faithful. God, we pray for the Chhetrti people of Nepal, 5 million of them are hardly any followers of Jesus. Most of them never having even heard the gospel.
This Hindu people worshiping all kinds of false gods, and we’ve not been faithful to spreading the gospel to them. God, help us to change that. God, help us to be faithful to your commission starting right where we live. Help us to faithfully make disciples, right where we live today and wherever you lead until the Chhetrti of Nepal and thousands of other people groups are reached with the gospel.
We pray that it would be set of us in our lives and our relationships and our marriages and as singles, as parents, as children, as members of your church, ultimately as children of yours and followers of Jesus, make us faithful. Help us to be faithful in every way, full of faith, not faithless in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
David Platt serves as a Lead Pastor for McLean Bible Church. He is also the Founder of Radical, an organization that makes Jesus known among the nations.
David received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and M.Div., Th.M., and Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Some of his published works include Radical, Radical Together, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Don’t Hold Back, and How to Read the Bible.
He lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area with his wife and children.
