Crying out with Ezra

I was reading the book of Ezra over the last week and have been quite impacted by it. Listen to this, "As soon as I heard this, I tore my garment and my cloak and pulled hair from my head and beard and sat appalled. (9:3)" This is Ezra's response to the unfaithfulness of God's people, their deliberate disobedience. and He goes on, "At evening sacrifice I rose from my fasting, with my garment and my cloak torn, and fell upon my knees and spread out my hands to the LORD my God, saying, 'O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift my face to you, my God, for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has mounted up to the heavens. (9:5-6)'" He cries out on behalf of his people. It strikes me that it is not he who was in individual sin, he had not intermarried with the pagans as so many others had, but he still mourned and interceded on behalf of God's people, and even identified himself as guilty along with the rest. He felt a certain connectedness with his fellow believers. It seems these days we've lost some of this as the bride of Christ, especially in the western church. To each is own, and don't try to tell somebody else what to do, let them go their way, and if they're in sin, don't try to come along side them because they might think you are judging them. We've lost being appalled at sin. We forget what it does to our Father's heart. We don't feel called to repent and cry out on behalf of our brothers and sisters who are stuck in sin. I remember a pastor once explaining that if we knew what our sin does to the heart of our Heavenly Father we would say of course gouge out our eye if it causes us to sin, we'd freely cut off our hand if it caused us to sin, if we even understood just a bit of what our sin does to our Father's heart. We know we are all apart of one body in Christ, as much as our american ways drive us toward independence, we are dependent on Christ and on the body of Christ, when one part of the body suffers we all suffer. I want to become more appalled at sin in my own heart and in the bride of the Christ, I want to come and plead before the Lord on behalf of my brothers and sisters. I don't want to continue on saying, ah, that sin is not mine, the sin of abortion, not my problem, the sin of pornography not my problem, the sin of adultery not my problem, they're not my problem if I'm not struggling with them, and yet these and other sins are eating away, slowly destroying the beautiful bride of Christ. I need to be concerned about this, I need to cry out to my God, begging forgiveness on behalf of my brothers and sisters. The Lord knows I'm not perfect, and I am always asking forgiveness for my own sins, but how often am I standing in the gap for the global church? Do I allow myself to become appalled by our sin as a whole, our unfaithfulness as a bride? Do I realize how it effects the heart of God? Lord, teach me, teach us, that it isn't just about ourselves, open up our eyes to see the state of the church as a whole and how we might join with one another and cry out to you Lord, appalled by our sin and begging for you in your mercy, to not forsake us in our slavery to sin, but extend to us your steadfast love!

The most encouraging part I found while reading the book of Ezra was the phrase that he used over and over again, "The hand of Lord my God was on me...the good hand of our God on us, The hand of our God is for good...the hand of our God was on us." Even in our sin, the good hand of the Lord is upon us, longing to draw us back to Himself, awaiting us to come to our senses.