I love the concept of restoring things and bringing them back to life.

Taking something, which was perhaps broken or run down, and giving it a new lease of life. As the title suggests, dry bones coming back to life is only made possible by God.

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It’s a message that takes a broken, hopeless and desperate situation and is injected with a divine message of hope and plan of restoration.

The Bible is a book that is repeatedly filled with this reoccurring theme of God breathing new life back into the barren and dry places, and we see Jesus, who did this so well as he restored hope to people who had absolutely none left.

God will always invite us to embrace hope and not to give up, to break ties with despair, fear and doubt and open the door to hope, peace and love.

 

1 John 4:17-19 NKJV

Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. We love Him because He first loved us.

 

In the book of Ezekiel, we see two very powerful pictures of the nation of Israel.

On one hand we see the nation of Israel reaching a point where they no longer trusted the Lord for everything but rather took confidence in their own strength instead, lived in sin and rebellion. As you would suspect, the outcome isn’t going to end well. Whenever we take matters into our own hands and we reject God’s help it leads to destruction but when we repent and turn back to God, it leads back to life. The Israelites found themselves in a position where they were in Babylon and in captivity. This is a moment where you would quickly revaluate life.

During a period of around 70 years of suffering and realising that they are in serious trouble, the question echoes in their hearts, “Will help ever come?”

 

When days turn into months and months into years, it gets harder and harder to cling on to hope. I’m sure the question was lifted up, “Has God abandoned us?”

 

Today the question echoes, “Is there anything too hard for God?”

 

Imagine Mary, who had just found out she was about to become a mum. God had revealed to her that she was going to give birth to a Son, but Mary wasn’t married! So how was she going to have a baby? God’s response we find in Luke 1:37 (NKJV) “For with God nothing will be impossible."

 

 

With the Israelite people, God hadn’t abandoned them even though it felt like it to them. They ended up in Babylon through disobedience and by sinning against God.

Even in this state, God’s redemptive plan was being prepared. This is where the message fits so well in Jeremiah 29.

 

Jeremiah 29:10-14 (NKJV)

For thus says the LORD: After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, says the LORD, and I will bring you back from your captivity; I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you, says the LORD, and I will bring you to the place from which I cause you to be carried away captive.

 

A Latin proverb fits this well

 

“Where there is life, there is hope” but the reverse of this is also true.

“Where there is hope we find the reason to live.”

 

Consider today in your life areas which are in need of restoring and prayerfully bring them before the Lord.

 

You have a reason to live in hope today and more than that you have a purpose which God has created. No matter the circumstance, even dry bones can come back to life through the power of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.