Deitrich Devotionals

“Then I will pour out a spirit of grace and prayer on the family of David and on the people of Jerusalem. They will look on me whom they have pierced and mourn for him as for an only son. They will grieve bitterly for him as for a firstborn son who has died.” – Zechariah 12:10.

Zechariah 12 is a pretty interesting chapter, because it displays how much the Lord has planned the protection and victory of his people. The Lord says, in verse 3, “On that day I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock. All the nations will gather against it to try to move it, but they will only hurt themselves.” The day the Lord is talking about, as far as I can tell from verse two, is a day that nearby nations send armies to attack Jerusalem. When Jerusalem goes under attack, God makes them an immovable rock. I have tried to move immovable rocks before for various reasons, like curiosity and labor, but, as the name suggests, they are immovable. It was strain to try to move them, because the rocks could only be moved by a bigger power than me. In this way, God made Jerusalem immovable to an extent that powers beyond the besieging armies of the neighbors of Jerusalem. As the story goes on, God has a plan to destroy the enemies of Judah, in such as way that all cities but Jerusalem and all clans but David receive honor first and more than Jerusalem and the house of David by being victorious in battle first. The Lord gives a model of making the greatest of all royal lines and the greatest city the least, last, and humblest.

So the destruction of all the nations coming against Jerusalem has begun, and now, here we are at verse ten. I would like to say that this is a Jesus prophecy, because the only begotten Son of God did die, was pierced, and was mourned for. And a spirit of grace and prayer (or, The Spirit of grace and prayer) was poured out. The Holy Spirit poured out.

Despite a spirit of God being mentioned sporadically in the Old Testament, it was only after the piercing and morning that everyone in God’s family was given the gift of the Holy Spirit. And this Spirit is described here being of as grace and prayer. Why? Grace, I can understand that. The Spirit, and salvation, were a package deal of undeserved gifts offered to us. That’s grace. But, prayer, how does that fit into all this? Have people really been given a Spirit of prayer, a spirit of communication with the Almighty God, but refuse to use it and listen to God and talk to God? I guess I’ve never seen the Holy Ghost as a spiritual cell phone, but in truth the indwelling Spirit makes God much more accessible than the distant Father in heaven. And yet we don’t take advantage of it. It is almost unheard of that humans would turn down a Christmas gift or a chance to talk with someone famous they respected, but we do both by ignoring the spirit of prayer. Or, at least I do. I don’t think I’m the only person in the world who needs to pray more. I certainly don’t have seven times a day down yet, though. Maybe this just stuck out to me because it’s important personally, just as I hope you can take things you read in the Bible and in my thoughts on the Bible and apply them to your life. Let’s all try to pray at least once more than usual today.

Zechariah 13:1-2 reads, “On that day [the day with the mourning because Jesus got pierced] a fountain will be opened for the dynasty of David and for the people of Jerusalem, a fountain to cleanse them from all their sins and impurity. And on that day, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, I will erase idol worship throughout the land, so that even the names of the idols will be forgotten. I will remove from the land both the false prophets and the spirit of impurity that came with them.”

The destruction of idols has been a topic in my blog since day one, back in September. I’ve covered many times ideas of abandoning our idols and turning from our idols, actions we take. It’s been a while since I’ve covered actions God takes. And it says that He erases idol worship, to the point that the names of the idols are forgotten. I can confidently say that we have past the day where the fountainhead to cleanse iniquity was established (hence, Easter exists), so I know God has his eraser out and moving. Perhaps all along that was what first we should be looking to do if we struggle with idols, is to let God erase it, rather than turn on our own. Things don’t cease to exist because we ignore them (which is great, because we ignore God a lot), so we really have to give up the idol to God’s eraser, working together with Him to right our life.

Zechariah 13:7-9 puzzles me. The past couple days, the shepherd analogy has been back and forth in Zechariah. Good shepherd, bad shepherd. Today is another bad shepherd day, for the Lord commands his sword to rise against his shepherd, striking him down and scattering the sheep, so that most of the them die. Not too pleasant to think about.

But I did say most. Some, in fact one-third by my Bible’s counting, of the sheep live. What happens to them? “I will bring that group through the fire,” says the Lord in verse 9, “and make them pure. I will refine them like silver and purify them like gold. They will call on my name, and I will answer them. I will say, ‘These are my people,’ and they will say, ‘The Lord is our God.’” Interestingly enough, the call and response, the communication, the prayer between God and his people, who declare themselves to have the Lord as God, only happens after the fire. After refinement. After purification is made. There is searing pain in the heat, but the purification leads to open communication with God.

“He [the Lord] takes no pleasure in the strength of a horse or in human might. No, the Lord’s delight is in those who fear him, those who put their hope in his unfailing love.” – Psalm 147:10-11. Out of a Psalm that had a lot of depth of material, verses 10 and 11 stuck out to me because of the thoughts of God’s view of power. In the Hebrew, the pleasure for the horses’ strength is the verb חפץ, châphêts, mean to desire, take pleasure in, or delight in (this came up in on December 7, 2009 in Hosea 6:6. Same word.) The pleasure for human might that the lord does not take is actually a completely different Hebrew word, רצה, râtsâh,which, on top of the meanings of châphêts, also means satisfying a debt. The Lord is not pleased with human might means that human might satisfies no debts to the Lord. Râtsâh is also the word translated as delight in verse 11. What is pleasing to God, what we owe him, is fearing Him and putting our hope in his unfailing love. The debt is satisfied when we put our hope in the unfailing love of the One who sent his only begotten Son to pay the debt.

It has been snowing during the entirety of my quiet time and this post writing (which, in its size, takes some time), and I was delighted to find a verse about snow in the Psalms today as well. Psalm 147:16-18 says, “He sends the snow like white wool; he scatters frost upon the ground like ashes. He hurls the hail like stones. Who can stand against his freezing cold? Then at his command it all melts. He sends his winds, and the ice thaws.” It’s a nice little thought that God is completely in charge of when it snows and when it thaws.

Today, a friend pointed me to a song by a Christian artist, and I was interested to find (totally unrelated to the original purpose of me listening to the son) that the lyrics mentioned wine, and how it made food taste better. Although not from experience, based on the cooking and eating habits of humanity, I can’t deny that wine brings out the flavor in food. But at the same time, it made me think about my position on alcohol and God’s position on alcohol. People in the Bible drank wine, and Jesus wanted us to emulate a supper of bread and wine in remembrance of Him, so it is hard to say where the line is, even though the Bible does preach the evils of wine. My proverbs reading for today, completely coincidentally (which means absolutely and completely planned by God) happened to touch on this subject. King Lemuel, a king also wise enough to get a little bit of real estate in the book of Proverbs, was told by his mother that kings should not guzzle wine and rulers should not crave alcohol (Proverbs 31:4). Why? Proverbs 31:5 goes on to say, “For if they drink, they may forget the law and not give justice to the oppressed.” So, to be good shepherds, I would say the lesson here is to avoid alcohol so that we do not forget to be shepherds to the flock and give justice to the oppressed. I will say I have no good answer yet for this, but I do not want to deny justice to the sheep of God’s fold.

Lots of thinking, reading, Hebrew, and just plain off the wall challengingly deep stuff today. I hope you think on these things and respond to them. Let me know sometime what you do to keep up a healthy prayer life, or what you have found in the Bible about alcohol, because these are both interesting topics to dig deeper into.

How great is our Lord! His power is absolute! His understanding is beyond comprehension! (Psalm 147:5)

-Zachariah