Are you being sifted? (Zephaniah)

 

Are you being sifted?

How is your life going so far?  I find mine quite challenging at times, mostly emotionally.  Am I being sifted like wheat like Israel was in the book of Zephaniah?  Are you being sifted?

It seems through the book they were purified, sifted like wheat or flour.

Zephaniah was a minor prophet meaning short message, who came before the reformation of Judah in the days of king Josiah around 640 BC.

Was this global message to be taken seriously?  Yes, of course! God was going to strip bare the whole earth, maybe the known world at the time. (Chapter 1).  In Chapter 2, it starts with a call to repent then a threat to the people of every corner of the earth.  In Chapter 3 God intervenes again on behalf of his very own people Jerusalem and Israel, but finally in that same chapter he gives them rest (verse 11-14) and then jubilation.  The Lord has taken care of their enemy (v.15.  There will finally be great comfort for his people.

I want to let you know that whoever you are God is there intervening whether it be in bringing you to a place where you can be a recipient of his favour or if you know him as Lord and Saviour working constantly in you to make you more like Jesus.  It is up to you to choose which path to take.  It is not complicated.  This whole book shows very specifically that God remains involved with the world and it only take a few obedient men and women as well as children to change this world into a better one by letting the Lord do his work through us.

The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.  (Zephaniah 3:17)