As a teenager, I remember my mother questioning me about my friends. You become the company you keep; she would tell me. I knew what she meant. Many of my friends were not scholars or great athletes nor did they have any desire to be. More importantly, they did not share my belief in Jesus. Consequently, I often found myself engaged in behavior that was counter to who I wanted to be. I knew this, but, at the time, giving up all of my friends seemed like too big of a cost. You already know. If we want to live a Christ-following life, we must be prepared to make some adjustments in our lifestyle.
I recalled this as I studied Ezra this week. He was given the task of re-populating the Temple in Jerusalem. God provided everything that he would ever need to do so. It seems like it was easy. Think about it, he received special permission from the king to take the Israelites and relocate them. Then, he was given access to the king’s treasury. More so, he was given authority to take as much silver and gold as he could carry from Babylon. This turned out to be 24 tons of silver, 7,500 pounds of silver articles, 7,500 pounds of gold, 20 gold bowls and 2 fine articles of polished bronze (Ezra 8:26). Clearly, he was well funded. To top it all off, God granted him safe passage (Ezra 7:31). For Ezra, it seemed, nothing could go wrong. Until it did.
As they were settling into their new land, Ezra became aware of sin in their lives. His investigation uncovered cause of the sin. It was the bad influence of the peoples they had just fled (Ezra 9:1). To make matters worse, they had brought many of the people with them. Now, the ones that came along were special. They were their very wives and children. You see, they had intermarried while they were still in captivity. Unfortunately, they had “taken up their detestable practices.” If the Israelites were really to choose God, they would have to remove these wicked influences.
The real work of Ezra’s leadership was just beginning. The next several years would test his medal as he challenged the Israelites with God’s laws. If you continue reading into Ezra 10, you will see that the people do choose God. Their choice, however, comes with a disturbing cost. They would have to leave behind the relationships that they had built. It was, Afterall, these relationships that were causing them to fall. They had to choose. Love God, or love the world. So do we.