October 20-24
[M] Ezekiel 1-3; John 1
[T] Ezekiel 4-6; Psalm 82; John 2
[W] Ezekiel 7-9; John 3
[T] Ezekiel 10-12; Psalm 83; John 4
[F] Ezekiel 13-15; Psalm 136; John 5
Dwell Plan Day 211-215 | CSB | Digital PDF | Printable PDF
Notes from Jon & Chris
Monday
Ezekiel 1:4–28 | As I looked, behold, a stormy wind came out of the north, and a great cloud, with brightness around it, and fire flashing forth continually… and above the expanse over their heads there was the likeness of a throne, in appearance like sapphire; and seated above the likeness of a throne was a likeness with a human appearance. | Ezekiel was a priest in exile, far from the Temple that had once been the center of God’s presence on earth. He sat by the Kebar Canal in Babylon—defeated, displaced, and likely wondering if God had abandoned His people. But as he looked toward the horizon, a storm gathered: wind, lightning, fire, and four living creatures bearing a chariot of dazzling light. Above them was a throne—shimmering like sapphire—and seated upon it was “a likeness with a human appearance,” radiant with fire and light. In that moment, Ezekiel saw what few had ever seen: the glory of the LORD, the same glory that once filled the Holy of Holies, now appearing in a pagan land.
That vision raises the question: What is God’s throne doing in Babylon? The answer reveals the heart of God’s redemptive purpose. His glory is not confined to walls of stone or a single city; He goes with His people, even into exile. The throne in Babylon declares that God’s reign has not ended. He is still sovereign, still holy, still near. Where His people are scattered, His presence follows. Long before the incarnation, Ezekiel’s vision whispers the truth that would one day be fully seen in Christ: the God who dwells among His people is not bound by place but by covenant love.
Ezekiel 1:28 | Ezekiel’s vision of God, with the angels and all the eyes, is truly a theological statement. This is not an acid trip, or some early ayahuasca induced vision. First, notice Ezekiel’s halting and frustrated language. He’s having real trouble finding the words and analogies for what he’s seeing, which is a part of the point. God simply cannot be apprehended visually or described verbally. He’s too big and too holy and too glorious. The words “like the appearance” happen over and over again. He’s at the limit of language, which is a statement itself about the eternal God and knowing him. Next we have the eyes. This is quite a ghoulish and ghastly image as many have tried to imagine it. The eyes everywhere on everything look otherworldly and spooky. But it’s a theological statement; God sees and knows all. Their plight and suffering as His people is something He always sees. Next is this picture of God on wheels. What’s up with that? Again it creates more and more bizarre images. But again this is theology. God’s people are going into exile, and they’re mobile now, their lives and belongings on carts. Pulled by wheels. So what is God saying? This is a promise of God’s being with His people! But even more than that, it is a hint that God intends to really live with His people. It’s a promise of the coming incarnation of Jesus. These images and pictures are arresting and memorable, and that’s also a bit of the point: it’s the sort of teaching you’ll remember visually!
John 1:51 | Truly, truly I say to you | This is the first time this expression happens in John, and it only happens in John, but it’s repeated over and over and over again. This phrase can sound peculiar to our ears, though many of us are used to hearing it in the Bible. In Hebrew and Aramaic, when you repeat a word twice in a row, it’s an actual grammatical idiom; it has a special meaning. In Isaiah 26:3 it’s translated this way “perfect peace”, even though the original Hebrew just says “peace, peace” with the same word repeated twice “shalom, shalom” means “perfect peace.” This idea of perfection means wholeness and fullness as well. The concept of perfection is meant to be full, mature and whole. So what do all of the many many times of this expression “truly, truly” mean? It must be a claim of perfect truth. That’s what the grammar means in Aramaic. Our translations are “accurate” in their literal translations, but something amazing is being claimed repeatedly by Jesus, and we never pay attention to it. Jesus is claiming to be bringing perfect truth. But of course He is. He is perfect truth Himself.
Tuesday
Ezekiel 4-5 | Ezekiel plays out visual pictures of the verbal judgments that he’s preaching against God’s people. Even though they’re going into exile for their disobedience and idolatry, they keep thinking they’re going to get back to Jerusalem. They think this is all temporary, all of this being on the road and traveling to Babylon. God has told them that it’s going to last, but they aren’t listening. They’re keeping up their old idol worship—it’s like they haven’t learned a thing.
So God calls Ezekiel to a form of theater or visual protest. First he’s got to lay on the ground, on his side, for over a year. And he’s got to eat a rather unpalatable barley cake cooked over excrement, and he’s got to do this right in front of people. Then after that he’s got to make a show of shaving off half of the hair on his head and face, and doing stuff with the hair like cutting it up and setting it on fire to show how God is going to judge His people. Visual, visceral, and confrontational images. Prophets are here to make the comfortable uncomfortable. How should we understand this? First, this reveals something about Ezekiel’s character. God uses our human personalities, and there’s something a bit wild about Ezekiel on all accounts. He does get a little whiny about the cooking with poop thing. Who could blame him? His entire life, and the way he lives it, are a visual parable of God’s intentions in judgment, and that includes his life story and character. But there’s a second thing. When God pulls out the stops like this, and makes the images so penetrating and disturbing, it’s a sign of His grace. It’s His love going the extra mile, taking the time to expose His people, even when they don’t want to see it. Finally there’s a third lesson. Art, and even extreme performance art, can be a prophetic tool for God’s kingdom.
Ezekiel 4 | “And you, son of man, take a brick and lay it before you, and engrave on it a city, even Jerusalem… This shall be a sign to the house of Israel.” | Ezekiel was not a prophet who merely spoke—he performed God’s message so His people could feel its weight. In chapter 4, God commands Ezekiel to stage a prophetic drama: to draw Jerusalem on a brick and lay siege to it, showing the coming destruction; to lie on his side for hundreds of days, bearing the guilt of Israel and Judah; and to eat rationed food cooked over dung fire, symbolizing the famine and despair that would soon come. Every act was a sign meant to pierce through the spiritual indifference of the exiles—God’s living illustration of what sin had done to His people. Yet beneath the strangeness and severity of these signs was mercy: God was still speaking, still warning, still reaching out. Through Ezekiel’s embodied message, we glimpse a God who refuses to stay silent when His people wander. And in Ezekiel’s willingness to bear guilt not his own, we see a faint shadow of the One who would come centuries later—Jesus Christ, who would not only act out God’s message but become it, carrying our sin upon Himself so that judgment might give way to grace.
Wednesday
Ezekiel 7:4 | Again and again—nearly seventy times—God speaks this refrain through Ezekiel: “Then you shall know that I am the LORD.” It echoes like a drumbeat through every vision, oracle, and act of judgment. Israel had forgotten who God was; they had traded His glory for idols, His covenant for compromise. So God’s goal in judgment is not revenge, it’s revelation. He disciplines so that His people might once again know Him, not just as an idea or tradition, but as the living, holy, covenant-keeping LORD. This theme runs through all of Ezekiel: whether in wrath or restoration, through exile or renewal, God’s purpose is—always relational—to bring His people back to Himself. When everything else is stripped away, when the false gods crumble and the city falls, this remains God’s burning desire: that His people would know Him. The same call still reaches us today. Every loss, every shaking, every moment of conviction carries this gracious invitation: to return to the One who says, even in judgment, “Then you shall know that I am the LORD.”
Ezekiel 7:5-10 | The Hebrew of this chapter is, itself, chaotic and violent in its grammar. You get a sense of the rush of words in the English translation, especially with the exclamation marks and the short punchy sentence structure. The grammar is a part of the message, describing a frantic experience of disaster in frantic language. This description of God’s anger is more personal. You don’t get the sense at all of an abstract judge. There is no little sin before this God, because there is no little god to sin against. This is a picture of our sin taken personally, of God no longer suffering long the wandering of His people. This personal judgment makes so clear why it is absolutely necessary to have a personal knowledge of God. It’s all personal to Him—He even comes in person to save us at the cross. The tone, imagery, and passion of God’s judgments are all hints of love, jealousy, and personal offense. And nowhere does this come into clearer view than at the cross.
Ezekiel 8:8 | Many years ago a prominent evangelical teacher said that your integrity is who you are when nobody’s looking. Unfortunately when no one was watching, he also indulged in bad behavior. (We all need to be careful, even if we have understanding!) Our God makes His point over and over again. There are no exceptions, God wants us to own up to our hypocrisy.
In this weird image/vision, Ezekiel is told to dig into a wall of the court of the temple, where there's a little hole. He starts digging and finds a secret room. Inside that secret room are all the leaders of the people of Israel and they’re worshiping secretly. What images are they worshiping? What does Ezekiel see on the walls of this praise center? Vile images and creepy crawlies and all sorts of nasty things that folks liked to worship back then. If this image/vision doesn’t sound like a picture of secret lives on the internet, I don’t know what does. Do you have a secret online life? Run from it and shut it down. It’s evil. Are you secretly a hypocrite, with a private life that no one knows about? Give it up, before it destroys you.
Ezekiel 8:16 |Ezekiel’s vision in chapter 8 reveals just how far God’s people had fallen. The very place that was meant to be the center of worship—the Temple, the dwelling of YHWH’s glory—had become a stage for idolatry. The prophet is shown one abomination after another, but it reaches its terrible climax here: the leaders of Israel, standing in the inner court itself, turning their backs on the Lord’s presence to bow down to the rising sun. It’s hard to imagine a greater betrayal. They were using the house of God to worship created things, treating the blazing holiness of His presence as something common, replaceable. The vision exposes sin not just as breaking rules but as breaking relationship—turning our backs on the God who made us to face something that can never save. Yet even here, God speaks. He shows Ezekiel these horrors not to condemn in silence but to call His people to repentance. The grace in the vision is this: God still cares enough to reveal what is wrong. He will not allow His people to live comfortably in idolatry. He exposes sin so that hearts might turn again toward His mercy, back to the light of His glory.
John 3:27 | This is one of the most crucial verses in all the Scripture, and once you see it you can’t unsee it. John sees that even being able to receive a gift is a gift itself. Somehow this makes me want to chase God for everything, for every insight and all truth. To ask Him to make me able to get His gifts, for Him to give me the bandwidth for all of His blessing! This truth sets me free as a pastor. I can’t control or force anyone to see truth. That’s God’s business, and I need to trust Him for it. This truth sets me free as an evangelist. I’m not converting anyone and never have. I don’t have to manipulate or have just the right answer. No, it’s God who saves and calls and enlightens. This truth sets me free as a dad, a husband, and a leader. I’m free to fail. I don’t have to know everything. I don’t have to always be right. I don’t have to have the perfect plan. I can cry out to my God to give the things I need, or my people need, or my family needs. This verse and this truth is a great invitation to wholly and fully throw all of your cares and concerns on Him.
John 3:30 | Our world is shaped by the air of existentialism, the idea that meaning is something we must create for ourselves. From the time we’re young, we’re told to “find your truth,” “be your best self,” and “write your own story.” The self becomes the center of the universe, and fulfillment comes through self-expression, self-definition, and self-assertion. The problem is, the more we make life about ourselves, the smaller and more anxious our world becomes. When I am the source of meaning, everything depends on my success, my feelings, my approval, my image. We end up exhausted from trying to be enough, from constantly curating an identity that keeps slipping through our fingers. Existentialism promises freedom, but it quietly enslaves us to our own fragile selves.
John the Baptist shows us another way. Standing at the height of his popularity, with crowds flocking to him, he points away from himself to Jesus and says, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” This is not self-hatred—it’s liberation. True life doesn’t come from enlarging the self but from losing it in something greater. John found joy not in being the center but in making much of Christ. The gospel offers what existentialism never can: meaning that doesn’t depend on you. When Christ increases in your life, you finally find freedom from the exhausting project of self-construction. The less you make of yourself, the more peace you’ll know; because your identity no longer rests on your performance, but on His unchanging love.
Thursday
Ezekiel 10 | This is one of the low points of the Old Testament. Ezekiel has a vision, after all of this judgment, the exiles on their journey away from home, having lost everything, and the vision is terrifying. Some folks were still hoping to get back home, that this exile was just a quick detour. But this image is devastating. This story parallels when God’s glory fills the temple the first time, when Solomon dedicates it. But now it’s gone, it’s gotten up and left the building. God is no longer in Jerusalem, the city of His people and His servant David. Did everything fail? Did all the promises come to nothing? The glory of the Lord has departed from His dwelling place. It’s a moment of finality and horror. But you need to look closely, because now God’s on his Big Wheels. That child’s toy is not demeaning to God, He’s intentionally pointing out His big, weird, angel-on-fire, bug eyed, multi-faced wheels. Remember, all of those details are theological statements, with claims about the person and work and majesty of a holy, eternal, and omniscient Being. And yes, He’s leaving His house, but you have to pay attention: He’s leaving His house because they’re all leaving their houses! He just isn’t letting them go anywhere where He won’t go with them. Yes it’s scary that He’s leaving the temple. But they should have paid attention; He always intended to leave that temple! That’s who Jesus is, He is God leaving the temple to come and live with slobs like us. Praise Him.
Ezekiel 11:23 | This is one of the most heartbreaking moments in Scripture. The vision Ezekiel saw in chapter 1—the radiant throne of God’s glory above the wheels and living creatures—now moves. The same presence that once descended on the Temple in glory at Solomon’s dedication now departs from it in sorrow. God’s throne lifts up and leaves the city, pausing on the Mount of Olives, as if looking back one last time before withdrawing. The message is clear: the people have driven Him out. Their idolatry, corruption, and hard hearts have made the holy city unfit for His dwelling. What began as the wonder of chapter 1—the glory of God coming to Babylon—now takes on a sobering meaning: if His glory is appearing there, it’s because it has left here.
And yet, even this departure is grace. God is not abandoning His people forever; He is going into exile with them. The same chariot-throne that appeared by the Kebar Canal now shows us that His presence is mobile—He is not confined to temples of stone. In leaving Jerusalem, God goes to be with His scattered people so that one day He might bring them home again. The glory that departs in Ezekiel 11 will one day return in the person of Christ, who would stand on that very same Mount of Olives, look upon Jerusalem, and weep for it. Ezekiel’s vision reminds us that God’s holiness is never indifferent to sin, but His mercy is never absent from His people. Even when the glory departs, grace is already on the move.
Friday
Ezekiel 13–14 | Because they have misled my people, saying, ‘Peace,’ when there is no peace… | In these chapters, God exposes both the false prophets who spoke lies in His name and the people who eagerly listened to them. It’s a sobering reminder that deception requires not just a false teacher but a willing audience. The prophets offered comforting words that dulled conviction, and the people gladly received them because it was easier than repentance. But God holds both accountable.
The same warning still applies today. We live in an age saturated with voices—podcasts, books, influencers, media, teachers—and not all of them lead us toward truth. It’s not enough to blame the messengers; we must guard our own hearts. What we choose to listen to forms us, shapes our loves, and directs our worship. God calls His people to discernment—to turn from empty promises and return to the Word that truly gives life. False prophets thrive where God’s people stop testing what they hear. Don’t give them an audience. Listen for the voice of the Shepherd instead.
John 5:1–17 | The pool of Bethesda was surrounded by belief in its healing powers, but the text itself never confirms that the water truly healed anyone. Verse 4 (missing in the earliest manuscripts) reflects a popular superstition—that an angel stirred the water and the first to enter would be cured. Jesus doesn’t affirm this belief; instead, He bypasses the pool entirely and heals the man by His own word. The point of the story isn’t the power of the water but the authority of Christ—the true source of healing who makes all lesser hopes unnecessary.
John 5:19 | Jesus loves to talk about His Dad. It’s actually quite odd. Great leaders and thinkers of history never do this. I can’t remember anything from history even like it. Jesus talks about, grounds Himself in, and constantly defines Himself through His relationship with His Father. He owns it, owns it in such a way that folks are disturbed by it and want to kill him for it. It’s odd and off putting and seems like the wrong emphasis. Aren’t these religious persons supposed to give us rules and morals, things to do? No. Jesus keeps talking about His relationship with His Dad like it’s the most important knowledge you will ever need to know. Like it’s the point itself, of all that He’s doing, of why He’s going to the cross. Like this relationship is the point of His whole life. Do folks hear about God from you like that? Does God drop out of your conversation this way? There’s something here, in the very way that Christ carries Himself, that invites us into carrying ourselves, in Him, in the same way.