2026-08-24 | 🧭 Are You Using Influence God’s Way?

7-Step QT Notes

1. 🙏 Quiet Time

Pause.

Take a deep breath.

Ask God to show you how justice, responsible leadership, and holy worship belong together in the life of his people.

2. 📅 August 24, 2026

Today’s passage reminds us:

God entrusts influence to us not for personal gain, but so that we may practice justice, protect others, and help his people worship him faithfully.

3. ✝️ Ezekiel 45:9-25

The Lord commands Israel’s princes to abandon violence and oppression, practice justice and righteousness, and use honest measures. The people bring the prescribed contribution, and the prince provides offerings at Sabbaths and feasts to make atonement for Israel. The sanctuary is purified from sins of error or ignorance, and the Passover and seventh-month feast are observed as commanded.

4. 📖 Key Verse

“Thus says the Lord GOD: Enough, O princes of Israel! Put away violence and oppression, and execute justice and righteousness. Cease your evictions of my people, declares the Lord GOD” (v. 9).

5. 📝 Reflection

It is difficult to explain the poverty of an individual or a nation by pointing to a single cause. However, it is clear that the way a nation’s leaders exercise their authority profoundly affects the lives of its people. When leaders reject violence and oppression, practice justice and righteousness, and refrain from seizing the people’s property, the people’s rights will be protected, and social trust and communal stability will grow stronger.

In today’s passage, God sternly warns the leaders of Israel not to repeat the wrongs of the past. He commands them to abandon violence and oppression, stop driving the people from their possessions, and practice justice and righteousness. His command to use honest scales and measures shows that divine justice must not remain an abstract ideal. It must be practiced concretely in the people’s daily and economic lives.

Furthermore, the prince of the restored community is not someone who takes from the people to satisfy his own desires. He is to use the contributions given by the people for the community’s festivals and worship and to provide the necessary offerings responsibly. The prince bears both a social responsibility to protect the people’s lives and a religious responsibility to care for the community’s holy worship. Of course, the prince does not personally officiate at the sacrifices. The prince provides the offerings, while the priest performs the rites of atonement and purification according to the regulations established by God.

Long after the time of Ezekiel, Jesus Christ came to this earth. Jesus died on the cross, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven. Then the promised Holy Spirit came upon His disciples. The New Testament calls the church, established in Christ, the temple of God in which the Holy Spirit dwells. Of course, we cannot directly identify the prince in Ezekiel’s vision with church leaders today. Nevertheless, the principles of justice and responsibility that God requires of those entrusted with His people also apply to church leadership today.

Therefore, church leaders must not use their authority to oppress believers or pursue their own interests. They must serve believers with justice and love and care for the church so that the community may worship God in holiness and purity. They must also remember that they are sinners who need Christ’s atonement, continually examine themselves before the Word, and repent.

Beloved brothers and sisters, let us hold on to today’s Word and pray for the leadership of our church. Let us pray that our church leaders will reject every form of greed and abuse of power and practice justice and righteousness. Let us pray that they will lovingly care for the lives of believers and faithfully serve so that the church may worship God in holiness and purity. Above all, let us pray that our leaders will stand before the cross of Christ each day and seek God’s forgiveness and the help of the Holy Spirit. When this happens, our church will become a community that reveals more clearly the character of Jesus Christ, its Head.

6. 💬 What does this passage speak to you today?

Where has God given me influence, authority, or responsibility?
Do I use my influence to serve others, or mainly to benefit myself?
Is there an area involving money, work, relationships, or leadership where God is calling me to greater honesty?
How can I pray for and encourage my church leaders today?
What is one practical way I can reflect Christ’s justice and love this week?

7. 🙏 Prayer

Our heavenly Father, thank You for being a God of justice, righteousness, and holiness.

Protect the leaders of our church from pride, greed, fear, and the misuse of authority.

Help them care for Your people with justice and love and lead the church in holy and faithful worship.

May we all stand before the cross of Christ each day, receive Your forgiveness, and depend on the Holy Spirit.

Make our church a community that reveals the justice, holiness, and love of Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Scriptures

📖 (Ezekiel 45:9-25, ESV).

9 “Thus says the Lord GOD: Enough, O princes of Israel! Put away violence and oppression, and execute justice and righteousness. Cease your evictions of my people, declares the Lord GOD.
10 “You shall have just balances, a just ephah, and a just bath. 11 The ephah and the bath shall be of the same measure, the bath containing one tenth of a homer, and the ephah one tenth of a homer; the homer shall be the standard measure. 12 The shekel shall be twenty gerahs; twenty shekels plus twenty-five shekels plus fifteen shekels shall be your mina.
13 “This is the offering that you shall make: one sixth of an ephah from each homer of wheat, and one sixth of an ephah from each homer of barley, 14 and as the fixed portion of oil, measured in baths, one tenth of a bath from each cor (the cor, like the homer, contains ten baths). 15 And one sheep from every flock of two hundred, from the watering places of Israel for grain offering, burnt offering, and peace offerings, to make atonement for them, declares the Lord GOD. 16 All the people of the land shall be obliged to give this offering to the prince in Israel. 17 It shall be the prince’s duty to furnish the burnt offerings, grain offerings, and drink offerings, at the feasts, the new moons, and the Sabbaths, all the appointed feasts of the house of Israel: he shall provide the sin offerings, grain offerings, burnt offerings, and peace offerings, to make atonement on behalf of the house of Israel.
18 “Thus says the Lord GOD: In the first month, on the first day of the month, you shall take a bull from the herd without blemish, and purify the sanctuary. 19 The priest shall take some of the blood of the sin offering and put it on the doorposts of the temple, the four corners of the ledge of the altar, and the posts of the gate of the inner court. 20 You shall do the same on the seventh day of the month for anyone who has sinned through error or ignorance; so you shall make atonement for the temple.
21 “In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, you shall celebrate the Feast of the Passover, and for seven days unleavened bread shall be eaten. 22 On that day the prince shall provide for himself and all the people of the land a young bull for a sin offering. 23 And on the seven days of the festival he shall provide as a burnt offering to the LORD seven young bulls and seven rams without blemish, on each of the seven days; and a male goat daily for a sin offering. 24 And he shall provide as a grain offering an ephah for each bull, an ephah for each ram, and a hin of oil to each ephah. 25 In the seventh month, on the fifteenth day of the month and for the seven days of the feast, he shall make the same provision for sin offerings, burnt offerings, and grain offerings, and for the oil.

7-Step Quiet Time Devotional