The idea that prostitution could be relevant to your life right now may seem absurd to you. That being said, I would like to pose the question that it may not be so irrelevant to our lives after all. Before you get offended or to confused, just take a few minutes and hear me out. As I like to do anytime I’m trying to understand a topic I am interested in, I take a look at the proper definition of the word. So I looked up what the good ole’ dictionary had to say about prostitution and here it is: “The unworthy or corrupt use of one’s talents for the sake of personal or financial gain.” Other words that describe what it means to act as a prostitute include to abuse, cheapen, corrupt, degrade, demean, devalue, pervert and the list goes on. I would say this is exactly the definition God had in mind when he was speaking through the prophet Ezekiel to the rebellious people of Jerusalem. So hold on to that definition while I provide you with some context:

In Ezekiel chapter 16, God does some serious confronting and he definitely doesn’t believe in sugar coating. You see, Jerusalem had forgotten where they came from; they had forgotten where they started and who’s they were. Have you ever buried (whether accidentally or intentionally) the memories you had as a child? Who you where then vs. the you of today? Could it also be possible that every once in awhile you’ve also forgotten to give credit to the people in your life who helped you along the way? Sorry Mom, sorry Dad. Just as we have all most likely done at some point in our lives, the Israelites also forgot to give credit to the Person who got them to where they were. They forgot that God loved them in the very beginning when they were actually rejected by those around them and they forgot that he took them in and made them His. It says in verse 8 of chapter 16:

I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your naked body. I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Sovereign Lord, and you became mine.

God chose them and made a promise to them! They were fully His despite the fact that they were difficult, stubborn people who nobody else wanted! You know… like when you were that spoiled, self-centered child/teenager that others looked down on, got frustrated with or decided not to deal with but your parents loved you anyways because they are your parents?

After verse 8, God continues to mention all of the things he did to love on them and take care of them and make them beautiful. So here enters the other part of our title; beauty. God mentions it all. He is letting them know very clearly that it was not by their own strength and abilities that they had gotten so far, it was actually because of God’s grace, mercy and love. We fast forward a few verses-verse 13 and 14:

So you were adorned with gold and silver: your clothes were of fine linen and costly fabric and embroidered cloth….You became very beautiful and rose to be a queen…because of the splendor I had given you…”.

As we read here, God gave his people the most beautiful things (Ezekiel 16:10-12) because he was their Father who wanted to lavish his love onto his children. Do you remember any times that your parents or loved ones may have sacrificed a paycheck or two for some gifts for you because of how much they loved you and wanted to give you all that they could?

Alright so we establish that Jerusalem is slaying it right? Well guess what? Word spreads around and it starts getting to their heads. They forget who gave them their beauty in the first place and start relying soly on their own strength and abilities…Sound familiar? This is where pride comes into the scene; where they start thinking of the ones who’s they aren’t instead of the One who’s they are. Verse 15 says :

But you trusted in your beauty and used your fame to become a prostitute. You lavished your favors on anyone who passed by and your beauty became his”.

‘Ok I wouldn’t go that far God, Im not a prostitute! I’m a pretty decent person: Im generous to my friends, I love my family…What more do you want?’ Thats what I would probably be thinking and you may think something similar. But you see, instead of giving God ‘lavished favors’ and valuing the only One who deserved it, they wrongly gave everything away to others for their own flattery. Ring any bells? Ill give you a hint, its the beginning definition we talked about. They were being prostitutes. They corrupted what gifts they had been given (beauty, love, recognition etc) and they took advantage of it and misused it all for personal gain. And it gets even more real. In verse 32 God calls them out hard. How would you like being called an adulterous wife (or husband)? He says that! And then he says “You prefer strangers to your own husband!.” …Ouch. But he was right! These people went to everyone but God for peace, comfort and pleasure. They were purely motivated by self-gratification. Aren’t we the same? Don’t we go to the TV, our novels, drugs, relationships, porn, sex, money, make-up, alcohol, friends etc. when we feel sad or upset or empty? We go to things, stuff and even other people to fill our time, to satisfy our needs and to make us feel all warm and fuzzy inside. But the only thing that can truly satisfy us is the One who created us. He formed us in the beginning and only he knew us (Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you”).

Ok Im done with my Bible lesson for today but I think we needed that background to truly understand this very real concept here. Now it begs the question: What exactly are we doing each day to make God our go-to guy? To give him the glory that he deserves rather than giving it away? If you don’t know the answer to that question, then take some time to come up with a list of the things that your actually doing to fill yourself up right now. You may even be doing things you don’t necessarily think are harmful because lets be real, reading a book isn’t a sin and neither is watching a movie. Thats not what Im trying to say. What I mean is, we often times go to something to make us feel good in replacement for the comfort we are truly only meant to get from Jesus Christ. For example; When I was in high school, I used to hate it. I didn’t feel like I belonged at all. I felt alone, awkward, misunderstood and completely different from everybody else. And do you know what I did in order to cope and make myself feel better? I read books. All. The. Time. And played music. Both completely harmless, but not so much when I went to those things first before I went to God. Thats called idolatry which goes right along with the Israelites behavior too because when they went to things and people in order to comfort them and not God, they were putting that stuff first.

So keeping all of this in mind, I said to myself ‘what are some things that I could do to help  keep God at the center of each day?’ Well I found my answers and I want to share them with you even if its just as a reminder because sometimes reviewing is just as important as learning something new. So here are some things that we can tangibly do to help ourselves put God first. The answers I found are based around the definition of prostitution believe it or not. When I looked up the complete opposite meaning to that very word, I found just 3 words that made me realize I had found something profound. Those words are:

1. Praise (to celebrate, applaud, acclaim and extoll)
2. Honor (to credit, consider, give attention to, adore)
3. Sanctification (to cleanse, consecrate, dedicate, glorify).

These 3 words are 3 very foundational actions that are mentioned throughout the Bible as a necessary part of putting God first in our lives and giving him our best. So this actually meant that the Israelites were doing the very opposite of putting God first and I don’t think we want to make the same mistake. Haven’t we after all been taught to learn from our mistakes? Part of why we learn about the worlds history in school is to appreciate where we came from and learn from the past.

We know from reading the Bible and listening to the wise words of many great men and women who spoke face to face, through dreams and through revelations with God that he wants our praise (Psalm 22:23, Psalm 71:14) he wants us to show him honor (1 Samuel 2:30, 2 Timothy 2:21) and for us to be sanctified through Christ (John 17:15-19, 1 Corinthians 6:11). Can we truly say that we remember these things each day? It takes daily intentional choices to become a lifestyle and even then there are times when you start to doubt, times when you want to give up and times when you feel so betrayed and let down that you may be tempted to forget, I know I’ve been there many times. But even in and especially in those times, we have to remember where we came from. We have to remember who we belong to because his “power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9) which means that when I am weak, he is strong. We were never meant to rely on our own strength alone. We are supposed to need Gods help. We are supposed to invite him into our hardships and our trials. For in them, we find him. Allow him to be your comfort in those times and in the joyful ones too. Because when its all said and done I don’t know about you, but I want my lifestyle no matter how tough to reflect that of a passionate woman in love with my Savior Jesus who gave it all for me so that I could live a sanctified, free life in him. Yes its hard work, but its so rewarding. Living to glorify God in everything that we do is the most important thing that we can do. So then…lets do the best that we can to truly give him the praise, honor and sanctity that he deserves.