SCRIPTURE: Ezekiel 36
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
This is what the Sovereign LORD says: It is not for your sake, people of Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you have gone. [Ezekiel 36:22]
God’s problem is that He wants to restore His family on earth, but they are so stubborn and foolish; every time God tries to help them, they drag His Name into the mud.
Here God says that it is to maintain the honour of His Name that He does not give up.
The surrounding nations think of God as a joke; God can either give up and admit defeat, or He can persevere and eventually overcome by grace.
Thankfully God does not give up, thankfully God perseveres with us despite out stubbornness and folly.

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. [Ezekiel 36:25-27]
To solve the root problem, God has to deal with our stubbornness and folly; He has to break the power of sin in our lives.
He does this through Jesus death and resurrection and ascension – His victory over sin, death and hell.
All who come to Jesus by faith are filled with God’s life-restoring Spirit, and their hearts are made new, flooded with newness and strength.
‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.’ By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified. [John 7:37-39]

All this isn’t because we are worthy – we’re not – but for the sake of His Name.
But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. [John 14:26]
In the Name of the Father and the Son we we receive the Spirit; we are baptized in the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit [Matthew 28:18-20].
Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. [John 17:11-12]

PRAYER:
Lord, may Your Name be honoured through me. Even when I mess up, may Your Name be honoured. Be gracious to me, and protect me by Your Name.