hearts set on pilgrimage
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
 
Exodus 33:15Moses said, "If your presence doesn't take the lead here, call this trip off right now. 16How else will it be known that you're with me in this, with me and your people? Are you traveling with us or not? How else will we know that we're special, I and your people, among all other people on this planet Earth?"
17
GOD said to Moses: "All right. Just as you say; this also I will do, for I know you well and you are special to me. I know you by name."
(The Message)

Moses understood God's plan for revealing Himself to the world through a special people. Moses didn't say that Israel was his people, that it was his plan. Moses knew that it was initiated by God and depended on God for success. How patient God is! Though some call Him harsh, even ruthless, that is His mercy. He is committed to producing the best future for us.
So I will trust in Him. Even though it's February and I still don't have a job, even though I've had this cold for 5 days, even though things aren't going the way I want them to. Even though my life is going by too fast and I'm not accomplishing what I had hoped. I will trust in God and I will not act fearfully.
Monday, January 31, 2005
 
Exodus 30:44I'll make the Tent of Meeting and the Altar holy. I'll make Aaron and his sons holy in order to serve me as priests. 45I'll move in and live with the Israelites. I'll be their God. 46They'll realize that I am their GOD who brought them out of the land of Egypt so that I could live with them. I am GOD, your God.

Acts 7:53
You had God's Law handed to you by angels--gift-wrapped!-and you squandered it!"
(The Message)

Ethan, my 8-year-old son came to me this morning with the Exodus passage and asked what it meant and what could he do about it. He's really getting the idea about devotions being application. A few weeks ago, I dedicated a week of my devotions to going through it with him. We use LifeJournal's daily reading, there's a version for kids that tracks with the adult version, so we study the same thing. Now he still comes with questions (which is great!), but mostly he has some idea of what he wants to write in his journal.

So I told him what the verse meant to me, and it was great to have to explain it to an 8-year-old. You can't get away with any religious hand-waving. It's got to make sense. Took me a couple of tries.

When God says that Aaron and his family are holy, its part of his plan to take someone and make them different than everyone else around them. That way, He could bless them, and everyone would know that He was God, not some god that everyone else was following. He had to make a special people, a different people.

So Ethan asks me, "Oh, so everyone would know God and be able to follow Him too?" (I love this guy!)
"Not 'til Jesus came. Before that, God was making a special people to show everyone who He was through His people and His law. It was different than the other people around them."
"So what do I put down for my application?", was his ever-practical reply.
"Well, we still need to be different than the people around us, and to let God bless us, and bless them through us; so that they know that Jesus is God and learn to follow Him."
"Yeah, but what can I do.", he persisted. I wasn't reaching him.
"Well the Israelites had to obey God's laws to be holy. What is the greatest commandment?"
"Love God?" (Thank you Sunday School teacher!)
"Yes, Love God, AND love your neighbor as yourself." Can't do one without the other.
"Ok, thanks Daddy.", as he goes off to find his pencil.
Thank you, Ethan!


---
The Acts 7 passage was Stephen's accusation of the Sanhedrin. Stephen does this awesome job of summarizing God's work in the Israelites, the point I was trying to make to Ethan. The whole point of a Holy Nation, was for God to send His message by making a people different than the people around them. That's why He is so zealous that they put away the "old things", the Egyptian-thinking, the worship of every god they come across. This is why God calls Israel's idolatry by the name of adultery. It's not only a powerful metaphor for how personally God takes it, its also the same biological problem with adultery: who's is the child? (this was before DNA testing, right?) If God is making a people to put His name on (the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob), then if they are worshipping other gods, how is the world to know that they are His, and who He is by looking at them?

So if God's purpose was to produce a Holy Nation in the Old Testament, to set the stage for Jesus to come to be the embodyment of His nature, His character; then the suppression of the prophecies, the scriptural interpretation of the Messiah, and then the suppression of the Messiah Himself is to stand athwart the path of the Living God. No wonder Stephen is so upset by the Sanhedrin. They were given front-row seats to God's grand purpose, and they didn't bother showing up, in fact, they scorned it. They felt the seats were important because it was theirs, not that the seats were important because they were God's.

So, as Ethan asks, "What can I do?"
Honestly, I don't know. I can start by appreciating God's mercy and grace in giving me a place in His plan by reaching out and saving me. Then do my part by being Loved and loving. Be a blessing to all the nations, starting with my neighbor. Show God's love freely as I was freely Loved. And God, who has been relentlessly executing His plan, will continue to show Himself to be who He is through loving, blessing, and saving the whole world, starting with my neighbor.

+++Who are we blessing today, Lord?+++


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