Holiness means being set apart for a special purpose. Exodus 28 and 29 describe in detail how God wanted the Israelites to set their priests (Aaron and his sons) apart. To someone like me whose idea of shopping for clothes is hitting the sales rack and purchasing anything that fits (since not much does fit outside of the little girls department!), the idea of elaborate robes woven with special fibers, bells, jewels, stones, etc is not easily understood. What does stand out to me in these chapters is God’s desire for holiness and sacredness, from the sacred clothing to the choice cuts of meat that must be set aside for the offerings to the Lord.
What is difficult for me to wrap my head around is the idea that as a Christian, I AM considered holy because of the final sacrifice of Jesus. I get hung up on all my mistakes…all my imperfections and faults. If this describes you as well, take heart, and read these words from the book of Hebrews Chapter 10 with fresh eyes:
8 First, Christ said, “You did not want animal sacrifices or sin offerings or burnt offerings or other offerings for sin, nor were you pleased with them” (though they are required by the law of Moses). 9 Then he said, “Look, I have come to do your will.” He cancels the first covenant in order to put the second into effect. 10 For God’s will was for us to be made holy by the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all time.
11 Under the old covenant, the priest stands and ministers before the altar day after day, offering the same sacrifices again and again, which can never take away sins. 12 But our High Priest offered himself to God as a single sacrifice for sins, good for all time. Then he sat down in the place of honor at God’s right hand. 13 There he waits until his enemies are humbled and made a footstool under his feet. 14 For by that one offering he forever made perfect those who are being made holy.
15 And the Holy Spirit also testifies that this is so. For he says,
16 “This is the new covenant I will make
with my people on that day,[c] says the Lord:
I will put my laws in their hearts,
and I will write them on their minds.”[d]
17 Then he says,
“I will never again remember
their sins and lawless deeds.”[e]
The notion that Christ’s sacrifice, against the backdrop of what I’ve just read in Exodus 28 and 29, is almost too precious to comprehend! What is particularly encouraging is the verb tense used in verse 14. The word hagiazo is used for “who are being made holy.” It is in the perfect tense, which implies that the action is still in progress.
The next time I fail miserably and feel anything BUT holy, I need to remind myself that those verses were written in the perfect tense. I am a holy work in progress.
I confess that these chapters of Exodus make my head swim. There is a reason the Lord did not lead me to a profession as an architect! It is hard work for a person as spatially challenged as I am to read these verses and make any sense of them. However, I realized as I plowed through these chapters describing the plans for building the Ark, Table, Lampstand, Tabernacle, and Courtyard that each of these items for worship were to be built precisely with the BEST the people had to offer: the best cloth, the finest colors, the strongest wood, the purest gold and bronze, the most beautiful jewels.
Even though today the Lord does not call us to build a tabernacle in the desert, doesn’t He still call us to worship him with our best?
Do I bring Jesus my all as I wake each morning? Or do I hurriedly bring him a quick thanks before running myself ragged? Does the Lord get all my heart during worship, or is part of my mind somewhere else – contemplating all the laundry waiting for me at home or the dinner I need to cook or the homeschool materials I need to prepare? He deserves the finest, most excellent praise and worship I am capable of bringing…not my cast-offs polluted with worry and lack of faith.
I admit, I am not always able to bring him my best. I am weak. Anxiety grips me by the throat, and the chest pain crushes my heart and weakens my spirits. But the Holy Spirit working in me can intercede for me. Paul writes about this very thing in Romans 8:
26 And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. 27 And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers[l] in harmony with God’s own will.
And so I lift up my heart to Jesus, presenting him with my love…my sacred offering.
Awhile back I blogged about the desert place in my heart and how I wondered if I was merely discontented or if the Holy Spirit was stirring me up for something more.
Well, He gave me something more today!
As I wrote previously, one of my biggest desires is to worship God with my entire self, as Jesus taught in John 4:
23Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”
That happened this morning when my daughter and I visited a different church!
All of the songs we sang today had lyrics that pointed all praise and glory and honor to Jesus. One song in particular moved me so much that I found it on YouTube:
“Open up the skies
Fall down like rain
We don’t want blessing, we want YOU
Open up the sky
Fall down like fire
We don’t want anything but YOU”
We came to visit a different church due to a “chance” conversation I had with one of my husband’s coworkers. Later she and I messaged back and forth on Facebook, and she invited us to attend her church. She told me it had “spirit-filled” worship. She wasn’t kidding! The praise was celebratory and joyful and sincere, and my heart soaked it up like a sponge as I turned it all back to Jesus.
There were many aspects to the service that stirred me…from the way my daughter responded to the way the pastor spoke about growth in the church. My current church has grown tremendously since opening a new building, but is it existing for the purpose of those who attend or for those who don’t attend? Does my current church care more about “getting big” or about growing deep roots? I think it cares about both. But I leave my current church feeling as if I have been to school. I left this other church feeling as if I have encountered God.
I don’t know what the Lord’s plan is for our family, but I can’t deny that I can’t help but be excited. I feel full! Overflowing! And I didn’t do anything to deserve it; all I did was join in the singing with my whole soul and then listened to the sermon with my whole attention. I learned that they had a list of over 1,000 nonbelievers whose names they taped to chairs, believing that the Lord would call them. They prayed over those people, and today there were some new believers there whose names had been some of the thousands! This church is serious about reaching out to the community, showing love, and “making Jesus famous (as opposed to becoming just another famous megachurch in the Bible Belt).” There is a decided evangelical edge to their sincere worship. My church is serious about helping people grow into fully devoted followers of Christ. There is nothing wrong with that mission! But does that mission match up with who the Lord created me to be?
My daughter is enrolled in a special class at our church that was specially designed for fifth graders to give them a foundation of Bible knowledge. Unfortunately, she no longer gets to experience praise and worship because the church cut it out for that age group. Apparently they have too much to do and discuss in the foundational class to take time to worship. I didn’t realize how much that hurt her spirit until today. She was literally bubbling over with excitement about how she felt like she had been in the room with God. She got tears in her eyes. She raised her hands high and didn’t feel awkward about it because so many others were, too. She said it was like being a part of a big family where she was welcomed.
One of my favorite parts was when the pastor dismissed the 5th-7th graders to go to their special service led by the youth pastor. He made it a point to remind us that God has our plans marked out for us from the cradle all the way until he calls us home — and he had us clap for those preteens and teens who love Jesus as they made their way out the door to their small group and worship time.
I also learned today that one of the tenants of this other church is to lead people to a courageous faith. The pastor spoke of the story of Jonathan and his armor bearer facing off against a bunch of Philistines with only one sword between them from 1 Samuel 14:
No one realized that Jonathan had left the Israelite camp. 4 To reach the Philistine outpost, Jonathan had to go down between two rocky cliffs that were called Bozez and Seneh. 5 The cliff on the north was in front of Micmash, and the one on the south was in front of Geba. 6 “Let’s go across to the outpost of those pagans,” Jonathan said to his armor bearer. “Perhaps the Lord will help us, for nothing can hinder the Lord. He can win a battle whether he has many warriors or only a few!”
7 “Do what you think is best,” the armor bearer replied. “I’m with you completely, whatever you decide.”
8 “All right then,” Jonathan told him. “We will cross over and let them see us. 9 If they say to us, ‘Stay where you are or we’ll kill you,’ then we will stop and not go up to them. 10 But if they say, ‘Come on up and fight,’ then we will go up. That will be the Lord’s sign that he will help us defeat them.”
11 When the Philistines saw them coming, they shouted, “Look! The Hebrews are crawling out of their holes!” 12 Then the men from the outpost shouted to Jonathan, “Come on up here, and we’ll teach you a lesson!”
“Come on, climb right behind me,” Jonathan said to his armor bearer, “for the Lord will help us defeat them!”
13 So they climbed up using both hands and feet, and the Philistines fell before Jonathan, and his armor bearer killed those who came behind them. 14 They killed some twenty men in all, and their bodies were scattered over about half an acre.[b]
15 Suddenly, panic broke out in the Philistine army, both in the camp and in the field, including even the outposts and raiding parties. And just then an earthquake struck, and everyone was terrified.
Courage. Now that’s something I know I need! Jonathan had it, and the Lord was faithful. The shop owner in the Dallas area who shook her finger at the would-be robber who pointed a gun at her and commanded him to leave her store “in the name of Jesus” had courage, and the Lord was faithful.
Perhaps the courage is built up in the praise. I have no clue what lies ahead of me, but I know it’s going to be for God’s glory! And for today, I am indeed singing not just with my mouth, but with my soul.
These verses remind me of the Proverbs in some ways. There is a great deal of wisdom in them.
So many of these things are not applicable to today. It’s not that I am “picking and choosing” what to believe in the Bible. I believe all of it. I believe God gave these instructions through Moses to the people for a specific purpose — they needed boundaries and guidelines for their long journey through the wilderness. He sent an angel to go before them, and he sent terror ahead of them to drive out the people…but not all at once, because then, according to these verses, wild animals would overtake the promised land and then attack the Israelites. There was a specific logic to these rules.
Then Moses gathered the elders and they all had a meal — within sight of God himself! Can you imagine eating a meal at the base of a mountain while the Lord himself in all his glory is near? I don’t know that I could eat even one bite!
I don’t have many insights today…except that our criminal justice system could take some (NOT ALL) pages from the wisdom of requiring a thief to repay double or triple or quadruple the value of whatever it is that he stole. That might be a deterrent!
Some quick observations this evening. I am weary in my soul, snippy with my tongue, hypocritical with my daughter, and testy with my husband. The only one in this house who likes me right now is the dog. She’s curled up in my lap here in front of the fire while my daughter takes her shower and my husband is in bed early. He doesn’t like it when my daughter and I argue, and it seems that the older she gets, the more we rub each other raw. I am so frustrated with her tone of voice and sarcasm I could spit nails.
(Not really sure what that means, but my mom used to say it! Probably she started it when I was eleven! I’m paying for my raising, that’s for sure!)
Now that we have full disclosure of what’s going on in my head, be forewarned that my comments on today’s reading might be colored with my mood!
God came down in a blast of fire and smoke and gave Moses the 10 Commandments. The sound of a ram’s horn sounded several times. People in the crowd were forbidden to approach the mountain…but who would have wanted to in the first place? There was fire. There was smoke. The ground trembled and quaked. Sounds like Mt. Sinai was a volcano! (Again, my realistic side tries to find natural backdrops for supernatural events.) Why was Moses not affected by the smoke? Ugh. I can’t stand a camp fire. The smoke gets to me (I’m thankful for gas log fireplaces.) I remember when I was pregnant with my daughter and lived in Central Texas, smoke from fires in Mexico blanketed the region in the middle of the hot summer. I could not bear to go outside. Maybe it has something to do with my recently diagnosed asthma! At any rate, Moses went and spoke to the Lord, and the Lord answered him in such a way that the whole camp heard him.
Did they hear his voice? Or did they hear the rumbling of the mountain/volcano?
God gave Moses some other rules to live by. I have to admit that I am completely stumped by this one:
“When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are. If she does not satisfy her owner, he must allow her to be bought back again.”
The word for “slave” here is ‘amah, which can mean anything from a maid-servant to a slave to a concubine.
I just have to shake my head in confusion over this rule and chalk it up to those cultural differences. Women have so little rights in many Middle Eastern cultures even today. It’s difficult to imagine, though, a father selling his daughter to be a concubine. Lot offered up his virgin daughters to the seedy street people. I guess it was an accepted practice. But why was that okay to God? Why was it okay for a man to have more than one wife? Why didn’t God just tell them NOT to sell their daughters as slaves? Isn’t slavery a bad thing?
This is one of those issues I will have to just give up the Lord and ask for wisdom and insight. Perhaps if I were more knowledgeable about the culture of the day, I would understand rules like that one a little better.
What about this one, though?
“Anyone who dishonors father or mother must be put to death.”
Whoa! The politically correct anti-spanking crowd surely cringes at those words! I wonder if that punishment ever had to be meted out in the course of history or if the mere threat of it held the behavior of the people in check. The word for “dishonor” above is qalal, and it means to curse, dishonor, or treat with contempt.
These passages also contain the often quoted “eye for an eye” provisions of Mosaic law. It’s good to read them in context. God didn’t say that a man who puts out another man’s eye must lose his own eye. Instead, it says that the compensation must match the injury. If a man hits his slave (not a good thing!) and puts out the slave’s eye, he must let the slave go free. But if he intentionally kills another human, he must be killed. There are many “just” rulings in these passages. It’s interesting that these come right after Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, advises him to delegate some of his authority and appoint trustworthy men to act as judges in disputes. God’s timing in delivering these rules was right on target for the Israelites. A huge swath of people wandering in the desert needed boundaries to keep them from ending up killing each other, and Moses was granted even more authority than he had had before when God brought him up the mountain in the sight of all the people.
Tonight my dear husband settled the dispute between my daughter and me by taking himself out of the room. (Our dog used to do that! He’d leave the room if an argument was in progress!) I realized at that moment just how childish I had been in that moment and how much I need the Lord to search me and show me my transgressions. They are many.
Thank you, Lord, for Jesus!!
I’ll close with the words of the old hymn, one of my grandma’s favorites: I Need Thee Every Hour, by Annie S. Hawks:
I need Thee every hour, most gracious Lord;
No tender voice like Thine can peace afford.
Refrain:
I need Thee, oh, I need Thee;
Every hour I need Thee;
Oh, bless me now, my Savior,
I come to Thee.
I need Thee every hour, stay Thou nearby;
Temptations lose their pow’r when Thou art nigh.
I need Thee every hour, in joy or pain;
Come quickly and abide, or life is vain.
I need Thee every hour; teach me Thy will;
And Thy rich promises in me fulfill.
I need Thee every hour, most Holy One;
Oh, make me Thine indeed, Thou blessed Son.
Isn’t it beautiful how God supplies all our needs — often in ways we never would have imagined?
Who would have thought that a people wandering in wilderness would survive on supernatural food? I’ve always wondered what manna tasted like, and in my reading tonight I noticed that the Lord told the people to collect some manna and store it to show to their descendants. The jar was placed in the Ark of the Covenant. Once again, the Lord provided a way to preserve history.
A little history that I must have skipped over in my previous readings is the fact that Moses’ family was not with him during the flight from Egypt. Perhaps anticipating danger, Moses sent his wife and two sons to stay with his father-in-law, Jethro. Once they were safely in the wilderness, Jethro brought his family back to him.
How did Jethro know where to go? Was he able to see the pillar of fire, the glory of God, on display?
The Lord is so good to us! I just had news this evening that showed me, yet again, that He is in control of all things and He cares for me and takes care of those things that worry me. Long story short: I needed to have a Matthew 18 conversation with someone who is near and dear to my heart. The Lord knows my heart on this and how much I love this precious person, and he knew my personal angst in having to bring up old baggage for fear that it would turn this person away from Him. I have prayed and prayed for the right words to say and the right moment to say them. This afternoon I found out that the Lord solved my problem for me in a very unexpected fashion. His removal of my obligation to have the conversation is a special form of manna for me!
Now I pray that He will give my grandma all the manna she needs to recover from her surgery today. The doctor said the tumor was intact and did not appear to have spread to other organs — praise God!! We will have the pathology report later…but tonight I am rejoicing that God heard my prayers for her and has his protection over her even this very moment!
Metaphorical manna is all around us, if we only take the time to look.
The Lord values education. This much is clear from his commands regarding the yearly observance of the Passover. He specifically told parents to teach their children the significance of this yearly festival.
What do we American parents teach our children?
By creating a yearly holiday, the Lord made one of the first history lessons every recorded possible. It was passed down from generation to generation and is still practiced today. Can you imagine the fear and dread those Israelites must have felt when they looked over their shoulders and say 600 chariots rumbling towards them? Chariots behind them, and the Red Sea in front of them. Impossible, right?
God chose that moment in history to display his power. How awestruck the people must have been!!
Lord, I know you are listening as I write these words. You already know what I am about to ask you. I know you are capable of absolutely anything. There isn’t anything you can’t do. So I ask you directly to heal my grandmother, and I thank you for what you are about to do in her life. When my other grandma was sick with lung cancer, I was only nineteen years old. But I had faith then that you could completely remove her tumor. The fact that you did not doesn’t mean that you didn’t love her. It meant your plan for her differed from mine!
Now my other sweet grandma is lying in a hospital bed with my mother by her side. She has a nasty tumor growing inside her colon. I know, Lord, that she is yours already. I know that you have plans for her that may be different from my plans for her. You see, Father, I haven’t been the kind of granddaughter that I should have been. How many times have I been to see her since I moved back to Texas? Zero. I have allowed life to get in the way of love. Oh, how I love her! My heart overflows with affection for her, and the mere sound of her voice echoing in my ears brings me comfort and joy. Lord, I thank you that this tumor was found. And now, Lord, I ask you to take it away.
What a beautiful way to display your glory than for that tumor to be completely gone tomorrow when she enters the surgical suite? I have no doubt that you CAN do such a miracle. But I humbly acknowledge that you are God Almighty, and your plans and thoughts are not the same as mine, and, as Jesus modeled, I ask for your will to be done here on earth just as it is in heaven. I am comforted to know that you and Grandma have been walking hand in hand for many years. She may not be able to form her prayers in her mind, but you know her thoughts before she thinks them. Perhaps the elimination of this tumor will put an end to the anemia, which will then put an end to her language difficulties. You know, Father!!
So I dedicate today’s blog to my grandma. She is your special friend, and very dear to me. I ask you to display your mighty power in her behalf just as you did for the Israelites. You ARE able!
It’s difficult to blog about what I’ve been reading in the Bible when I am so emotionally spent in my own life. Anxiety has a grip on me, I am weepy, and, for the first time I can remember, I am feeling on the brink of losing it, whatever “it” may be. My mind?
I begin the day feeling fresh and full of worship. I am hungry and eat well. But as the day progresses, stress begins to gnaw on my insides to such an extent that I have completely lost my appetite by the time dinner rolls around. This is not a good thing in my family because everyone else is hungry! Tonight my sweet husband gave me a break. When we returned home from piano practice, he had a fire going in the fireplace, classical music playing, and dinner cooking on the stove. I didn’t even have to clean one dish! If you are reading this, sweetie, realize that I consider myself the most fortunate wife on the planet, and I thank God for you every day!! Thank you for giving me this break this evening.
All I can say tonight about Exodus 10-12 is that I read it. The Lord sent more terrible plagues on Egypt, culminating in a horrifying one where the first born of every living thing (except the Israelites who had painted their door frames with the blood of a lamb, as commanded by God) died. At that point, Pharaoh didn’t just let them leave…he kicked them out of the country.
Today I sent my brother a text and told him that I needed a break from being a grown up. In a conversation later, I realized that much of my stress is due to me taking on all my cares instead of casting them on the Lord, who cares for you and for me just as he did for Moses and the Israelites.
So this evening I’m working on that. Casting away the cares…being anxious for nothing…it’s just not working for me. I can’t do it alone or on my own strength:
“8 Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. 9 Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. 10 That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
At this moment I am definitely not taking pleasure in my weakness. I am dragging, and if my weakness is a lightening rod for God’s power, then I must be lit up like a flaming torch right now!
I’m thankful tomorrow is another day and hopeful that one day the Lord will bring me out of my Egypt called Anxiety.
It’s interesting to note that Pharaoh’s magicians were able to perform the first few signs and wonders all by themselves: turning the water into blood and bringing the nasty frogs into the houses. But then God began to make a distinction…the Israelites did not have the gnats and flies, boils OR hail. Can you imagine such a hailstorm as that?
Pharaoh is like a yo-yo…yes, you can go. No, you can’t go. What was he afraid of? What was he fighting against?
It’s impossible to fight against God and win. When he calls us, that voice doesn’t go away until we listen. Sometimes I think we need a big HELLO from God to get our attention. He’s done that with me before — in response to a specific prayer I had about a relationship when I was in college. Boy, did He ever get my attention.
I’d say that flying frogs and blinding gnats and flies and rotting frog bodies and humongous hailstones would have gotten my attention! But I’m not Pharaoh.
In our homeschool studies this year, we’ve read a great deal about ancient Egypt and how the people truly believed that Pharaoh was a god. No wonder he was so hard-headed! He was used to being treated as though he was divine…pride revealed its poison every time Pharaoh went back on his word and refused to let the people go.
Lord, I pray that you will guard me from prideful poison. Let me acknowledge right here, right now, that every good thing in me comes from YOU!
I am so thankful there are no frogs in my bed tonight, aren’t you?
Like me, Moses did not have much self confidence, especially in his speaking abilities. He argued with God at least three times about his mission to confront Pharaoh.
It’s encouraging to read God’s response to Moses:
“11 Then the Lord asked Moses, “Who makes a person’s mouth? Who decides whether people speak or do not speak, hear or do not hear, see or do not see? Is it not I, the Lord? 12 Now go! I will be with you as you speak, and I will instruct you in what to say.”
Then He still relented and gave Moses a “mouthpiece,” so to speak, in his brother Aaron.
I’ve often wished that God would give ME a mouthpiece when I am in a speaking confrontation as Moses would be with Pharaoh! In fact, I’ve had my husband handle difficult phone calls for me. He has the ability to use what I call “searing logic” to confound and/or convince anyone. So maybe the Lord has given me a “mouthpiece,” after all!
There is a bizarre blurb in Exodus 4 that I just don’t understand. The Bible account says that when he and his family were on the way to Egypt, God confronted Moses and almost killed him. Then Zipporah, his wife, circumcised her son and somehow touched the skin she’d removed to Moses’…um…male body part.
What on earth was that all about? Didn’t God know before Moses even started out on the journey that he had an uncircumcised son? Why confront him then and not at the burning bush? Why did Zipporah tell him that he was now a “bridegroom of blood” to her?
There must be some cultural references here that I am just not understanding.
Pharaoh did not take kindly to Moses and Aaron’s request for the Hebrews to be allowed to go worship God. He punished the Hebrews all the more, taking away the straw he used to provide to help them make the bricks and requiring the slaves to gather their own straw AND produce just as many bricks per day.
The Hebrews lost hope and faith as their backs bled from the blows of their masters. Moses was understandably confused: why was God punishing them for Moses’ obedience?
God had a master plan, that’s why.
The Lord purposefully hardened Pharaoh’s heart so he could have the opportunity to “dis” all the Egyptian gods in the form of plagues.
Is it possible that today the Lord hardens the hearts of those around us in order to give himself the opportunity to reveal His glory?
