Thoughts on the Tabernacle (2)

“Make everything according to the pattern I have shown you.”                       Ex 25:40 NLT

The second element that marked the building of the Old Testament tabernacle was excellence. God condemns perfectionism because it stifles our creativity and robs us of all sense of progress. And Jesus condemned those who gave to impress others. “When you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward” (Mt 6:2 NKJV). But if you think this means you can just offer God anything you feel like, you’re sorely mistaken. When it comes to serving, God wants you to aspire to excellence. God said to Moses: “And this is the offering which you shall take from them: gold, silver, and bronze…And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. According to all that I show you, that is, the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furnishings, just so you shall make it” (Ex 25:3-9 NKJV). Why did God ask for gold? Because He won’t accept anything sloppy or second-rate. Guess where Jesus sat when He went to church? Beside the treasury, watching people give. Luke records: “Then a poor widow came by and dropped in two small coins. ‘I tell you the truth,’ Jesus said, ‘this poor widow has given more than all the rest of them. For they have given a tiny part of their surplus, but she, poor as she is, has given everything she has’” (Lk 21:2-4 NLT). So, give God your best!

http://theencouragingword.wordpress.com/2012/11/19/thoughts-on-the-tabernacle-2/

Thoughts on the Tabernacle (1)

“Bring Me an offering.”                                                         Ex 25:2 NKJV

When it came time to build the Old Testament tabernacle, God said to Moses, “Do all things according to the pattern which I showed you” (See Ex 25:40). Whether you’re building a relationship, a career, a business or a ministry, it will always require several elements: Sacrifice. The building of the tabernacle begins with these words: “Speak to the children of Israel, that they bring Me an offering. From everyone who gives it willingly with his heart you shall take My offering.” Question: why would a God who is rich enough to pave His streets with gold, ask you for an offering? Because only when you have a personal investment in something, will you give it your full attention, treasure it, prioritize it and protect it.

Pastor, ask the Lord for the plan, then ask the people for the money, not vice versa. Teach your people to live by this principle: “Give till it hurts, give till it stops hurting, give till it feels good.” Paul wrote about the generosity of the Christians in Macedonia: “They are being tested by many troubles, and they are very poor. But they are also filled with abundant joy, which has overflowed in rich generosity. For I can testify that they gave not only what they could afford, but far more. And they did it of their own free will. They begged us again and again for the privilege of sharing…They even did more than we had hoped, for their first action was to give themselves to the Lord and to us, just as God wanted them to do” (2Co 8:2-5 NLT). So, are you willing to sacrifice?

http://theencouragingword.wordpress.com/2012/11/18/thoughts-on-the-tabernacle-1/

The Moral Conditions of Belief

…a good conscience; which some having put away (thrust from them–R. V.) concerning faith have made shipwreck–1Ti 1:19

Tampering with Conscience

We must try to understand what the apostle means when he speaks of putting away a good conscience. He means what in the idiom of today we describe as tampering with conscience. The good conscience of our text does not just signify an approving conscience. It signifies a conscience that is working well, just as we might speak of a good clock. And as a man can tamper with his clock, so can he subtly tamper with his conscience until at last it ceases to be good. Let conscience work in liberty, and it registers unalterable certainties. It takes such things as truth and love and purity and stamps them with the signature of God. And whenever anybody begins to doubt and question these abiding and instinctive certainties, he is thrusting from him a good conscience. Men do that often under the stress of passion. They make the worse appear the better reason. They are eager to get the approval of their conscience for actions that are dubious or immoral. And conscience is such a delicate adjustment that for long periods they can achieve this, though I question if they can ever do it permanently. Such action implies a certain violence, and the word Paul uses carries that suggestion. It is the word that is used of the Egyptian when he pushed away the interfering Moses (Act 7:27). A little violent handling of one’s conscience like a little violent handling of one’s clock, and we silence the chiming of God’s hours.

Tampering with Conscience Means the Ruin of Life

Now we know that when anyone does this, he invariably makes shipwreck of his life. But Paul tells us that if anyone does this, he invariably makes shipwreck of his faith. Our Christian faith is a faith that God is love, and that in His love He gave us the Lord Jesus. It is a faith that we all are precious to the Father and are being guided to a perfect life. And this inspiring and sustaining faith, says Paul, does not strike its roots into a brilliant intellect; it strikes them into the soil of a good conscience. Tamper with conscience and God becomes unreal. Circumvent it, and the invisible grows dim. Wrest and manipulate its instant verdicts, and love and honor disappear from heaven. A man may have faith in all the Christian verities though his intellectual processes be childish; but he never can have faith in them once he begins to juggle with his conscience. To put it in more modern language, the conditions of all living faith are moral. They lie not in intellectual apprehension, but in honesty of intention and of heart. All which is fitted to be of infinite comfort to those who grope in intellectual darkness and are troubled because they cannot understand. Nobody makes shipwreck of his faith because he is powerless to understand. No ship that has set sail for heaven ever founders because the brain is dull. Shipwreck comes when the inward voice of conscience, challenging to truth and love and purity, is disowned in the interests of sin.

The Pure in Heart Do Not Tamper with Their Conscience

That this, too, was the teaching of our Lord is seen in His most exquisite beatitude. Blessed are the pure in heart, He said, for they shall see God. Now, to see God is not to set our eyes on Him. It is to have a living faith that He exists. It is to believe, what Christ Himself believed, that He is a loving and redeeming Father. It is to believe that just because He loves us He is guiding us with perfect understanding and carrying out His purpose in the world. A faith like that alters the whole of life and makes the sun shine in the darkest day. A faith like that is better than a fortune. It inspires serenity and courage. And the one condition of that faith, according to the teaching of our Lord, is not intellectual but moral. To be pure of heart is not to be perfect, else were there no hope for any man. It is to be sincere and single-eyed. It is to refuse to juggle with our conscience. It is to hold to it through every temptation that the imperious voice of conscience must be heeded, and that love and truth and purity and loyalty are demanded at whatsoever cost. Live like that, says Jesus, and you will never live long in a godless universe. Do your duty, as conscience tells you to, and God will surely bless in your life. The strange thing is that with Jesus, as with Paul, there is no word of intellectual processes. The conditions of belief are moral.

So are we led to this great truth for all who are really eager to believe. The way to faith is not the way of intellect. It is rather the simple way of duty. Far better than puzzling our brains is to do the next thing that is demanded. It may be hard to know what we should believe: it is seldom hard to know what we should do. And in doing that, at the command of conscience, with a single eye and a pure heart, we find ourselves, perhaps when we never dreamed of it, on the avenue that leads to God. We come to feel that truth is on the throne, or conscience never could demand truth. We come to feel that love is in the heavens, because at every hazard we must love. And as truth and love and purity and honor are but idle words without a person, duty brings us to the feet of God. To be pure-hearted is the way to see. To do His will the way to know. To listen to conscience and never seek to juggle with it is to touch the reality of all its values. He who does that, although the winds be contrary, will never suffer shipwreck in the deeps, but will come at last to his desired haven.

http://devotionals.ochristian.com/george-h-morrison-devotional-sermons-devotional.shtml

God’s Description

The prayers of young children show us what they think of God. Here are two I read recently:

“Dear God, what does it mean that You are a ‘jealous’ God? I thought You had everything.”

“I didn’t think orange went with purple until I saw the sunset You made on Tuesday. That was cool.”

These children are right to think of God as the owner and creator of everything, the One who can paint beautiful sunsets. But how does God describe Himself?

Moses needed an answer to that question when he was about to lead the Israelites into the wilderness. He wanted to be assured of God’s presence and leading, so he asked Him to reveal Himself (Ex. 33:13,18). In response, God came down in a cloud and said: “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, . . . by no means clearing the guilty” (34:5-7). He is good; He is just.

We too can know this God and be assured of His presence. He has revealed Himself in His creation and in His Word. As we ask Him to make Himself known to us, we’ll learn that He is even more than the owner and creator of everything!

Sing praise to God who reigns above, The God of all creation, The God of power, the God of love, The God of our salvation. —Schutz

In a world of superlatives, God is the greatest.

http://odb.org/2012/11/15/gods-description/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+odb%2Ffeed+%28Our+Daily+Bread%29

Tell Me The Story

“All these things happened to them as examples and . . . for our admonition.” 1 Corinthians 10:11

Now that I have grandkids, I’m back into the classic children’s Bible stories. Wide-eyed stories like David and Goliath, Noah’s ark, and Jonah and the big fish quickly capture a child’s imagination!

But there’s a danger here—not with the stories themselves but rather with our attitude toward them. If we view them simply as kids’ stories, kind of like the Grimm’s Fairy Tales of the Bible, we miss the point.

The stories of the Bible were never meant to be outgrown. There are profound lessons to be learned from the amazing accounts of those who faced giants, floods, and fish!

Hundreds of years after the fact, the apostle Paul explained that the things that happened to Moses and the Israelites as they wandered through the desert “happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition” (1 Cor. 10:11). These stories are about us. They mirror the tensions we face daily as we too seek to apply God’s will and ways to the realities of our lives. They teach us of the treachery of sin, our desperate need to trust God unflinchingly, and the importance of staying faithful and true to Him regardless of what happens.

Don’t ignore the old stories. You might be surprised what God wants to teach you through them.

We learn the blessed Word of God To fix it firmly in our heart, And when we act upon that Word Its truth from us will not depart. —D. De Haan

Stories from the past can give us pointers for the present.

http://getmorestrength.org/daily/tell-me-the-story/

Building A Great Temple

In the fourth year of Solomon‘s rule over Israel he built the temple of Jehovah. The temple was ninety feet long, thirty feet wide, and forty-five feet high. The porch before the large room of the temple was thirty feet wide and fifteen feet deep. Solomon made windows for the temple with casings, broad on the inside and narrow on the outside.

The temple was built with stone which had been made ready at the quarry; neither hammer nor chisel nor any iron tool was heard while the temple was building. Against the wall of the temple on the outside Solomon built wings, both around the larger room and the inner room, and made side-chambers around the temple.

The entrance to the lower side-chambers was on the south side of the temple. Winding stairs led to the second floor, and from the second to the third. Solomon built the wings against the sides of the temple, each seven and a half feet high; and they were joined to the temple with timbers of cedar.

He covered the walls of the temple on the inside with boards of cedar from the floor of the temple to the rafters: and he covered the floor of the temple with boards of cypress.

He also made a room thirty feet square in the back part of the temple with boards of cedar reaching from the floor to the rafters. He built it as an inner room, even as the most holy place. The temple, that is the large room in front of the inner room, was sixty feet long. And there was cedar inside the temple with carving in the form of gourds and open flowers. All was cedar, no stone was seen. Solomon prepared the inner room as a place for the ark.

In the inner room Solomon made two winged bulls of olive wood. The height of each was fifteen feet. Each of their wings measured seven and a half feet across, fifteen feet from the end of one wing to the end of the other. He set these up in the inner room of the temple; and their wings were stretched out so that the wing of the one touched the one wall, while the wing of the other touched the other wall, and their wings touched each other in the middle of the temple; and he covered them with gold.

Then Solomon gathered in Jerusalem the leaders of Israel to bring up the ark of Jehovah out of Zion, the City of David, at the time of the autumn festival in September. When all the leaders of Israel had come, the priests took up the ark and the tent of meeting and all the sacred vessels that were in the tent. So the priests brought in the ark of Jehovah to its place in the inner room of the temple under the wings of the winged bulls. There was nothing in the ark except the two tables of stone which Moses put there at Horeb. And when the priests came out from the inner room, the cloud filled the temple of Jehovah, so that the priests could not stand and perform their service on account of the cloud, for the glory of Jehovah filled his temple.

Then Solomon said:

“Jehovah has set the sun in the heavens,

But has said that he will dwell in thick darkness.

So I have built thee a temple as a lofty dwelling,

A place for thee to abide in forever.”

As Solomon stood before the altar of Jehovah in the presence of all the assembly of Israel, he spread out his hands toward heaven and said, “O Jehovah, the God of Israel, there is no God like thee in heaven above or on earth beneath, who keepest thy solemn agreement and showest kindness to thy servants who serve thee whole-heartedly, who hast kept with thy servant David my father the promise that thou didst make to him.

“But will God actually dwell on earth? Indeed heaven and the highest heaven cannot hold thee; how much less this temple that I have built!”

http://kids.ochristian.com/Childrens-Bible/Building-A-Great-Temple.shtml

 

Being Like God

“Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground.”—Genesis 18:2

The Torah portion for this week, Vayeira, is from Genesis 18:1—22:24 and 2 Kings 4:1–37.

When the Torah portion begins, Abraham had just circumcised himself. God made a house call and visited the recovering Abraham. But did He find Abraham resting in bed? No! God found him sitting in the same place where he sat every day — at the entrance of his tent eagerly awaiting guests. “The LORD appeared to Abraham… while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent” (Genesis 18:1). For Abraham, the pain of circumcision was nothing compared to the pain of not having guests.

So God sent Abraham three guests — three angels disguised as men. In the next verse we read that Abraham saw the men and ran to greet them. “When he saw them, he hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them . . . .” But wait, didn’t we just read that God appeared to Abraham? Did we not understand that Abraham was in the middle of a conversation with God?

If you could speak to one person in the world, living or dead, who would that person be? Now imagine that your hero calls you up one day and you get to have that conversation. Suddenly, you see three strangers standing in your front yard and you say, “Can you hold on? There are some guys hanging out nearby, I’ll get back to you later!”

Sounds ridiculous? But that’s exactly what Abraham did! He had the audience of the Master of the world, but as soon as he saw the strangers outside, he drops the line. Can you imagine doing such a thing – and why would Abraham do it?

Because Abraham understood that even as we talk to God, He continues to give us opportunities (and yes, challenges), to be ever closer to Him.

As we are told from the very beginning, humans were created “in the image of God” (Genesis 1:27). The intention for humanity is that we would be God-like. And so the greatest thing we can do is to be like our Creator.

How can we be like God? The Sages offer some advice: “Just as the Lord clothes the naked as He did with Adam, so you clothe the naked; just as the Lord visits the sick as He did with Abraham, so you visit the sick; just as the Lord comforts the bereaved as He did with Isaac, so you comfort the bereaved; just as the Lord buries the dead as he did with Moses, so you bury the dead.”

Look to fit in at least one godly act a week. Visit a sick friend, the elderly, or a hospital. Donate some clothing or work in a soup kitchen. Support someone going through a difficult time or be a companion for someone lonely. And when an unexpected opportunity for kindness comes your way, be like Abraham – run to do it!

http://www.holylandmoments.org/devotionals/being-like-god

Growing into Leadership (5)

“Listen…and I will give you some advice.”                               Ex 18:19 NIV

As a leader, it’s your job to see that things get done. But as the workload grows you will have to find people with talents equal to the task; otherwise you will stop growing. So what keeps us from seeking out the right people and delegating the right tasks to them? (1) Past hurts: Somebody let us down so we’re reluctant to trust anybody. (2) Pride: We don’t want to share the credit with others. (3) Perfectionism: We are not willing to be put at risk while people with potential learn on the job, so our vision bottlenecks and everything bogs down. Moses had this problem with Israel. Here’s how he solved it: “Moses’ father-in-law replied, ‘What you are doing is not good. You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out. The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone. Listen now to me and I will give you some advice…You must be the people’s representative before God and bring their disputes to him…But select capable men from all the people…and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. Have them serve as judges for the people at all times, but have them bring every difficult case to you; the simple cases they can decide themselves. That will make your load lighter, because they will share it with you. If you do this…you will be able to stand the strain, and all these people will go home satisfied.’ Moses listened to his father-in-law and did everything he said” (vv.17-24 NIV). If you want to be a good leader, follow his example!

http://theencouragingword.wordpress.com/2012/10/27/growing-into-leadership-5/

As Righteous As You

“This is the account of Noah and his family. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God.”—Genesis 6:9

The Torah portion for this week, Noach, is from Genesis 6:9 – 11:32, and Isaiah 54:1 – 55:5.

The Torah tells us that “Noah was a righteous man, blamelessamong the people of his time.” The Sages are puzzled by the last part of the description. Why not stop at righteous? What does it mean that he was also “blamelessamong the people of his time?”

Torah scholars explain that there are two ways to understand the Scripture’s description. It could mean that even though Noah lived in a totally corrupt society, he was able to withstand the influence of everyone around him and remain righteous. Or, it could mean that had Noah lived in another time, the generation of Abraham for example, he wouldn’t have been anything special. Relative to the corrupt society around him, Noah stood out and appeared righteous.

Ultimately, we don’t need to know how Noah compared to anyone else. What matters is that Noah was as righteous as he could be himself.

A famous story is told about Rabbi Zusha of Anipol who lived in the 18^th century. The great rabbi was on his deathbed, and he was crying uncontrollably. No one could comfort him. One of the students asked, “Why are you crying? Surely you have nothing to fear! You were almost as wise as Moses and as kind as Abraham!” The elderly rabbi replied, “When I am called to the heavenly tribunal, they won’t ask me, ‘why weren’t you like Moses?’ or ‘why weren’t you like Abraham?’ But they will ask, ‘Zusha, why weren’t you like Zusha?’ And to that I will have no reply.”

God doesn’t judge us according to the people around us. If the people around us are evil, it doesn’t give us permission to sink to their level. If the people around us are saintly, God doesn’t expect us to be perfect ourselves. God expects us to live up to our own potential, be it a little or a lot. It doesn’t matter how Noah compared with the people around him. What mattered was that he was the best Noah that Noah could be.

We often get distracted by the people around us and forget about focusing on the one life that matters most:  Ours! Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, once said, “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” Every person is gifted with his or her own unique talents, passions, and capabilities. But not everyone unwraps the package.

God won’t ask you why you weren’t like Mother Theresa, and He won’t applaud you for being better than Hitler. He’ll want to know if you were as great as you could be.

How will you answer?

http://www.holylandmoments.org/devotionals/as-righteous-as-you

Jephthah’s Foolish Promise

Jephthah, the Gileadite, was an able warrior, but he was the son of a wicked woman, and had fled from his relatives and lived in the land of Tob. There certain rascals gathered about him, and they used to go out on raids with him.

After a time the Ammonites made war against the Israelites. Then the elders of Gilead went to bring Jephthah from the land of Tob, and they said to him, “Come and be our commander, that we may fight against the Ammonites.” But Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “Are you not the men who hated me and drove me out of my father’s house? Why then do you come to me now when you are in trouble?” But the elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “This is why we have now turned to you, that you may go with us and fight against the Ammonites, and you shall be our chief, even over all the people who live in Gilead.” Then Jephthah said to the rulers of Gilead, “If you take me back to fight against the Ammonites and Jehovah gives me the victory over them, I shall be your chief.” The elders of Gilead replied, “Jehovah shall be a witness between us; we swear to do as you say.”

Then Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him chief and commander over them. Jephthah also made this vow to Jehovah: “If thou wilt deliver the Ammonites into my power, then whoever comes out of the door of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be Jehovah’s, and I will offer that one as an offering to be burned with fire.”

So Jephthah went out to fight against the Ammonites; and Jehovah gave him the victory over them, and delivered them into his hands. But when he came home to Mizpah, his daughter was just coming out to meet him with tambourines and choral dances. She was his only child; besides this one he had neither son nor daughter. So when he saw her, he tore his clothes and said, “Oh, my daughter, you have stricken me! It is you who are the cause of my woe! for I have made a solemn vow to Jehovah and cannot break it.” She said to him, “My father, you have made a solemn vow to Jehovah; do to me what you have promised, since Jehovah has punished your enemies the Ammonites. But let this favor be granted me: spare me two months that I may go out upon the mountains with those who would have been my bridesmaids and lament because I will never become a wife and mother.” He said, “Go.”

So he sent her away for two months with her friends, and she mourned on the mountains because she would never become a wife and mother. At the end of two months she returned to her father, who did what he had vowed to do, even though she had never been married. So it became a custom in Israel: each year the women of Israel go out for four days to bewail the death of the daughter of Jephthah, the Gileadite.

http://kids.ochristian.com/Childrens-Bible/Jephthahs-Foolish-Promise.shtml