Grains of Sand

Pixabay If you were promised that every desire of your heart would be granted but God would not be with you, would you move ahead toward the fulfillment of your desires? That was the proposition laid out before Moses in Exodus 33. After the incident of the Golden Calf, the Lord tells Moses this: “ Leave this place, you and the people you brought up out of Egypt, and go up to the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, saying, I will give it to your descendants.’ I will send an angel before you and drive out the Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go with you, because you are a stiff-necked people and I might destroy you on the way…’If I were to go with you even for a moment, I might destroy you’ ” (33:1-5). Hey, the presence of an angel is a pretty good deal, isn’t it? The Hebrews had lived with the dream of a return to Canaan for centuries and here it was within their grasp ev...

Pixabay As sin increased after the fall of Adam and Eve, longevity decreased—with a few notable exceptions. Enoch’s father, Jared, lived 962 years, longer than many of his time, but Enoch was a different case altogether, in more respects than simply his lifespan. “ When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah. And after he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether Enoch lived 365 years. Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away ” (Genesis 5:21-24). Curiosity hitting me once more, I wondered about the phrase: “ …after he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God…. ” Did the responsibility of parenthood trigger a need to get on a right basis with God? Some think so. Benson comments: “ Enoch walked with God — A Scriptural phrase for eminent piety. He set God always before him, and acted as one that considered he was always under his eye. He lived a life of ...

Pixabay Some of the best known verses of the Bible are found in Psalm 37. We cling to Psalm 37:4-5, claiming its promises particularly when faced with decisions that need making or challenges that need facing. " Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this ." In their context these verses are words of encouragement to those who are surrounded by evil and might be tempted to cave to the status quo, or wonder if it is worth it to follow God when it seems like the odds are on the side of evil men rather than on the side of good men. Surrounding the verses we usually claim are these: " Do not fret because of evil men or be envious of those who do wrong; for like grass they will soon wither, like green plants they will soon die away. Trust in the Lord and do good, dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your...

Horeasabau's Blog Google Images David’s efforts to avoid Saul took him to some unlikely places. By the time we come to the end of 1 Samuel, David is living among the Philistines. Hardly a comfortable spot to be in considering that he had been responsible for their defeat against Israel when he killed Goliath. The relations between the Israelites and the Philistines had never been cordial and many among the Philistine leaders would have been happy to put David’s head on the end of a pole and display it from the walls of Gath. However, this was where the Lord sent David and it was here that God protected David from Saul’s plots to kill him. When we get to 1 Samuel 29 we find David faced with a case of conflicted loyalties. Achish and the Philistines are preparing to go into battle against the Israelites. David, as a subject of Achish, would be expected to support the Philistine king in this effort. But some of Achish’s key men were not happy about the prospects, feeling that Da...

Google Images During the debacle of the Golden Calf (Exodus 32) God tested Moses twice. When God said that His anger against the people was great that He was going to destroy them and make Moses into a great nation (32:9, 10), Moses interceded for the people and pleaded for their lives. Here was his opportunity to become truly great in his own right, and he passed it up. A little later, after he had seen for himself what the Israelites had done and realized how terrible the offense was, he went back to the Lord to beg God’s forgiveness for the sin the nation-to-be had committed—to the point of offering his own life as a substitute for theirs (32:30-32). Moses put himself on the line for the people he served. Then God announced that He would send His angel to take Moses and the people to the land He had promised Abraham (33:2). “ Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go with you, because you are a stiff-necked people and I might destroy you on the way ” (33:3...

Nic Taylor — Google Images The detailed description of how the Tabernacle was to be built continues in Exodus 27. It isn’t until the end of the chapter that a light goes on, literally. The last two verses of the chapter describe the lighting for this meeting place with the Lord. “ Command the Israelites to bring you clear oil of pressed olives for the light so that the lamps may be kept burning. In the Tent of Meeting, outside the curtain that is in front of the Testimony, Aaron and his sons are to keep the lamps burning before the Lord from evening till morning. This is to be lasting ordinance among the Israelites for the generations to come ” (Exodus 27:20, 21). Olive oil is good stuff. But you have to be careful when using it because it catches fire at a lower temperature than other oils—this I know because I had a small kitchen fire of my own when I wasn’t paying attention to what was happening in the frying pan! In this account, we see that the oil was to be uncontaminated—cle...

Google Images After Jesus was tempted in the wilderness He returned to Galilee. John had been put in prison, his voice effectively silenced. But there was another voice now—that of the Messiah Himself. Jesus moved from Nazareth to Capernaum, along the north shore of the sea of Galilee, This was reportedly the home of some of the fishermen who would become Jesus’ disciples and Matthew’s home. The move was deliberate for another reason—it fulfilled the prophecy from Isaiah 9:1-7 that told of the Saviour who would come to “Galilee of the Gentiles” and bring light into the land of darkness and establish a kingdom of justice and righteousness that would last forever. It is interesting that Jesus, whose primary mission was to the people of Israel should, through the choice of where He would make His home base, signal hope for the salvation of the Gentiles. “ …the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned ” (Ma...

Google Images Compartmentalize. That’s a good word. It means: categorize, pigeonhole, group, classify, characterize, stereotype, label, brand; sort, rank, rate. At the top of the first landing in our church building we have a wall full of boxes. Anyone in the church who wants to, has a box assigned to them. Anything belonging to that person goes into the appropriate box. Everyone is effectively “pigeonholed.” That’s great for mail, but not so great when it comes to our spiritual well-being. We tend to compartmentalize our lives. A portion belongs to...... Another part is given to.... A third part is dedicated to.... A certain amount of this “sorting” is necessary to keep our lives as organized as the vicissitudes of life will allow. But however we compartmentalize life, there is an overriding truth that needs to be applied to every area. Here’s how John describes it: “ But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: Whoe...

Google Images It seems silly to say that a particular passage of Scripture is “interesting” since they all are. But at the risk of “silly” this morning’s reading is interesting (and necessary). And the end of 2 Corinthians 6, Paul warns his audience about the need to remove themselves from their old pattern of life as it has to do with idol worship. Traditionally the verse, “ Come out from them and be separate ” (6:17) is often applied to things like our relationships with people who are not believers. There are other passages that speak to that issue. Though this verse can be applied to relationships with unbelievers, Paul is actually warning the Corinthians that they can’t continue to worship idols and try to worship the true God at the same time. Here the emphasis is not separation from the people who don't know the Lord but separation from the practices of the people who do not know the Lord. As Chapter 7 begins, Paul says: “ Therefore, since we have these promises, dear fr...

After the incident of the Golden Calf (Genesis 32), a repentant Israel is distressed to learn that God has said that He will no longer accompany them on their journey to the Promised Land (33:5). Typical of the human race, even the believing part of it, we have a hard time living under Him, but we know we can't live without Him. Moses, as was his custom, met with God in a tent outside the camp. The presence of God was visible to all as the cloud towered over the place where the Almighty met with the not-so-mighty human. While the meeting took place it is written that: " whenever the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, they all stood and worshiped, each at the entrance of his tent " (Exodus 33:10, NIV). Moses, privileged to speak to God as face to face as it was possible for any man, pleaded on behalf of the people. There was a hard journey ahead and God was testing the resolve of the man who would lead this rebellious nation-in-the-m...

Reading: 3 John “ I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth ” (3 John 4, NIV). We used to struggle with what to get mom and dad for Christmas. It’s not that they had everything. There was always one more gadget that we could have purchased, destined to gather dust on some shelf. After my mother’s death I got more use out of the blender my brother had bought her one Christmas than she ever did (it’s still going more than 25 years later). The truth is, my parents needed very little. And they wanted even less. My parents weren’t demonstrative types. In some ways that characteristic made it easier to identify those things that they really valued. I know they valued who I became much more than they valued any of the gifts I ever gave them. When I graduated from seminary my mother was recovering from a broken leg. There was no way she was going to be able to make the 500 mile trip to see me graduate. I was also the class valedictorian—a rare privile...

“ For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless ” —Psalm 84:11, NIV. This verse takes me back to a visit I made years ago to a ladies’ missionary prayer group. As was their custom they read the most recent letters they had received from their missionaries. On this occasion they read one from a young woman the group supported who worked in Bangladesh. She recounted the miraculous story of how she had been packing up to return to the states permanently. She really wanted to marry and there seemed like no possible solution to that particular need where she was. Just days before she was to return home, she got deathly ill and had to spent a long time in the mission-run hospital. You guessed it—while she was there, a first-term, single, missionary doctor arrived on the scene and, voilà. The ladies were thrilled and immediately all eyes turned in my direction. The moderator suggested that the...

“ Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers ” —Psalm 1:1, NIV. Psalm 1 was the first chapter of the Bible that I memorized in Sunday School as a child. I can still picture, if my memory isn’t playing tricks on me, standing in the Primary classroom in the basement of the church, reciting the psalm in front of Mrs. Wood and my classmates. In those days memorizing Scripture was an important part of what we did in Sunday School, and I still remember Psalm 1 as clearly as if I had learned it just yesterday. This particular verse had its greatest impact on me when someone explained the progression in it. The psalmist says that a person enjoys happiness, contentment, peace, with God when he doesn’t: 1. Walk , or get too close on a regular basis, with those who would encourage him to do what doesn’t please God, 2. Stand , or hang around, with those who are not doing what would please God,   3. Sit...

1 Samuel 11-13 It sounded like a good idea at the time. After all everyone else in the neighbourhood had a king of their own. It took Israel very little time to figure out that they had made a mistake by choosing Saul as their king. It wasn't that he wasn't capable—he'd just finished rescuing them from the Ammonites. It helped that he looked good, had that "kingly" presence and all that. But Samuel's rebuke made them take a second look at their decision. The response? " The people all said to Samuel, 'Pray to the Lord your God for your servants so that we will not die, for we have added to all our other sins the evil of asking for a king. '" (12:19 NIV) Some things are difficult to "fix" after the fact. Israel couldn't "unking" Saul so would have to live with the consequences. But the encouraging note here is Samuel's response. " 'Do not be afraid,' Samuel replied, 'You have done all this...

Numbers 28-30 “ Moses told the Israelites all that the Lord commanded him ” —Numbers 29:40 Simple, isn’t it? “ all ” – Moses didn’t “fudge” but faithfully delivered the whole message like it or not. “ that the Lord commanded him ” — he made nothing up, didn’t put words in the Lord’s mouth or apply his interpretation to what the Lord said. This latter might be the biggest issue we (I) have—shifting the Word of God to head it in a direction that it might not be meant to go. I realize more than ever how important this truth is. Since my book, Divine Design for Daily Living has been published, I've received all kinds of comments and questions. The response has been very gratifying but, at the same time, it has been sobering. What I write is believed, so what I write had better be what God said and not what Lynda wants him to say. It had better be all the truth and not just the part Lynda wants people to hear. The responsibility is nothing to consider lightly. The same is true as I tak...