Wednesday, January 12, 2011

exodus 19

God leaves nothing to chance. He can’t. He wouldn’t be God if He did. He is all knowing, all present, all powerful and nothing escapes His notice or His plan. He is not taken by surprise, nor is He left wondering what He should do. He is God and there is none other like Him.
Somehow, sometimes, we would like to think we get one over on God. Or that He doesn’t know or see. Or perhaps that He doesn’t care. But what we fail to see is that the joke is on us. God sees and knows.
We think that because God doesn’t act in that moment or because there seems to be no consequence that perhaps we have gotten away with it. But what we fail to recognize is that the very consequence we receive is the very worst thing for us. It is a loss of Him…as we back away from Him.
From the earliest of recorded instructions, God had a plan. He had a way of doing things. A pattern to follow. And when that plan wasn’t followed there was grave consequence.
Think about Adam and Eve. The plan was that they could live in the garden. There was only ONE rule. Don’t eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And when we didn’t follow the plan, withdrawal happened. God removed us from His continual presence and provision, casting man out of the garden.
Think about Noah, the only righteous man on the planet. God saw that every intent of man’s heart was evil and so He chose to destroy all the living creatures, except for Noah and His family. The consequence for sin was deep and had effects far more reaching than eating what was forbidden. Man didn’t follow the plan and now death and separation ensued.
When God gave a pattern for the tabernacle, He intended for it to be followed. He was building a place to meet with His people. We didn’t deserve it, some didn’t even want it. Nevertheless, despite the separation and death, God was at work to restore what we had thrown away. And He had a pattern that had to be followed for that.
His desire has been to make a way for us to be WITH Him. But there is a pattern that MUST be followed. We see this in the intricate detail God gave when He instructed Moses on how to build the tabernacle that He would dwell in. He left nothing to chance or to the imagination. He directed every step.
We can learn a lot from this one idea. God DESIRES to be WITH us, but He is not so desperate for our communion that He tolerates a half way, half hearted effort in meeting with Him. You either come to Him all the way, His way or not at all. He sets the pattern. And when we don’t follow it. We back away from the Living God and find distance-not because God moved, but because we did. Backing away from God’s pattern is a bad idea. It was a bad idea in the garden. It was a bad idea for Jonah. It was a bad idea for Israel. And it is a bad idea for us. His pattern is not a bad idea. It is the only one that gets us into His Presence.
ALL FOR YOU

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