Simple Prayer Request

Hey guys!
At the beginning of this blog I had planned on posting regular prayer requests from work and life.  Because of confidentiality I can't post many details at all, but I need some prayer for a sweet boy I know. 

I was there when he asked God to come into his life and I watched him begin to change.  He was broken and really seeking healing from Christ.  As with a lot of people I know, sometimes life circumstances happen and things get out of control and we lose sight, this is particularly true in his case.  We recently had a conversation and were discussing what life is about to be like for him and he said he thought he was about to get into a lot of trouble because he got a rush from doing bad things.  We started talking about his relationship with Christ and he asked me if asking God to come into your heart was enough to make him a Christian. I explained that it isn't about saying a prayer its about having a relationship.  He went on to tell me that He talks to God but God doesn't care enough to talk back to him and that he reads his Bible but nothing ever happens.  Our conversation was unfortunately cut short but I assured him we would talk about it more this week. 

So please pray that God will provide that opportunity and that this boy would be just as open and honest with me as he was last week.  I don't want him to say what he knows I want to hear, instead I want him to really hear from God even though he doesn't think God cares enough about him.

Thanks in advance!!!

Those people make me crazy!

So, as I'm reading through Exodus God has revealed to me another part of His wonderful sense of humor.  The Israelites have every reason in the World to be wholeheartedly following God.  Look what He did for them in Egypt!  He saved them from their bondage and did it in a very big, bold way.  There is no doubt that God was showing His people and the Egyptians just a glimpse of how much power He possesses.  Then, they are led out of Israel and through the desert by a cloud of fire and or smoke.  God goes into great detail laying out a plan for a place that He would dwell and His people could come to Him.  As I have been reading I just keep thinking, God, you love them so much.  Which is absolutely true and He makes His love for them very clear. 

Moses goes up on Mt. Sinai to meet with God and get some more direction on how they are to uphold their half of the covenant and is gone for forty days (and nights).  And, wait for it, they forget all about God.  Oh, it makes me insane!  I just want to jump up and shout at them to quit being morons.  All I can think is God has done so much for you and you are going to break His heart!  As they offer up their gold and prized possessions (that no doubt could have been used for the Tabernacle) to an image they are making, I just want to go through the pages and scream at them to not forget so quickly what God has done for them. How dare they treat Him with such disregard after all He had done for them. 

He chose them.  He loved them.  He was with them.  But, because they didn't hear from Him like they were used to for forty days they were jumping ship.  They were going to make their own god, follow their own rules, and live life their own way.  As I'm crying out to God about how ridiculous the Israelites were and how I can't believe they would just forget Him before forty days is even up, He reminds me of the times I've forgotten Him.  See, the kicker is, He chose me, He loves me, He is with me.  He gave up Heaven, took on flesh, came to the Earth He created only to be mocked by the very people He created and carried a cross for me.  He sent His Spirit to live within me, not in a building or a tent, but WITHIN me!  Yet, if I don't get what I think I need from God or it doesn't work out like I think it should, Oh how often I jump ship and try to figure my own plan out.  I'm no different than the Israelites that make me so crazy.  I struggle with trying to make God be who I want Him to be instead of worshiping Him in who He is!

I love how God describes Himself in Exodus 34:6-7 after Moses is begging for God to give the Israelites another chance, it beautifully encompasses just who God is (as it should, He said it!)

"Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, 'The Lord, The Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding loingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgreassion and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations."

And Moses' response is one we should all seek to practice (v. 8) "Moses made haste to bow low toward the earth and worship."  When you realize the punishment you deserve and see the grace you receive, there really is no other response.

Back Again. :)

I’ve hit that point again.  The point right after where you’re reading through your Bible and so excited about all the wonderful stories of how God is creating, and then He’s calling His people, and then He’s redeeming His people.  We read detailed stories about God sending a flood to purify the earth from evil, wrestle with theological concepts about why God would harden Pharaoh’s heart and then send punishment because he refused God’s request, and rejoice with the Israelites as the Red Sea is parted and God miraculously redeems His people (one of many times).  Then, you hit it.  

 For me it started in Exodus 25.  God begins to lay out His plan for the Tabernacle.  In this plan God details the colors, materials, lengths, heights, walls, every detail we could imagine He lays out so we don’t have to imagine it. At first I considered “skimming“ this section to get the high points, but it’s God’s Word and I didn’t want to miss something He wanted me to see.   I’ve been praying that God would reveal Himself to me through every passage in Scripture as I attempt to read through His Word and He did just that.  No one can deny the beauty that would be the Tabernacle.  We can only imagine how glorious it must have appeared laden with the finest woods, brightest colors, and purest gold.  But it had to be just that because it would be filled with glory.  It was to be the place where God would dwell with His people.   At the very beginning of chapter 25 in verse 8 God explains that they will construct a sanctuary so that “I may dwell among them”.  He had come to Jacob in a wrestling match, He’d come to Moses in a burning bush, and now, He would not just come but He would dwell.  He wanted them to have access to Him like the original plan in the Garden.  

 However, being in His presence would demand Holiness.  He expected and demanded the best.  God is not a second thought.  He did not want leftovers.  He wanted the best of the best.  As I read about God dwelling with His people I realized that God dwells with me through Emmanuel, God With Us, The Indwelling nature of Christ.  The tabernacle was a predecessor to Christ Himself.  God longs to dwell with His people.  John 1:14- God became flesh and lived (or tabernacle) among us”.  He made that clear in the Old Testament through the Tabernacle, through the New Testament and History by sending His only Son to “tabernacle” with us and even to this day be sending us His Spirit to guide our daily lives.  He loves us and wants to dwell with us, His people.   So reading every detail about the Tabernacles layout seems tedious at first, until you think of it as God’s way to Himself, the precursor to Christ, and Israel’s access to the Great I AM.  Pretty awesome place.