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.