His Treasured Possessions

LEARNING TO BELIEVE IN GOD'S VIEW OF ME. – DEUTERONOMY 7:6

Month: November 2014

Up On the Mountain – Exodus 25-27

November 22, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Fall Mountains

In the middle chapters of Exodus, God has rescued the people of Israel from their bondage in Egypt, He has miraculously delivered them out of the hands of the Egyptian army, and has now led them to Sinai, the mountain of God. This is their time of teaching; their time of waiting.

In chapter 20, God calls Moses up on the mountain and plans for all of the people of Israel to see Him in His cloud of glory and hear Him as He begins to give instructions. But the people get scared, I mean really, who wouldn’t be scared?

Exodus 20:18-19: “When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance and said to Moses, ‘Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.'”

The people seem perfectly content to have Moses go up on the mountain and talk to God for them. They even promise to listen to Moses and what he has to say when he returns.

In chapters 20-23, God gives Moses the laws that He wants the Israelites to follow. Chapter 25 begins the description of what God wants the Israelites to do for Him. He tells Moses that they are to build Him a sanctuary.

Exodus 25:8 “’Then have them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them. 9 Make this tabernacle and all its furnishings exactly like the pattern I will show you.'”

God had planned all along to dwell among them and now they needed a special place for God to be. It’s really easy to get overwhelmed in the details of this elaborate sanctuary. Even today as I was reading, there were a couple of times that I felt my eyes glaze over. God is so specific about types of wood, lengths, sizes, types of fabric, how they are fashioned, how they are embroidered, etc. It reads like a pretty uninteresting list and then I saw a verse that I thought I had already ready read.

Exodus 27: 8 “Make the altar hollow, out of boards. It is to be made just as you were shown on the mountain.”

As I looked through the passage I realized that I had read this, but not because I was reading the same verse over and over.

Exodus 25:40 “See that you make them according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.”

Exodus 26:30 “Set up the tabernacle according to the plan shown you on the mountain.”

Three times God says do it just like I showed you on the mountain. I tell my 5th graders that when God repeats something it must be really important, so I started wondering what is God trying to tell me here?

You should also know that I have been on a Steven Curtis Chapman kick for the last couple of weeks. I have been constantly listening to all of his albums, some of which I haven’t listened to in a very long time. So don’t be surprised when I tell you that as I read these verses in the Bible, his song “The Mountain” started playing in my head over and over again.

“You bring me up here on the mountain
For me to rest and learn and grow
I see the truth up on the mountain
And I carry it to the world far below

So as I go down to the valley knowing that You will go with me
This is my prayer, Lord, help me to remember what you showed me
Up on the mountain, up on the mountain”

God reminded Moses over and over again to remember to do things the way God showed him while he was up on the mountain and Steven sings about all he learns up on the mountain and how his prayer is to remember what God showed him on the mountain when it’s time to go down to the valley.

We don’t like valleys. Well really I can only say, I don’t like valleys. I assume no one else really does either. I just finished reading the book “The Life You’ve Always Wanted” and doing the study that goes along with it. In the last video as John Ortberg discusses suffering he says, “No one ever asks, ‘May I have a problem, please?’” Of course, everyone chuckled because we know it’s true. And yet, we all know that our best spiritual growth happens through our suffering. We’ll deal with suffering when it comes, we’ll try to recognize that God allows suffering to help us to grow and draw us closer to Him, but we certainly don’t want to ask for it.

After reading this passage, though, I wonder if there is another option for growth for us. Moses is up on the mountain of God, with God. He is alone in the cloud that is God’s glory talking with the Almighty. What an incredible experience that must have been! Moses didn’t have to worry about a thing. He was with God. He knew that God would take care of everything. He was free to rest and enjoy his time alone with the Father.

As a tween and teen I used to love time alone with my Daddy although it wasn’t often restful. We did projects together. Well, he did projects and I helped. He bought a new house when I was in the 10th grade and we installed ceiling fans and new multi switch outlets in every room (“We must have a separate switch for the light and the fan!”). We put a floor in the attic that was over the garage and then added shelving and storage (it was an awesome attic). We installed a pull down ladder to make entry into the attic easier. We wired the garage for an electric garage door opener. One day, after we finished our projects, Daddy looked at me and said, “I feel sorry for the poor guy you marry because you’re going to know how to do all of this stuff better than he does.” It made me laugh, and sometimes it turns out to be true… 😉

To me though, the important thing wasn’t doing work with Daddy. I loved spending time with him. He would talk to me while we were working and tell me stories and explain how things worked and why. There was a lot of love in those times as well as the blood and sweat. So I can relate a very little bit to how Moses might have been feeling. He was up on the mountain with his Daddy. And just like my Daddy told me that I would remember how to do all of this stuff, God told Moses to remember what He told Moses on the mountain.

What if mountain top experiences are also supposed to be times of learning and teaching? What if sometimes God has mercy on us and allows us to sit in His presence and absorb all we can from Him where it is pleasant and comfortable? What if God is strengthening us on the mountain; giving us strength and wisdom so that we can face our next period of suffering in a better, more godly way. “See that you make them according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.”

The pastor at the church I grew up in had a plaque in his office that read, “Never forget in the darkness the promises God gave you in the light.” Maybe, for our purposes, we could alter that a little bit and say, “Never forget in the valley, the promises God gave you on the mountain.” It doesn’t flow as well on the tongue, but the meaning is the same.

I think I am going to pay more attention when I am up on the mountain. I don’t just want to learn in the hard times, I want to learn in peace and comfort while I rest in God’s presence. I want to learn all that God has for me to learn on the mountain so that I can be strengthened and encouraged when I get to the valley; so that I can represent Him in a way that brings glory and honor to Him when I’m in the valley. And maybe, just maybe, that will make the times of suffering that will follow a bit smoother.

What about you? Do you have a mountain top experience you’d like to share? What does God want you to remember from what He showed you on the mountain?

New Thoughts on an Old Passage – Exodus 20

November 15, 2014 / / 0 Comments

A funny thing happens when I ask God to show me something new in the scriptures: He does!! Why am I always surprised by that? I usually pray before I start studying because I know I can never get full benefit without God’s guidance, but this day, on a lark I asked God to show me something new. I was working on my BSF (Bible Study Fellowship) lesson and the passage was Exodus 20: The Ten Commandments. This is a really familiar passage and it’s way too easy to read over the verses instead of really reading them.

Many of us can remember these words, if not all of them, at least parts of them. God tells them, “I am the Lord your God… You shall have no other gods before me.” (vs 2-3). He continues to tell the Israelites and us that we are not to make idols or worship them (4-5), we are not to misuse the name of the Lord our God (ouch! Probably the one I struggle with the most.) (7), and we are to remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. These are the commands that define our relationship with Him. Then God talks about the things that should define our relationships with others. We are to honor our parents (12), no murdering (13), no adultery (14), no stealing (15), no lying (16), and no coveting (17).

It was as I read the very last question in my lesson that I had my new thought. “What have you learned about God in this week’s study?” My first thought was similar to the fourth graders I taught in Sunday School a couple of years ago. I was substituting for their regular teacher and the lesson was all about Jesus. One of the opening questions was something like, What new thing do you want to learn about Jesus today? A couple of the kids, my son included, replied with answers that indicated they already knew everything about Jesus. They had been studying Jesus for years so there couldn’t be anything more to learn. Oh, to be 10 again…  Yet I do the same thing! “What have you learned about God in this week’s study?” My first thought was “these verses are so familiar, what new thing can I learn about God from this?” So much for being more mature than my son…

I have understood for awhile that everything God does is centered around offering and building a relationship with His people. Sometimes it is so hard to get my head around the fact that God desires a close relationship with me! It’s true, though. God went to great lengths to make relationship with Him possible and He desires us to choose to enter that relationship. So here’s the new thought He gave me: God does desire relationship with us, but that relationship must be on His terms. God will not let any part of the relationship be contaminated by things that go against His nature. I’ve known this in some form for a long time, but it seemed new and different to me today.

God lays it out so specifically. “You shall have no other gods before me.” He commands that we not make any idols, no images in any form, and that we not worship them. He also says we are not to misuse his name. I confess that I am not as big of a fan of the wording in the most recent NIV translation. When I was a kid, we memorized “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.” Since I didn’t really even know what that meant, I was good to go. Clarifying that terminology into “misusing His name” means that it stings every time I hear myself say, “Oh Lord”…

My point is that there is no negotiation here. These things are what we must do if we want to walk closely with God. If we try to be any other way and if He were to accept it, then His nature and His character would be forever changed. God loves us far more than we can ever comprehend, but He will not change for us. We must change for Him. As I pondered this I kept asking myself, what about me? Have I ever allowed my character to be altered within or because of a relationship? Well actually, yes; many times.

I have a close friend that I used to spend a lot of time with. She likes all things new and popular. She likes current fashion, current popular music, current popular trends, you get the idea. It’s not a bad thing, that is just very much her. I, on the other hand, still very much enjoy my favorite tunes from the 80’s, I often don’t pay much attention to current trends, I don’t tend to do a lot of clothes shopping (though I do enjoy shoes…), etc. I don’t want to be antiquated and out of the loop, but I’m not cutting edge either. In time, life and circumstance happened and now we don’t spend a lot of time together. We are still good friends, but that one on one time together isn’t there anymore.

Upon reflection, here’s what I have noticed. When I was spending a lot of time with my friend, we did a lot of shopping. We spent a lot of time talking about current trends and watching “What Not to Wear” (which taken in proper context was very helpful to me). She helped my modernize my style because I hadn’t really gone shopping for clothes for myself in years (yes, years! What was I thinking???). I started to focus a lot on what I was wearing and how I looked and if this outfit really worked for me. I wanted to look good! I wanted to make my friend happy. She was helping me to look better on the outside and I really did look better, a lot better. I was, and still am, very grateful for her help and her honesty with me.

What I’ve noticed in our time apart is that I don’t focus as much on style (which may or may not also have to do with the fact that after convincing me that straight legs are good and tapered legs are bad, now they want me to wear skinny pants… Ummm, no…). I don’t go shopping as often as I used to (except maybe for shoes…), I don’t spend as much time planning out my outfits, I’ve even noticed that I don’t care as much what other people think about the way I dress. Again, I don’t want to dress in a way that is markedly outdated, but I don’t care about being on the cutting edge of fashion. I was spending a lot of time with my friend and so I was becoming more like her. Once our time together was reduced, I started being more like the way I was before.

As I thought about the requirements God laid down with the 10 Commandments, I realized that this story about my friend and me is a superficial example of how spending time with other people changes me and most of the time, I don’t even realize I have changed. God made us to love people and we often love the things our loved ones love. My friend loves to shop and she brings excitement and enthusiasm to the experience. I started loving to shop because shopping with her was fun. I was becoming more like her.

If it’s important to them, it becomes important to me. I don’t think that is an inherently bad thing, but I do think I need to be careful. If I become someone different from the person God created me to be because I am trying to fit in or have something in common with someone else, I am walking away from God. I think this is what God was trying to get me to recognize in this passage of scripture.

In my relationship with God, God is so adamant that He will not change (a very good thing), that He won’t even let me approach Him if I’m in a sinful, dirty state. That’s why I so desperately need Jesus. My faith in Christ means that Jesus’ blood covers my sin and I can again approach God. God is not changed and I am forgiven. But it doesn’t end there. As I walk with God, He changes me. He remakes me in His image. He transforms my heart and my life so that I more resemble the person He really created me to be. I want to make time alone with God a priority because I like the me I become when I am with Him. We really do become like the ones we spend the most time with and I want to become more like Jesus.

How about you? Do you have a story of how you have changed when spending time in the presence of God or other people? Who is it that you desire to be most like?

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