January 24, 2011 - Fear, The Catalyst For Obedience
I was reading along in this chapter thinking to myself how God orchestrates His plans and then realized that the people were fearful of those whom they lived around so they began to do what was written as rules by Moses.
They set the altar in its place, for fear was on them because of the peoples of the lands, and they offered burnt offerings on it to the LORD, burnt offerings morning and evening. And they kept the Feast of Booths, as it is written, and offered the daily burnt offerings by number according to the rule, as each day required, and after that the regular burnt offerings, the offerings at the new moon and at all the appointed feasts of the LORD, and the offerings of everyone who made a freewill offering to the LORD. Ezra 3:3-5 (ESV)
We are no different are we? Things get scary, and we start to pray more and attend more church services or whatever else we think is necessary for God's approval and therefore answered prayer. For the Israelites, that was what God asked of them. It showed allegiance to Him and proved to them that they were in fact following God. That was in essence the Old Covenant, right? We have a new one. Ours shows that all of the regulations could not be maintained by humans and shows us how that kind of righteousness is fallible. It had to be, how else would we understand the importance of Christ's sacrifice? They had a different deal with God than we do. He didn't really change the deal for us, He just revealed how there are really two parts of one deal. Without both parts of the deal there is no understanding of the plan. I am really just processing out loud here and don’t expect a soul to get what I am babbling about. I am just at that point where you can't quite put into words what you are beginning to understand. So for that I apologize. Never-the-less, getting back to this chapter...when the foundation was laid they sang and the sound of their joy was heard from far away. Our part of the deal reveals that the foundation is Christ. We should let our joyfulness be heard from far away. Let me say one more thing, the joy they had was simply praising God, not going from house to house giving out a tract.
Oh give thanks to the LORD; call upon his name; make known his deeds among the peoples! Psalm 105:1 (ESV) It might interest you to do a study on "make known" which in my book is what we living in the new deal like to call witnessing.
New Mail Art Idea…I have decided to send my grandfather a couple of art mail notes a month. Here are the first two:
I forgot to scan the inside it had a tiny picture in the flap of seashells. I sealed it with sealing wax before sending it:
This accordion folds out. The lines on the second image is sun light through the blinds.
