Skip to main content

 

At some point in life, most of us have had an internalized timeline determining when things should happen if not how they should happen. Our present day demands instant gratification, faster internet speeds, immediate downloads. To quote from an old movie, it's becoming ever-increasing that “Instant gratification takes too long.”
The people of God had heard God speak. They understood what He said because He used their language. When God speaks, He always speaks in a way that we can understand. That is why Eternal God, the Son, became incarnate; to show us Who God is in a way that we could comprehend.
So…after God speaks and they realize that had already been living contrary to what God made clear was the way they were to live in covenant with Him. The thing that is hard for us is that we think when God gives a command that He expects us to bare down and, by applied “white-knuckling it”, DO that He has commanded. But, inherent in every command of God is a promise. When God says, “You shall be holy as I am holy.” I have to humbly accept that if God doesn’t make that happen, it won’t happen. No one can redeem their own life. What is broken cannot fix itself. What is dead in incapable of changing its circumstance to any degree.
The 10 Commandments were given to describe prefect relational living with God and one another. What the people of Israel failed to see, as we often do, was that the God who rescued them knew and understood them and would provide the grace they needed to follow Him into life as it was meant to be known.
However, Moses was 40 days on the mountain getting God’s instructions for worship, living in community, how to build a structure where they would come to grow through worship in their relationship with God. When God introduced Himself, they saw no image. They saw power, but no discernable shape or form. They were accustomed to seeing images of the gods of Egypt: idols.
Still living with a slave mentality and the moral rectitude of feral rabbits, waiting for Moses became tiresome. We need to take a lesson here. When God’s timing is not the same as ours, we need to take care that, in our impatience, we try to make things work the way we always have tried to “make things work”. If we stopped and thought clearly for a minute, we’d stop, because trying on our own to make life work has never really worked.
It didn’t for Israel either. They demanded that Aaron make an image they could see, and thus have leverage with, to “represent” God. Aaron takes their gold, puts it in the fire and, as he told Moses later when confronted with his folly, “I put the gold in and out popped this bull!” Opis was the bull god of Egypt, a recognizable figure to the ex-slaves. God, however had told them not to make any graven image, any supposed representation of God, and certainly NOT to worship the work of their hands. They fell into demonic revelry and debauchery immediately. 3,000 died because of it. The wage that sin pays IS death.
When we look to anything or anyone else other that God to define our lives, worth, purpose or to be the source of satisfying human need, we have made an idol. It doesn’t even end well when we worship the work of our own finite, fallible and feeble hands.
Wait for God. Refuse to let impatience be the driving force in any life-decisions. Focus on seeking Him, not merely the answer you want from Him. Don’t be deceived. There is no other God, but Him. He’s never late. He just doesn’t derive His timetable from us.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

 James 1:5-8 " If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and He will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking.   But when you ask Him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind.   Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.   Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do." We must remember that God is never upset that we don't know or understand how to live out the New Life He has given to us. That Life is now being lived out in us by the Holy Spirit. This Life of the Kingdom is radically different that the life we are accustomed to living in concert with the world. One of the main marks of a true follower of Jesus Christ is that there is change and ongoing change in us by the Holy Spirit. We do not remain as we once were. The Holy Spirit is conforming us to the Image o...
 HEBREWS 10:1-2, 10-18 "The sacrifices under that system ( the Old Covenant) were repeated again and again, year after year, but they were never able to provide perfect cleansing for those who came to worship.   If they could have provided perfect cleansing, the sacrifices would have stopped, for the worshipers would have been purified once for all time, and their feelings of guilt would have disappeared.   For God’s will was for us to be made holy by the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all time.  Under the Old Covenant, the priest stands and ministers before the altar day after day, offering the same sacrifices again and again, which can never take away sins.   But our High Priest offered Himself to God as a single sacrifice for sins, good for all time. Then He sat down in the place of honor at God’s right hand.   There He waits until His enemies are humbled and made a footstool under His feet.   For by that one offering He forever m...
  OUT IN THE OPEN God has not hidden what He has done to redeem humanity. He offers us the only way of true repentance, faith, forgiveness of sin and a new life that is unending. Truth is, though, He never forces repentance, faith, forgiveness and a new life on anyone. He desires a relationship, not the programmed responses of humanoid AI. His love for us has exposed the utter ruin of humanity because of our rebellion and sin. He doesn’t want us to be deceived into thinking that at the end of our lives here on earth we will all get a “participation trophy”. We have all personalized and internalized our rebellion against God. Humanity’s rebellion against God can be shocking horror or the civilized folly or relying on our broken moral compass to bring ourselves back into a state of wholeness. We want to be the ground of truth. We want our emotions enshrined and worshipped by all. The root problem is that humanity is spiritually dead and separated from Life, Himself. Both pride and ho...