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 GOD DWELLING IN AND AMONG US

In the Old Testament we are shown the infinitesimal details of how God wanted the Tabernacle to be built. In Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers we are shown overwhelming details on the construction and utilization of the Tabernacle. 

That Tabernacle was a tangible sign to God's people that He was going to dwell with them. He had chosen them to live in His Presence, not as some religious addendum to life, but as the very ground as essence of life itself. That's what it meant to be God's own people.

The Tabernacle was ordered and precise, exact and beautiful, holy because His Presence with them was the very thing that made them holy, set apart to know and be filled with the Life of God.

He would make them holy so that in all the detail and liturgical precision of the worship He was calling them into, they would know that their life was grounded ONLY in Who God is. Life could only be what God intended for us to know. The Tabernacle was a tangible means whereby they would come to stand in awe that the Holy One, Eternal God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit and be transformed by Him in fellowship with Him.

All this was from God and by God. They didn't "invent" any of it, not even the slightest detail. They could have never "made up" any of what the Lord called them into. God alone would transform their whole lives, turning them from the death of self-reliance and bringing them into His own Eternal Life.

Life lived in and by God's Word was never meant to be something like a religious "lapel-pin" but an all-consuming, all focused life lived in the fellowship of the God who created us for Himself. He is the only source of wholeness for human living.

He is the Lord of life; we are not and can never be. It is beyond humanity to devise such a life because it is one of utter dependance upon God and God alone. Thank you, Lord Jesus!

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