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Leviticus 26:12

I will walk among you and be your God, and you shall be My people.

Encouraging Words
In the beginning of mankind, God walked in the garden with His creation. He talked to them, fellowshipped with them, and they knew Him face to face. Then they rejected God by choosing to sin and that fellowship ended. In this verse, God promised the Israelites that if they would be obedient to Him again that He would walk among them again and call them His people. Unfortunately, they continued to reject Him until finally 2,000 years ago, He walked amongst us one more time. Jesus returned in His incarnate body and became God amongst us ushering in an entirely new covenant. Those of us who claim Him as our Lord and strive to be like Him and obey Him, are numbered amongst His people. Lord, Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner!

Exodus 36:3-5

They received from Moses all the offerings the children of Israel brought for all the works for making the holy place, and they continued bringing him freewill offerings every morning. Then all the wise men who were doing all the work of the holy place came, each according to the work he was doing, and they spoke to Moses, saying, “The people bring much more than enough for the work the Lord commanded us to do.”

Encouraging Words

Since God holds everything in creation in the palm of His hand and is the owner of all of it, He can distribute it as He sees fit. The people of Israel were asked to contribute to the building of the tabernacle. It was God’s will for this to be done. The Israelites submitted their wills to God and freely gave according to the request. Their will was in synergy with God’s will and great miracles abounded. So much was brought forth that the workers doing the building had to tell Moses to ask the people to stop giving. When we align our wills with God’s will, great things happen because He can use us fully to His Glory. Glory be to God in all things.

Exodus 34:14

(for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord God, a jealous name, is a jealous God),

Encouraging Words

How can our God who is sinless and passionless be given a characteristic such as being a jealous God? It is because human language is too constrained to be able to fully describe God. We are finite and limited in our ability to describe things and He is infinite and unlimited. So this is an attempt by the writer to describe God metaphorically so that we get the picture. This parenthetical verse falls in the middle of a passage where the second set of commandments written on stone tablets is given to the Israelites. These are to replace the ones destroyed by Moses when he found the people worshiping idols. The metaphor is that of a father who is jealous, or zealously protective, of his child who is making a wrong decision because he knows the consequences that they will suffer for their choices. This father wants his child to make the right choices so that they will be blessed in their consequences. This is how God is jealous for us so that we will remain close to Him and flee from idolatry. Glory be to God.

Exodus 19:5-6

“‘Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, you shall be a special people to Me above all nations; for all the earth is Mine. You shall be to Me a royal priesthood and a holy nation.’ These are the words you shall speak to the children of Israel.”

Personal Challenge

There is a price to pay for being counted amongst the royal priesthood and a holy nation. That price is obedience. We do not become a part of this royal priesthood by obeying the commands of God. We enter into His family through the work of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is our salvation and there is nothing that we can do to earn that salvation. However, once we are grafted into His vine, His family, it is up to us to listen to His voice, keep His commands, and become like Him. Our journey through life as Christians is not about just enjoying His grace but is also about becoming like Him. Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy!

Exodus 15:2

Exodus 8:11

But when Pharaoh saw there was relief, his heart was hardened; and he did not heed them, as the Lord said.

Personal Challenge

In Orthodoxy, we teach that God created us with a free will, the ability to choose and that He will never force us to do what is against our own will. So people will usually use the story of Pharoah to counter that teaching because the scriptures say that God hardened his heart. We must read the entire scriptures to understand the context. Pharoah’s heart was already hardened against Moses and the Jews. They were his slaves and he wanted to keep it that way. The Old Testament often uses phraseology that looks like God is doing something when it means that He is allowing something to be done. God allowed Pharoah to harden his heart even more towards Moses, the Jews, and ultimately against God. This was a choice that Pharoah made on His own. In this plague, Pharaoh pleaded with Moses to have his God remove it. He was beginning to see that the God of Moses was real and more powerful than all of the gods of Egypt. However, when the plague was removed, Pharaoh reneged on his deal and hardened his heart even more. He chose to do this. We must learn from that that we are respons­ible for our choices and actions aid that we should always be prayerfully seeking God’s will so that ours aligns with His. Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy!

Exodus 3:5

So He said, “Do not come any closer. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.”

Personal Challenge

Do we ever stop to consider that when we come before our God in worship or prayer that we are standing on holy ground? If we do, do we fall before Him in awe and reverence because He is our Holy God? Our practice of faith has become so casual, and we have relegated the Living God to be one of our peers when He is still our creator. Maybe it is time to take the shoes off of our feet when we approach our God and fall before Him before we start commanding Him to do what we want Him to do like some genie in a bottle. Maybe then we will just listen for His commandment instead. Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy!

Genesis 24:8

“And if the woman is not willing to follow you, then you will be released from this oath; only do not take my son back there.”

Encouraging Words

Well! That is an odd verse to choose for the verse of the day. Not if you have the rest of the story. Isaac has now grown to the age where it is time for him to consider marriage. Abraham has followed His God’s direction and sojourned to a foreign land. He believes it is important that Isaac marry one of their own people so he sends his servant back to their homeland to find a wife. He tells him that God will guide him and when he finds the lucky candidate he is to ask her to return with him to this unknown land, to an unknown people, and marry this unknown guy. We know what most of us today would say to a proposition like this. What is important in this verse is the last command that Abraham gives his servant. Under no means, force her to do this. He could have easily given the dowry to her father who would have they made her go. No! She is to come on her own free will. This is an image of how God treats each of us. He gives us opportunities and choices to make and lets us choose. So what happens next? Read the story to find out. It is all found in Genesis 24:1-67. Glory be to God!

Genesis 22:10-12

Then Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the Angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham! Abraham!” So he said, “Here I am.” He then replied, “Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him, for now I know you fear God, since for My sake you have not spared your beloved son.”

Personal Challenge

The story of Abraham and Isaac ends up at this pinnacle of God testing His faithful servant to see how far he will go for His God. His entire life, Abraham was promised by God to have enough offspring to fill the earth. And yet, he and Sarah did not have their son Isaac until they were in their early 100’s. Finally, an answered prayer. But then several years later, probably when Isaac was in his preteen years, God tells Abraham to go into the hills and offer his son as a sacrifice to God. Can you imagine the thoughts going through his head? And he does it, all the way to the point where Isaac is tied up, laying on the kindling for the fire, and hand-raised ready to plunge the knife into his son. But God interferes. Was this a test to satisfy God? Or was it a test for Abraham to find out just how far he would go far the love of his God? I believe it was the latter for God already knew how far Abraham would go, He just needed to help Abraham discover that. Isn’t that what our tests, trials, and tribulations in life are all about, opportunities for us to discover within ourselves just how far we are willing to go for our God? Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner!