Thanks for being a blessing!
Exodus Chapter 30.
Once again we see some specific details for specific tasks. I notice that everything is all about the Lord and all about holiness. As I face each and every day I always want to ask myself how will I make my new day all about the Lord? And how can I resist temptation so I can be holy before the Lord?
My “ah ha” verse
15 The rich are not to give more than a half shekel and the poor are not to give less when you make the offering to the Lord to atone for your lives.
It reminds me of a saying I heard one time .
Although some are better off , At the end of the game all the chess pieces go in the same box
Have a great day everyone
Even the smell had to be just right! I was thinking today about how certain odors can be picked up and carried with us wherever we go. Sometimes one wrong step and we might wish that we could have avoided something that we didn’t realize that we even stepped in until it was too late!
The question that I’m asking myself is this: Are people able to smell Jesus in my life or do I stink from my own selfishness?
Check out 2 Corinthians 2:14-16. “But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of Him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?”
God didn’t want the Hebrew leaders to count people – lest there be pride involved in the numbers – but He did let them count the offering which gave them the number. So it was a service related count not a body count. In the New Testament this “ransom of the soul” tax is known as the temple tax. Remember in 1 Chronicles 21, when David falls to the temptation to count his men – 70,000 people die from this sin. Pride is a dangerous thing and it is something the enemy loves to use against us.
We’ll learn more about all these pieces of furniture later on when the Hebrews actually build the tabernacle but it is interesting that the brass laver is the only piece of furniture that the dimensions aren’t given and there is no covering for travel. Some scholars think that the laver represents the refreshment and re-invigoration we receive from spending time in the Word – limitless, beyond measure, inexhaustible. They also refer to Psalm 119 (the longest chapter in the Bible) as the “love song of the laver” because the sole focus is the benefit and blessings of being in the Word. When we get to the chapter that explains where the brass comes from for the laver, this idea will make more sense.