SCRIPTURE: Exodus 31
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. [Matthew 25:29]
God has not been stingy. He has given us (collectively) all that we need to fulfill His good purpose for our lives.
Our ‘poverty’ of spirit and life is not because He has failed to give us what we need, but because we have failed to receive it.
In Exodus 31, we see how God gives abilities to people to fulfill their task.
The abilities we have are an indication of what God wants us to do.
We also see how God blesses us with the gift of sabbath rest.
We are not to be mindless work machines, we are invited to enjoy this life with God in His world.
And we see the gift of God’s will, as seen in the two tablets written by the finger of God.
God has shown us what the right life, the good life, looks like.
And yet for some reason, we do not use our gifts, we do not enjoy God’s rest, we do not follow God’s will.
Though we have received in abundance, we live in poverty.
We are like the servant who wasted his ‘talent’ [Matthew 25:14-30].
We have failed to receive what was given to us, and now we lose that gift as well.
What do we see then?
We see people wasting their lives, their self-centered efforts amounting to nothing.
We see people working themselves to death for nothing.
In neglecting the sabbath rest, they neglect their souls.
We see people doing what seems right to them, choosing whatever seems pleasurable, and ending up in misery.
We have gifts (abilities), we have sabbath, we have an understanding of right and wrong – and yet we lose all of these things because we neglect them, we bury them.
We are not miserable because God has failed us, we are miserable because we have failed God, and ourselves, and others.
This is why this world is such a mess.
Self-centered living will always result in misery.
It may offer short-term gain, but it will always result in long-term pain.
Guaranteed.
Read Psalm 73.
If we neglect the gifts God has given us, we will lose what we have.
If we invest God’s gifts (abilities, rest, moral law) for God’s purposes, we will gain even more.
As Jesus says, we will experience the abundance of God beyond what we presently know!
PRAYER:
Lord, help me to see Your gifts to me, to appreciate them, and to use them for You and Your purpose.
God provides.
With the skilled craftsmen needed for the tabernacle God provided – by His Spirit, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills. He provided workers for the task to do as what was asked by the Lord. The Lord called His people to service and also gave the gifts so that they could serve in their calling. Called to serve the King.
And in that serving He also gave rest – a sabbath. The Sabbath was a reminder that God is the Provider and that He is Lord and that it is He who makes all things a possibility. The covenant of the law was written upon tablets of stone by His finger to show permanence but it also reminds me of the hearts of stone the Bible talks about – people who go their own way and break covenant.
I am a servant in His garden working for my Master obeying His Word which needs to be written upon my heart – not of stone by a heart redeemed, renewed by His blood, lead by His Spirit, working out of His Word each day. Help me to be GodStrong. SpiritLed. Obedient and a faithful servant this day You have made, using the gifts You have given for Your praises.
This is my Father’s world, and to my listening ears
All nature sings, and round me rings the music of the spheres.
This is my Father’s world: I rest me in the thought
Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas;
His hand the wonders wrought.