Thanksgiving in the Bible

Thanksgiving in the Bible

While studying Exodus 34 I found it curious there were 3 feasts that God wants his people to always keep. The first one is in verse 18 and it is Passover and the feast of unleavened bread. This was when the Lord saved them from Egypt and when Jesus died to save everyone. This changed the calendar for God’s people and represents the start of a new life. This is our modern day Easter. Abib is April.

Exodus 34:18 "You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month Abib, for in the month Abib you came out from Egypt.

The second one is the feast of weeks. It is 7 weeks after they left Egypt. It is when they got to Mount Sinai and received the law and God’s spirit to lead them. That is where the tabernacle was established. The modern version of this was Pentecost. Pentecost means 50 days. The disciples received the spirit to lead, teach and guide them 50 days after Christ died in that upper room. They then preached and started our church as we know it.

Exodus 34:22 You shall observe the Feast of Weeks, the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the year’s end.

The 3rd one is the one I want to talk about as it is our modern Thanksgiving. As you can see below it is in the seventh month. Seeing how their year started in April that would make October their seventh month. Pretty Close! The most important part is what it was for. It was at the end of their harvest season and was a feast to give thanks to the true bringer of the harvest. It was better known as the feast of booths as explained below. This was so we would always remember we are pilgrims on a journey through a land that is not our final destination. The booths were temporary and mobile so they could easily move when God said to.

Leviticus 23:39Also in the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when ye have gathered in the fruit of the land, ye shall keep a feast unto the LORD seven days: on the first day shall be a sabbath, and on the eighth day shall be a sabbath. 40And ye shall take you on the first day the boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and the boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook; and ye shall rejoice before the LORD your God seven days.
41And ye shall keep it a feast unto the LORD seven days in the year. It shall be a statute for ever in your generations: ye shall celebrate it in the seventh month.
42Ye shall dwell in booths seven days; all that are Israelites born shall dwell in booths:
43That your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.

The following are some verses that show who we should remember we are the foreigners in this world. We should not as easily set our roots in this world as we do.

Hebrews 11:8By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. 9By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: 10For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.

Exodus 6:4 And I have also established my covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, wherein they were strangers.

I think this one says it the best so I highlighted verses 15 and 16.

1 Chronicles 29:13And now we thank you, our God, and praise your glorious name. 14"But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able thus to offer willingly? For all things come from you, and of your own have we given you. 15 For we are strangers before you and sojourners, as all our fathers were. Our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is no abiding. 16O LORD our God, all this abundance that we have provided for building you a house for your holy name comes from your hand and is all your own.

Peter leaves us with our lifelong struggle. To abstain from the selfish desires of this world that war against our soul. Our soul wants what God wants and deep down knows this is a temporary world. When we fill ourselves with temporary lusts and desires our true soul knows it will never be enough to satisfy. Thus the war. It is a war we can’t win either.

1 Peter 2: 11 Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;

I believe we would be more thankful if we truly see ourselves as foreigners in this world. Just travelling through on our way to our promised land of heaven. In Nehemiah they remember and celebrate the feast of booths. This is also one of the revivals in the bible.

Nehemiah 8:1 And all the people gathered as one man into the square before the Water Gate. And they told Ezra the scribe to bring the Book of the Law of Moses that the LORD had commanded Israel. 2So Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could understand what they heard, on the first day of the seventh month.

Now this is a real day of thanksgiving!!

Nehemiah 9:1 Now on the twenty-fourth day of this month the people of Israel were assembled with fasting and in sackcloth, and with earth on their heads. 2 And the Israelites separated themselves from all foreigners and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers. 3 And they stood up in their place and read from the Book of the Law of the LORD their God for a quarter of the day; for another quarter of it they made confession and worshiped the LORD their God.

Focus on all that God had already done. They were giving thanks for this. I can’t find one this they asked for. They were simply thankful for past and present with no regards to the future. I am highlighting all the things that God did for them.

6 "You are the LORD, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; God created all, and you preserve all of them; he protects, and the host of heaven worships you. Notice that the angels worship him for this. 7You are the LORD, the God who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans and gave him the name Abraham. God changes people. 8 You found his heart faithful before you, God chose him because he saw his heart, and made with him the covenant to give to his offspring the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Jebusite, and the Girgashite. And you have kept your promise, for you are righteous. God promised them a land that would be theirs permanently. This was a reference to heaven. He keeps his promises because he is righteous. Our life on earth is just that long journey the Israelite’s took to get there.

9 "And you saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt and heard their cry at the Red Sea, 10 and performed signs and wonders against Pharaoh and all his servants and all the people of his land, for you knew that they acted arrogantly against our fathers. God knows when you are hurting before you ever say a word, but when his people truly cry out to him he will hear them and he can fix problems we can’t image can be fixed. And you made a name for yourself, as it is to this day. 11 And you divided the sea before them, so that they went through the midst of the sea on dry land, and you cast their pursuers into the depths, as a stone into mighty waters. He does these things to show he is the only place to find rescue and safety. Some think it seems harsh sometimes, but remember he knows hearts and we can choose him at any time. 12By a pillar of cloud you led them in the day, and by a pillar of fire in the night to light for them the way in which they should go. He gave us his spirit to lead us. 13 You came down on Mount Sinai and spoke with them from heaven and gave them right rules and true laws, good statutes and commandments, 14 and you made known to them your holy Sabbath and commanded them commandments and statutes and a law by Moses your servant. 15 You gave them bread from heaven for their hunger and brought water for them out of the rock for their thirst, and you told them to go in to possess the land that you had sworn to give them. All of these are things Jesus did for us. He came down, spoke to us, gave us the right rules of acting like him, made known he is the Sabbath and our rest, gave us the bread and water of life. Told us to come and possess this life he freely offers.

All this is amazing!!! God does everything, but look at how we show thanks.

16"But they and our fathers acted presumptuously and stiffened their neck and did not obey your commandments. 17They refused to obey and were not mindful of the wonders that you performed among them, but they stiffened their neck and appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt. After all God does for us we stubbornly refuse to do what he asks. We forget to give thanks for his blessings and miracles. We even go out of our way to find people to lead us back to the slavery we once cried out to be rescued from. We are terrible and foolish people. Now back to more things to thank God for even when we twist all his blessings and his word into whatever we see fit or make us feel good about ourselves. But you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and did not forsake them. 18Even when they had made for themselves a golden calf and said, 'This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt, and had committed great blasphemies, 19you in your great mercies did not forsake them in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud to lead them in the way did not depart from them by day, nor the pillar of fire by night to light for them the way by which they should go. 20 You gave your good Spirit to instruct them and did not withhold your manna from their mouth and gave them water for their thirst. 21 Forty years you sustained them in the wilderness, and they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell. This sums up everything to me know. This is God’s definition of me lacking nothing. If I will focus on these and forget all the worldly things I wish God had promised but hasn’t and stop blaming him when I don’t get them I will be much more thankful. James 4:3 tells me that I get angry when I don’t have what we want because we ask for worldly things. He gives us guidance if we will look for it, food and water if we will accept them, clothes that never wore out if we will wear them and health if we will keep walking. That is all he thinks we need to LACK NOTHING. I think I should change me definition a little. How about you?

Keep reading Nehemiah 9. God keeps giving us more and we keep getting worse. He eventually has to start taking away. That should seem familiar right now. Our country and economy will get better when we obey God and are thankful of what he has already given us not what we think we deserve.

Luke10:2 And he said to them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. 3Go your way; behold, I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. 4 Carry no moneybag, no knapsack, no sandals, and greet no one on the road.

Luke 22:35 And he said to them, "When I sent you out with no moneybag or knapsack or sandals, did you lack anything?" They said, "Nothing." When the disciples were sent out on their journey they were told to take nothing and live on what God provided. No money and one set of clothes and no shoes. After they returned they agreed they lacked nothing.

Ecclesiastes 6:1 There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, and it lies heavy on mankind: 2a man to whom God gives wealth, possessions, and honor, so that he lacks nothing of all that he desires, yet God does not give him power to enjoy them, but a stranger enjoys them. This is vanity; it is a grievous evil. This is written by the one person that was given every desire of this heart so he could explain this to us. Everything on this plant is useless with the power to enjoy it. That is only granted by God and through our obedience.

7 All the toil of man is for his mouth, yet his appetite is not satisfied. I always need more and more because my selfish side can never be satisfied. This is the birthplace of all addictions. We just have to do something more and more and it will never be enough. This is why it enslaves us. I can choose to thank him for what he gives and stop it at any time though. When I am content with him he gives me the peace and joy we are all searching for.

Philippians 4:11 Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. 12I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. 13I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Look at what Jesus explained as blessed in his first sermon. His first lesson was about what it meant to be blessed and I am ashamed to say I do not always feel these are the blessings I strive for.

Matthew 5:1 Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying: 3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4"Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. 5"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. 6"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. 7"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. 8"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. 9"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. 10 "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 "Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Our reward is in heaven because this is only temporary. This is the whole lesson of living in booths. They are just a temporary home. We will get our real one later. If I will really and truly believe and live this I will be more thankful every day of my life. We do have to live here for a while so I think shall be my new prayer.

Proverbs 30:7Two things I ask of you; deny them not to me before I die: 8Remove far from me falsehood and lying; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, 9lest I be full and deny you and say "Who is the LORD?" or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God.

Bez

I love you cause Jesus loves us both and there
is absolutely nothing you can do about that!

Exodus 34

Moses Makes New Tablets

1The LORD said to Moses, "Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. Cut for yourself. We have an active part in this and those commandments are for us, for our benefit. He will write the exact same things on them even though we broke them. His word never changes no matter how big of a temper tantrum we pitch or what our opinion of his word is. Is it not sad that he had to do this again? We broke the first set, not him and it wasn’t part of his plan, but he is amazingly faithful with a flawed and stubborn people, but we have to get back to obeying him. He didn’t make us this way, we did. I sure am glad he sticks with us even after we do awful things like taking his laws and smashing them on the ground! Don’t we all do that too often the second we get upset about something?

2Be ready by the morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself there to me on the top of the mountain. Be ready! We are asked repeatedly in the New Testament to be ready for lots of stuff. Ready to give a defense, ready for him to return, ready for struggle, being ready to do whatever he says is the point. Present yourself is another active part we must do. It is a popular topic as well because all revivals call for cleansing or purifying yourselves because we have become unclean. We must stay as presentable as possible so we are ready. They go together.

3No one shall come up with you, and let no one be seen throughout all the mountain. Let no flocks or herds graze opposite that mountain." He asked Moses to come and come alone. No one else at this time was presentable, this goes for them and their possessions. Is your heart presentable now? I am talking about being able to stand before Him. There were many believers that were not allowed fellowship because of being unpresentable. Things are no different today. Are you worthy of fellowship?

4So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the first. And he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him, and took in his hand two tablets of stone. 5The LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. He did exactly and only what God said. Very important and things are never debatable with God. We are asked to obey what he says and only what he says but all of it as well. Zero tolerance policy. Anything other than that is sin and breaks fellowship. Only then did His presence descend to fellowship with Moses. If Moses did it wrong or his own way it wouldn’t have. That simple! It is all about obedience. Then you will hear from the Lord!

6The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, "The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” Just like the end of Exodus 33:22 God passed Jesus before Moses and he spoke to him. This happened to Elijah on a mountain when he needed it most as well 1 kings 19:11-18.

Listen, we have ran God off from the start and it is amazing to me that He loves us enough to have set up Jesus as our way to have this fellowship we always ruin. What is crazy to me is how Moses didn’t know the name Jesus yet, but he sure had a better knowledge of his Christ than us and all this before he actually came and died for us. That is some real Faith! This is mentioned many times in the New Testament and even by Jesus himself.

Luke 24:44 Then he said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled."

John 1:45 Philip found Nathanael and said to him, "We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.

John 5:46 For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me.

I was very drawn by the attributes proclaimed to Moses. These are repeated over and over in the Bible so I spent more time than usual researching these. I am not a big fan of going crazy with Greek/Hebrew word studies, but it pulled together things God had been showing me just through regular reading and all the verses on a topic explaining each other. If we can get these attributes coming out of our lives thru more obedience, and therefore more fellowship with God, I don’t believe we grasp how we can be used to change what seems to be unchangeable. The key is letting his word teach us what is expected.

Merciful – root word mercy is (to fondle) – to love on. Merciful = full of being loved on. This is the only thing that we all really want from anyone so this is true life in the Bible which can be eternal and earthly life. Being loved on by God is our life and comes from Jesus and has always been that way. Merciful = full of life because that is what Christ’s love gives us! Without his love we are dead! Must keep obeying to stay in His love so if we don’t we will still be saved but dead men walking on Earth! John 15:9-11 explains this and that it is how our joy is made full. There are 262 KJV verses with the word mercy in them and if you think of our only way to any real life is through this mercy it sure makes sense and something we should do anything to get and to keep. All about the LOVE!

Gracious – root word grace is (to bend or stoop in kindness to an inferior). Grace is for God to grant any fellowship with us. I mean any. We are never deserving of it but He set up a way for us to find favor and have this fellowship. The way is Jesus. 1st gracious act was God even creating us to have fellowship with Him. We could have chosen the tree of life (Jesus) and had this fellowship forever. We chose selfishly instead. Exodus is about him trying to restore fellowship by saving us from slavery in Egypt. This was to point us toward our need of being rescued by Christ. We then chose to worship a man made baby cow. Seriously! He gave us the tabernacle so at least His presence could go with us. This was pointing to the fellowship we have through the spirit now. 2nd gift of His fellowship/grace was by sending His son Jesus to actually walk around with us wicked people. He mercifully allowed us to kill him and He raised him 3 days later. If we believe and confess this (Romans 10:9-11) we have fellowship through Jesus Christ. Then God went even further and put His spirit in us to give us the best hope of obeying and staying in fellowship on Earth. 3rd is if we truly accept this gift we will have fellowship with God the father restored in Heaven when Jesus returns and nothing can stop this one! The tree of life (Jesus) will be in the center of the new heaven just like in the garden. Full circle and the way to have fellowship with God has and always will be about choosing Jesus and we have never deserved any of them. People get caught up with stuff like did God put us here knowing we would sin? What they really want is someone to blame. All I know is God gave us a way to keep fellowship in the garden and we blew it! 1 Cor. 10:13 says there are no new temptations and He never gives us anything we can’t handle. We have always had the opportunity to choose Jesus! The gracious part is we always blow it and Jesus can always fix it!

Slow (to make long, defer, draw out, lengthen, tarry) to anger (breathing hard and flaring of his nostrils due to being enraged). Longsuffering is used in the KJV and it hit me extremely hard. He (suffers long) to (patiently) give unbelievers the greatest opportunity to choose to experience these wonderful qualities He is proclaiming through Jesus. He suffers mostly because his people refuse to obey and to share these things with a lost and dying world. What literally broke me into tears was that God is always suffering. Listen up, what makes Him different is how He perfectly handles His displeasure with us all and gives more grace and mercy. We want to debate that He doesn’t even get angry at us anymore. So wrong! We just can’t fathom how much suffering God allows himself to go through because of our stubborn selfishness. Remember God actually had to break all personal fellowship or He would be forced to kill us. Do we really understand what Jesus suffered also for us to get this fellowship back? We don’t seem to or we would obey better!

Abundant (increase by multiplying) in steadfast love (KJV uses goodness) (loving kindness) and truth (sureness of stability) (faithfulness) keeping (preserving) mercy (love/life) for thousands (Deut. 7:9 says a thousand generations) forgiving (to lift, bear up, carry, take) (these all make me thing of him carrying my cross) iniquity (perversion of the truth) and transgressions (stubborn disobedience even with understanding of it being wrong) and sin (missing the mark which is Jesus’ perfect obedience) and will BY NO MEANS clear the guilty (He is just!) (if you have not accepted Jesus as your only salvation you will not be forgiven and will pay for your sins by being sent to Hell instead of Heaven for eternity) (if you have accepted Jesus you will still be punished for all sin Exodus 32:34-35) (Deut. 7:10 says he repays them to their face) we should all fear that, but as believers we can never have Heaven taken away from us Romans 8:31-39. That is more than amazing to me because I can still be pretty awful! If I ever have any children I am sure they will thank the Lord my sins are no longer carried over to them though. Ezekiel 18 explains this. Life on Earth can be made harder for my children due to my poor choices, but eternal salvation is an individual issue. At any given time any of us can repent and we are forgiven. It’s all up to us!

8And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. 9And he said, "If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, please let the Lord go in the midst of us, for it is a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance." It never fails that once presented with a perfect, holy and just Lord (Jesus) everyone quickly bows and worships. Please, Please, Please start to understand this because once we see ourselves compared to the smallest glimpse of true holiness we fear for our very life and can’t look at it. I promise we will all get this sooner or later! Why is it normal to expect to do this in heaven, after we get rid of our sinful flesh, in the sight of all and for eternity, but is never really acceptable or felt needed now? We will have a new sinless body then and will never stop getting on our face and worshiping. We need to realize how big of a sinner we still are and how unholy that makes us. It should compel us to get on our face and stop sinning!

Moses’ greatest quality that truly found favor with God is how even after he does everything as God asks he is always humble, like falling on his face, and never assuming. He is even begging “If now I have found favor” “please”. He knew he did exactly what he was asked, but still not demanding. It is one thing to obey and God grant us fellowship as he promises. It is another to believe we deserve anything no matter how well we do. Cause we don’t! I am afraid I usually expect and even demand an awful lot of favor for obeying much worse than Moses. Also, I have to remember to put myself in Moses’ shoes. He was humble because it is hard to do exactly what God asks and he wanted to do it correctly. I believe I forget I am reading the finished result. Hind sight is 20/20. It is to teach me how to follow the good examples and avoid repeating the bad ones and I still suck at it! Moses was obeying by faith and faith alone. He did not have this book to go by. Pretty impressive! If you are thinking, “well I would sure do better if God was telling me exactly what to do”, guess what? He is! It’s why God had Moses right it all down exactly how He said it!

What he asked for is the second amazing thing. He only asked for fellowship with God and that God would continue to forgive all their sins. Look, if you have received Christ then you are forgiven and are going to heaven and nothing can change that, but that does not mean you don’t sin as much or more than before if you are not careful 2 Peter 2:20-21 and doesn’t mean you have daily fellowship with God guaranteed. Moses got to be in His presence only because he was humble and in favor with God by obeying. If you aren’t his spirit is only asking you to repent. He is always there, but isn’t God’s fellowship better than His conviction? This is also an example of how Moses acted as intercessor like Christ. Great thing for us is we have a perfect intercessor now! Not to down play Moses, but he was just a man. He doesn’t compare to Jesus.

The Covenant Renewed

10And he said, "Behold, I am making a covenant. Before all your people I will do marvels, such as have not been created in all the earth or in any nation. And all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the LORD, for it is an awesome thing that I will do with you. This gets me exited! He did the greatest thing ever with these people by sending His son through them. Nothing greater before and nothing after and that is to be terrifying and awesome! No marvel or blessing he will ever bestow upon his people while on Earth will hold a candle to what He did through His Son for His people!

11"Observe what I command you this day. Behold, I will drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Listen, so we know what to obey and He will go before us. This is always a promise. This was a pretty awesome thing he did also, but still ain’t better that Jesus!

12 Take care, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you go, lest it become a snare in your midst. 13You shall tear down their altars and break their pillars and cut down their Asherim 14(for you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God), 15 lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and when they whore after their gods and sacrifice to their gods and you are invited, you eat of his sacrifice, 16and you take of their daughters for your sons, and their daughters whore after their gods and make your sons whore after their gods.

Be careful so we are not dragged back into the things of this world. We can’t sow His seed among thorns and not expect worldly desire to kill us Matthew 13:22, Mark 4:18-19, Luke 8:14. Making a covenant or making a deal with people other than God’s people. Anything that is not about God is about this world. AND WRONG!!! James 4:4 says any friendship with this world is hostility towards God! I am not sure a lot of Christians even believe this with as many of the misleading teachings that I hear about. Many believe if you have Jesus you can’t turn back to sin like that. They understand nothing of our sinful nature. Jesus says the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak in Matthew 26:41. It isn’t any different after Christ suffered the cross and we received the spirit permanently. Romans 7:15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Galatians 5:16-18 say the same thing. The rest of Romans 7 is pretty good too! Folks listen up, Paul said all this about himself and we are nowhere near Paul’s faith. James 4:1 and 8 speak of being double spirited. You can be saved and if you start choosing the world it will only increase unless you stop it. You need to destroy sin, worldly things, our fleshly desires, 1 John 2:15-17 says this best and this is not to be taken lightly. This is what revival is all about! If you leave something small it will turn into something big. Once you start repenting don’t stop. Clean house Baby! Matthew 12:43-45 and Luke 11:24-26 show you better keep yourself clean! There are always things we need to remove or get better at. Always! It is a life or death problem. I never really took it that seriously. Why do we need to be so serious? Am I being too tough? NO! Jonah warned Nineveh and they chose to repent and were saved. They lived. Nahum warned Nineveh again about 100 years later and they ignored him and chose death. Guess what? God gave them death! If we put anything before Him, He gets jealous! Yes, God gets jealous. “I am a jealous God” he says. This is how many times he calls himself jealous, Exodus 20:5 and 34:14, Duet. 5:9, 6:14, 29:20 and 32:16, Joshua 24:19, 1 Kings 14:22, Psalm 78:58 and 79:5, Ezekiel 8:3 and 5, Ezekiel 16:38 and 42, 23:25, 36:5 and 6 and 38:19, Nahum 1:2, Zephaniah 1:18 and 3:8, Zech. 1:14 and 8:2, 1 Cor. 10:22 and 2 Cor. 11:2. God repeats things that are important! You can try to talk yourself and everyone else into thinking “God is above being jealous” that is not something God would be, because I am not even jealous. Guess what? One of you is a liar! He wrote this book and He says He is a jealous God! Because he made us and sent His son to save us from a problem we created and greatest of all He puts his spirit in us to help us be more like his son and when we don’t obey He feels we have cheated on Him as a unfaithful spouse. It makes us a whore! It angers Him! This didn’t change when Jesus came either. Paul asks the church of Corinth if it is wise to provoke the lord to jealousy? 1 Corinthians 10:22 You better concentrate on how forgiving He is and how long suffering He is because we deserve real death when we even think about worldly stuff. He has done everything for us and we don’t care! He should be jealous! What is awesome is God acts exactly how He promises so keep thinking He doesn’t and call Him a liar and see how that works for you! If you are blameless of any worldly desires, ignore all of this and keep lying to yourself. If you are guilty like I am far too often, He is angry and we need to say we are sorry and stop it. The most amazing part is God also promises He will forgive us if we really mean it.

17 "You shall not make for yourself any gods of cast metal. If we can make it of our own power it is not worthy of worship. We worship the creator, not what we can create. Romans 1:25 is still explaining this. God created everything and is the only thing worthy of worship. Do we really understand how far reaching this one is? It isn’t limiting it to a golden calf like many would love to think.

18-35 to follow soon.

I love you cause Jesus loves us both and there
is absolutely nothing you can do about that!

BEZ

Exodus 33

The Command to Leave Sinai

1The LORD said to Moses, "Depart; go up from here, you and the people whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, 'To your offspring I will give it.'
“Go” always starts with simply obeying God. Just like the first revival with Jacob in Genesis 35. They are back listening to the correct person. Following only God. They have a renewed hope of a better future thru being reminded of an old promise. Don’t we seem to forget we have a promised land waiting too?

2I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. He keeps his promise and sends the angel before them to clear the path. Also just like Genesis 35. He always keeps his promises!

3 Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people." Our pitiful faithfulness and stubborn disobedience finally forced him to break all fellowship on earth. People think that seems harsh, but God the Father gets jealous when he goes to all this effort for us and we just keep disobeying. In the last chapter we saw what happens when he gets jealous. This was an act of Mercy to break fellowship and not kill everyone. First off, he cannot and will not have his holiness tainted with our lack of it. He did this because he loved us and promised our fathers. If he had not broken fellowship, he would have been forced to destroy us. Actually we would have killed ourselves. If someone said don’t poke yourself in the eye with that stick or you will go blind, how many times before you catch on? Well I did it twice and I did not go blind! Then why would you get mad at them when it blinded you the next time? They were just trying to save you the pain, but you did it to yourself! God the Father is no different now. He never changes. If he spent one minute with us now he could not take it! We just have a better intercessor in Christ!

4When the people heard this disastrous word, they mourned, and no one put on his ornaments. 5For the LORD had said to Moses, "Say to the people of Israel, 'You are a stiff-necked people; if for a single moment I should go up among you, I would consume you. So now take off your ornaments, that I may know what to do with you.'" 6Therefore the people of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments, from Mount Horeb onward. Too often we do not realize the consequences of our actions until it is too late. Don’t put yourself in this situation. Turn back and ask for forgiveness. He is always waiting. He promises that! You know when it is too late? When we give up. He keeps asking until we have said no to him so many times we harden our hearts to the point of quitting for good. Never turning back like Israel.

Listen up! God not going with us on our daily walk should be the worst thing that can possibly happen to us! I learned this lesson the hard way. Within a couple months I had the two most important people on Earth tell me that they did not enjoy being around me. One was my Dad. He said you better fix some stuff or it is going to kill you and NOONE enjoys being around someone as miserable as you. He was worried about our family having heart issues and my stress and anger killing me. He did not want to cut off fellowship, but he was actually warning me than it could happen. Who wants to be around a self-destructive anger person anyway? Those two people hating to be around me was worse than any death of this body. I finally realized this is how God the Father acts also! He will do what he says if we ignore him and he will cut off the loving fellowship! Then discipline, to bring us back! That is a promise also!

The only way to really and truly repent and ask for forgiveness and restore fellowship is by baring everything before the Lord. Get rid of all those fake ornaments and stand and be judged like a man. He gave them all the ornaments to start with when they left Egypt in Exodus 12:35-36. We didn’t learn because he tried it again in the promised land and we blew it then too. He likes to give us nice things, he created them. This is stated in Ezekiel, but like everything else, we turn it into something bad Ezekiel 7:19-21. Once we start getting proud of our ornaments he gave to us, or hiding behind them and playing church, he will ask for them or in my case take them so we can see the problem. He knows the problem already, but needs for us to know there is one! This is just like the Genesis 35 revival also. They left sinful stuff under the tree before their journey. Adam and Eve stood before him and allowed him to change their clothes after receiving understanding of naked/sin Genesis 3:21. Their attempt wasn’t good enough. 1 Peter 3:3-4 is the example he is looking for. 3Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; 4But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. We will stand and be judged again one day! I believe we will not be so ashamed then, if we allow this more often while here. The bitter drink like in Exodus 32 shows sin and when it does we must ask for forgiveness of anyone and everyone involved and with our hearts bared to all. Truthfully, we could not handle being shown all of our sins now or it would destroy us. This is why we can’t see his face until we get a new body. His glory always shows our sin and all people fear and fall on their face. I believe he saved us from this in Revelations 10:1-10 when he asked John to stop writing about the little book. That was merciful. It showed sin like the drink. Turned bitter in his stomach. This is shown in Ezekiel 2:8 thru Ezekiel 3:14 also. When we fully digest the word of God it should reveal how amazing a love he has for us and how amazing Christ’s love is by making us understand we deserve death every day but he gives life freely to all that believe and confess Romans 10:10. All that fear and obey. We will get a full grasp of this when we are forced to stand before Christ one day. All of us! You ready?

The Tent of Meeting

7Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp, and he called it the tent of meeting. And everyone who sought the LORD would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp. Even after we blew it he is always right there close, but asks us to come to him on his terms, not ours. A little effort is required in any good relationship, correct? The important part here is us realizing where our help is.

8Whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people would rise up, and each would stand at his tent door, and watch Moses until he had gone into the tent. 9When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, and the LORD would speak with Moses. This is seeking God. They stood at the open door in sight of all to see how their example had fellowship with God. That door is the opening to our heart. If we do this we will see his spirit at work!

10And when all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people would rise up and worship, each at his tent door. When we see the presence and the hand of God at work we should worship a little more often and a little more openly. Agree? Coming up we will learn from the best, David. His worship was open and it was big! He was a man after God’s own heart! God likes this worship if truly all about him!

11Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. When Moses turned again into the camp, his assistant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, would not depart from the tent. God spoke to Moses like this because he was the most meek/humble man on the Earth! Numbers 12 Joshua never left the temple. Someone was always in God’s presence and preparing for service to come.

Like many other topics something about the “door” struck me so I looked up every verse about doors to get this understanding of it being the opening of our heart. God’s heart as well. There are about 239 verses in the King James Version, 164 in English Standard Version. I always read both and use either as references. I want to share the 1st one and last one in the Old Testament and 1st and the last three in the New Testament.

Genesis 4:7 If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him. He determines what is acceptable. How to stay in favor. Only blood offering is acceptable. The blood of Christ is the only way! We are to rule over sin after accepting Christ by doing what he tells us to do and not to do. By obeying his word! If not, sin will sneak in and attack.
Malachi 1:10 Who is there even among you that would shut the doors for nought? neither do ye kindle fire on mine altar for nought. I have no pleasure in you, saith the LORD of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand. Haven’t learned much have we? We would be better off to close the doors and not sacrifice at all, than make bad ones and let sin take over. Big fake show gets us nowhere. Sacrifices are only needed because we sinned. True sacrifice is ruling over sin/stop sinning after accepting Jesus.

Matthew 6:6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. He knows your heart. Better in secret with good heart than the big fake show.
Revelations 3:8 I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name. On the cross he opened the door to heaven that none can shut. We are weak, but obedience in his word is how we rule over sin.
Revelations 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. He knocks on everyone’s door. All any must do is open the door like Moses and the people did and he comes in to fellowship with us. Proof is his spirit/the pillar of cloud.
Revelations 4:1-2 After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter. And immediately I was in the spirit: and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne. Open door, he calls, we accept and immediately we get the Holy Spirit! Awesome!

Moses’ Intercession

12Moses said to the LORD, "See, you say to me, 'Bring up this people,' but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, 'I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.' Moses is human. He is struggling with not blaming God or questioning him disrespectfully. We all do this at times in our lives. If we say we don’t, we are lying or worse off we don’t even understand we are doing it. What he does next is the impressive part and the part we need to mimic!

13Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people." He humbly asks that if God has ever been pleased with him, to PLEASE show him how to be more acceptable. He knew Cain by name and Cain even sacrificed. Looks correct, but he found no favor with God because he did what he thought was good enough, not what God said was required. How does Moses find more favor then? By God showing Moses more of God’s ways/road. How to walk that narrow road the Bible so frequently talks about. Not even stepping to the right or the left, walking straight toward God. Like Jesus. More simply, it is God showing him what to obey! He gave Moses the Ten Commandments and later “the law” that showed what God thought was correct.

To me the most important part is why he asked for this. Like Solomon in 1 Kings 3:5-15, he is asking so he can better do the job God asked him to do. Leading God’s people. God had already told Moses that he would simply kill all these rebellious people and start over and make something big time out of him. Moses always thought about God’s people. This is the most impressive thing in the Bible to me and there is no deeper meaning than this! Once we truly understand that serving God is always about everyone else’s needs and never about ours, we can withstand any trouble. This is the way Christ’s love is explained in John 15:12-14. Paul understood this very well also. In Romans 9:1-3 Paul is wishing he could give up his own eternal salvation if it could be given to his brethren. Finally, in Philippians 1:20-30 Paul explains he is torn between his longing for a better life in heaven with Christ and the desire to stay on Earth and suffer to help us. He willingly chose to stay and help us!! This has really burdened me lately. I hear the church whine and long and even cheer for the rapture so we can get out of this terrible world and have it easy and the wicked can be punished for making life hard. This has made me sick! Amos 5 is very clear that this is not to be desired! The day of the Lord is the end of grace and mercy for a lost and dying world. Nothing left except judgment like Psalms 50! There is nothing good about this. Ezekiel 18:20-23 makes it clear God wants none to perish and all any has to do is turn. The end only came to Israel when they had none left to raise them up. We have an active part in when Jesus comes. Just like Israel did, if we will turn to him he will turn back to us. This is what God truly wants anyway, and if I can do anything about it, he WILL NOT be coming back on my watch! If he does, we failed!! Evil does not dictate anything. God and the obedience of his people do! If we are truly advancing his kingdom he would never cut that short! Bottom line is, if we really love like we think we do, we would hope the rapture is a looooooooong way off so more people can be saved. He will come back and it will be because we failed, but let’s see if we can’t fear the death of the lost more than our whining. Man, we refuse to suffer!!! Think about it, the first revival was needed for this very reason. Lack of mercy. They killed people trying to come to God just to make themselves feel better. Being selfish is not sustainable because we will just become more and more selfish like in Proverbs 30:15-16. This is killing the whole world and we will answer for it!

14And he said, "My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest." After finding favor thru knowing what to obey will we get answered like Moses did if we actually obey what God says. His Spirit will go with us and he will give rest. Listen up, you can try every way possible to find this rest, but if you are not in fellowship as a Christian you cannot find that peaceful rest you are looking for. He gives it when our spirit and his are at peace thru our obedience. All the stuff in the world won’t be enough. You can’t be lazy enough to get it, or our recent solution is we can’t drug it. None will work. This will be a theme as we go thru these revivals. Lots of hard work restoring fellowship before any peace and rest. If we break fellowship because of our disobeying, peace and rest are gone, then war or conflict. This is the example of our spirit and his spirit being at war if we are not obeying now. I believe the lack of rest is a plague of our day!

15And he said to him, "If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. 16For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?" If God’s presence is not with us we should not leave until it is!!! The Holy Spirit is the only thing that sets us apart. We all still have the sinful flesh to deal with. The Holy Spirit is our only chance of understanding how to control our selfish desires to rebel. It guides our steps. If we obey, it helps us and is obvious to the entire world that we are God’s people. What is sad today is how hard it is to see this in Christians. I know for years not many people would have said they saw one bit of his Spirit in me. It goes before us and helps us on our way also. That has been in both revivals and is a promise! Not a promise of easy, but with his help we can make it through any struggle. Paul had his Spirit even after being beaten and thrown in prison even though he had done nothing wrong. There was something different about him. Most people in prison do not pray and sing to God for it. It changed the lives of the jailer and his whole house Acts 16:25-40. Our journey is never promised to be easy, but if we have his Spirit we can help him change lives! That is worth it!

17And the LORD said to Moses, "This very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name." 18Moses said, "Please show me your glory." He loves giving what we want when it is what he wanted to start with! It is awesome to see Moses be as humble as to still beg for this after receiving confirmation of favor. If you truly want to see the glory of the Lord, watch this!

19And he said, "I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name 'The LORD.' And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. What do you think all his goodness is? Let’s see. I will be gracious (stoop down in kindness to an inferior and have fellowship) with whom I will have fellowship. This is why Moses begged him to show him his ways so he may find favor? We only have his presence through humble obedience. I will have mercy (give life) to whom I will give life. Read Psalm 136 about his mercy and every verse shows him giving life and every verse ends with his life is forever. Deuteronomy 30:19-20 19I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, 20loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them." The next verses show this choice is Jesus. He is the only way to fellowship and life.

20But," he said, "you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live." 21And the LORD said, "Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, Due to our sin, if we were to see how sinful we truly are by seeing how perfect he is, we would die. God is merciful to not allow us to see this. It gives more life. He graciously stopped in kindness to an inferior world and gave us a place where we could get a look at his glory. “By me” (at the right hand) Acts 7:55-56 But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And he said, "Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God." “where you can stand on the rock”. Exodus 17:6 6Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. God allowed the rock to be struck to bring life giving water. 1 Corinthians 10:4 4And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ. This made me look at John 19:34 a little differently, But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water. It was a gracious and merciful thing for God to allow us to strike his rock so life could flow out. Isaiah 53:5 "But because of our sins he was wounded, beaten because of the evil we did. We are healed by the punishment he suffered, made whole by the blows he received." God says it was gracious of Jesus to endure this 1 Peter 2:19-25 19For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. 20For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. 21For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. 22 He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. 23 When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. 24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. 25For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. Why do we refuse to suffer for others?

22and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Jesus is our only protection from God’s wrath and our only shelter in a tough world. Psalm 62:1-2 1For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation. 2 He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken. Only good place to be when the storms come, and they will come. Luke 6:48 48He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock. The best place in the Bible to hear about his deliverance may be from David in 2 Samuel 22. It starts out with 2And he said, The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; 3The God of my rock; in him will I trust: he is my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge, my saviour; thou savest me from violence. Please read the rest of it!

23Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen." Our only glimpse on Earth is Jesus. He took his hand away from Moses’ eyes and revealed what was to come later. In Luke, Jesus explains that how God reveals things to little children instead of the arrogant in understanding. Luke 10:21 In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. Remember, Moses was the meekest man on Earth. Many times he tells us the end result and we refuse to see it. It helps if I read backwards sometimes. Start with God won! I will see his face later. That is good enough to keep me going. The struggles of this world should all go away! Time to help a lost world and a rebellious people see this! We have made everything too complicated due to our desire for self-knowledge and selfish gain. This is the first battle that Eve lost. God’s word is simple if you let it be. Look at all this crazy struggle with Moses and God’s people, Moses can hardly stand it, won’t go on without God’s help, Moses begs God to show him how to get through this or is it even worth it and what does God explain? JESUS! If I will only trust in him and follow his ways, then I will find favor and I will have fellowship with him. There is no other story in the Bible but this. That Simple!

Bez

I love you cause Jesus loves us both and there is absolutely nothing you can do about that!

Lack of Faithfulness!

Exodus 32

This shows the 3rd problem in Hosea 4:1 that is destroying us! Lack of faithfulness! Faith is assurance of things hoped for, in what we can’t see. Hebrews 11:1-2 If we can see it, no hope or faith needed. Romans 8:24 We create idols so we have something we can see and touch from an image we see regularly. Something we can create through our own strength. Deuteronomy 4:15-28 This is a total lack of faith in the God that saved us from the bondage of sin. Too often though, the second we can’t see far enough down the road, we are out of here! This is the first commandment and God actually calls it whoring after other Gods. Does that paint a strong enough picture for you? It is as much adultery as idolatry when dealing with God. Both mean you gave up on loving God just like we do with each other.

Also, look at how much God used Moses to teaching us about Jesus.

1When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, "Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him." “Make us Gods” is one not enough? Now we just had to talk about assembling together at church in the Genesis, but the second we feel forgotten or asked to be patient, we sure gather ourselves quickly to turn against him. All about us. No faithfulness! 2So Aaron said to them, "Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me." 3So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. Jacob started the first revival with something that sounded simple “get up and go”. One act of obedience that grew into a revival of all. This second revival is needed because of something just as simple “go”. One act of disobedience grew into all turning away from God. Aaron followed the World instead of God and can sure go down hill fast after sin creeps in. Something is always growing! What struck me about the response of the people was that I never gave that easily when God asked. Much like them, I would blow every dime to support my idols. Sound Familiar? 4 And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. I sure went to some effort in the past to make my sin look nice. If I tried that hard to please God I might not feel like Cain all the time? And they said, "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!" 5When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made proclamation and said, "Tomorrow shall be a feast to the LORD." This is the part that makes God the angriest! They used his words and actions to make their idols sound acceptable. Sad thing is it worked. All of them worshipped it. Still works today! Bible says to be careful of people preaching a different Jesus. Sounds like Jesus, but not the one God sent. We can do that with money and anything else too. Well, doesn’t God want me to be happy and have fun? Not if it means cheating on him he doesn’t. He wants you to have JOY in what he gives you. 6And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. I remember getting up and it was still dark out to go play golf or stay up all night doing something bad, but I couldn’t get up on Sunday and make church by 10ish or early to pray or read? Pitiful! Loved my idols more at that time! Don’t get me wrong, you can have things you like to do, but they can’t ever take away from God in any way or they are an idol! Listen, I love horses, but God first, family next and then horses. Any other order is wrong!
7And the LORD said to Moses, "Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. 8They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, 'These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!'" 9And the LORD said to Moses, "I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. 10Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you." I am glad Moses accepted his role as intercessor as Jesus does now. I am afraid, God the father has had about enough though. He will start over again with his chosen people if we do not turn back. The Gentiles are grafted in to makes the Jews jealous and return. The awesome part is God has compassion. He asked Moses to “let him alone” so he may consume them. He knew how much Moses cared for his people and would plead for them. God also knew he loved them even more. God forgives so quickly if we would just humble ourselves and ask.

11But Moses implored the LORD his God and said, "O LORD, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians say, 'With evil intent did he bring them out, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth'? Unbelievers are watching. The lack of knowledge of God would lead them to believe he destroys unjustly. Like God sets people up to be destroyed. Way off, but he does have to punish sin. Moses was more worried about glorifying God first. We are the ones that make him have to destroy by choosing to disobey. If we will repent then unbelievers can see the power of his Grace! Somewhere it says God is feared because he forgives. Deep down we know that we would not forgive like he does. His mercy changes lives! Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people. 13Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, 'I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.'" 14And the LORD relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people. Moses prayed and God did not destroy them. Moses begged and God changed his mind. God must feel tremendous compassion on simple sinners like me. The way we have been acting I sure am glad Jesus is way better than Moses at interceding for us! If we will repent and change, he will turn his anger away because God is faithful with his promises. Like the promise he made to Abraham, Isaac and Israel. This also shows the power of prayer! He does hear us and it can change his mind! That is simply what the prayer of salvation does. We all deserved death, but if anyone believes and asks he changes the sentence to life.

15Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, tablets that were written on both sides; on the front and on the back they were written. 16 The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets. This is something I remember hearing debated in college and people keep taking it farther. The Bible is the word of God!!!! These are his words!!!!! Says it very plainly right here. He wrote them!!! New Testament says every word is God breathed and all of them for our instruction. I do not care who copied it for him originally, but Paul did not write all those books. God did! Makes it easier to not obey if you can talk yourself into “Paul is just a man”, huh? If all the words are not perfect the whole book is useless. That is why he promises all the plagues of this book on anyone who adds or subtracts from it in the last chapter! He says his word is pure. That means without blemish! People say there were some cool books that got left out. That is because they were flawed and sinful! Period! People wish they were in there to defend their sin. That is why God left those out! What kind of God do people think they serve if he can speak the universe into existence and raise people from the dead, but can’t get his own book published correctly? One more thing, if we needed to know Greek and Hebrew to understand it we would still speak them. Pharisees!! If you want to understand it more you beg like David did in the longest chapter in the Bible, Psalms 119 Hey, I started looking up the Greek and Hebrew too. Figured all the preachers do it. Guess what? There are ten possible means to most of the words! You can twist the words in those languages the same as ours! I understand we want it to be easier. It is hard though. It is supposed to be. The disciples had to go back and ask him to explain most things again. Ask God to teach it and keep reading it. The only thing that explains this book is the Holy Spirit and the rest of this book! He says his word is alive! It teaches itself. I started realizing I could not say much about it not making sense if I had not really read it and never asked God to teach me. That was foolishness!! 17When Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, "There is a noise of war in the camp." 18But he said, "It is not the sound of shouting for victory, or the sound of the cry of defeat, but the sound of singing that I hear." I am getting the point God, we enjoy our sin too much. Many of our churches only sound like they are worshipping? Make it look nice like the calf though. 19And as soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses’ anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. 20He took the calf that they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder and scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel drink it. You think Moses really understood how angry God gets until right then? He had just begged for their lives! Only then, when he was given a taste of what God feels he burned hot too! Jesus turned over the tables in the temple. What he did always seemed weird though. I understood burning the idol, but what is up with making them drink it? I finally was shown this. This is the test later for adultery in Numbers 5:11-29 and sums up this chapter. There is nothing more dangerous than a jealous God. Wrath is cruel, anger is overwhelming, but who can stand before jealousy? Proverbs 27:4, Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he? 1 Corinthians 10:22 If a man was concerned that his wife had been unfaithful he took her to the priest and he made this drink (a grain offering of remembrance and of jealousy to remember iniquity) and she was placed before the Lord and forced to drink it. If she was innocent nothing happened. If she wasn’t, it turned to bitter pain, swells up in her womb and caused her thigh to fall away. What just happened is her sin, that she thought she got away with and was hoping she could just forget about, was forced out into the open. She was forced to admit and deal with what she had done. We have been cheating on God for far too long and he has had enough! You have two options. Drink that bitter drink now and allow him to forgive and restore fellowship for the wrath of the Lamb is near. This is why God hates all unfaithfulness and is so serious about marriage. It is a fact we all usually love the world more than him. Therefore deep down we love our spouses and families more than God. He knows if we will not be faithful to each other on Earth we will never be faithful to him. Jesus is coming back – we are his bride - we will all give an account before him for our faithfulness! 4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, "He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us"? 6But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." James 4:4-6 This is talking about the church! He is jealous of the spirit he made to dwell in us! Until we deal with our past unfaithfulness, no peace! I promise it is better if you will. Swallow your pride and put away your fear and drink that bitter drink. Ask God to show you what you need forgiveness for. Get ready, he will show you a lot of things you wished he didn’t. (lol) Not much pride left when he shows you how awful you are and I have never been more excited about that! Guess what? We are all awful, but he always forgives! Do we not believe this?

21And Moses said to Aaron, "What did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them?" 22And Aaron said, "Let not the anger of my lord burn hot. You know the people, that they are set on evil. 23For they said to me, 'Make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.' 24So I said to them, 'Let any who have gold take it off.' So they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf." 1st thing, Moses said Aaron had brought a great sin upon them. Aaron was in charge and he is held accountable. Aaron’s reply is awfully familiar! Blamed the people for asking, blamed Moses for leaving them too long and then just flat lied about the calf. He said he just threw the gold in and the calf just came out like that. Verse 4 says he fashioned it with a graving tool. Actually took pride in his sin! Sure wanted to do a good job at that instead of leading. Eve blamed the devil. Cain said God was unfair and then lied about knowing where Abel was. This stuff is old! Every one of us does this same junk today when confronted with our sins. Bottom line was Aaron was held accountable for leading his sheep. Listen up, leaders. Your job is not to tell everyone what they want to hear or give them whatever they ask for. Your job is to make disciples and lead only with truth! So if you are not truly called to lead it is time to get out of God’s way! If you are actually called then you are held to a greater standard. Are you ready to stand before Christ and answer for his sheep?

25And when Moses saw that the people had broken loose (for Aaron had let them break loose, to the derision of their enemies), People are running wild, but If Aaron had done his job he would have had the help of God to stop them. No excuses. Instead he led them to shame before their enemies. You think unbelievers want our Jesus when they are whispering about our lack of faith in him? Sure, we all mess up, but it should not be so often and whether you like it or not, it does affect the belief of others. 26then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, "Who is on the LORD’s side? Come to me." And all the sons of Levi gathered around him. Repent and live! Don’t and die! This is the only question in this whole Bible and they were all given a chance. I can hear Satan now, he did not kill Adam and Eve. He doesn’t really kill people? Many forms of death, but only one that is eternal. Never promised a million chances. This is why he is to be feared! Man can’t serve two masters and there is no middle ground in my Bible. You are obeying and loving God, or disobeying and hating him! God is about sick of us calling him a liar and trying to make everyone happy. You will pick a side soon! 27And he said to them, "Thus says the LORD God of Israel, 'Put your sword on your side each of you, and go to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp, and each of you kill his brother and his companion and his neighbor.'" Jesus said he did not come to bring peace but to bring a sword and put brother against brother. When he returns again he will cut down all that oppose forever. 28And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses. And that day about three thousand men of the people fell. People get upset when God kills people. God did not kill them. We kill ourselves! In the garden they were given the tree of life (Jesus) and the tree of knowledge of good and evil (the law). They had no sin yet so they could have chosen life in the garden (heaven) with God forever. They chose the wrong tree – we are still desiring the tree of knowledge too often. Woe you Pharisees! God asked them to choose Christ and to not choose themselves. Where is our faith? Jesus has always been and always will be, the only way to God and it is free and all you have to do is believe and ask. After they both blew it they did allow God to clothe them through a sacrifice. Jesus is the way back through the blood of the cross, but get this straight right now, we turned that tree into a cross! That same tree of life is in the New Jerusalem! Listen, all our souls live forever. You get to pick where. After salvation we still have to choose to obey. It is time to pick a side and act like it! He never promises he will keep asking though. Are you happy with which side you have picked so far? 29And Moses said, "Today you have been ordained for the service of the LORD, each one at the cost of his son and of his brother, so that he might bestow a blessing upon you this day." It will cost you to truly follow. If so, it is because others choose against Christ! Says they can’t hate you but they hate me because I tell them what they do is evil. Pride is the only thing ever in the way of forgiveness though.

30The next day Moses said to the people, "You have sinned a great sin. And now I will go up to the LORD; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin." JESUS! 31So Moses returned to the LORD and said, "Alas, this people has sinned a great sin. They have made for themselves gods of gold. 32But now, if you will forgive their sin—but if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written." Willing to give his life for theirs. 33But the LORD said to Moses, "Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book. We have only the most chosen of his people left at this point. They just seemed to take a stand, but God says he is the only one that knows their true hearts. If you’ve just been playing church, God knows your heart. If you are still breathing it is never too late.

If you have never asked Jesus to save you, it is as simple as this and you need no one’s help, but his! You must understand and accept that we all sin, which separates us from God and the penalty is eternal death (Hell) Romans 3:23 and Romans 6:23. He sent his son Jesus to die a horrible death on a shameful cross to pay for our sins. John 3:16 He was buried and three days later he rose and conquered death! Forever! So that we may have eternal life in heaven with God. All you must do is believe this in your heart and ask him to save you. Romans 10:9 There is no other way. John 14:6 and this is God’s desire for all. 1 Timothy 2:1-7 Please ask if you have questions though. I would not go to this trouble if it were not so important.

34 But now go, lead the people to the place about which I have spoken to you; behold, my angel shall go before you. Nevertheless, in the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them." 35Then the LORD sent a plague on the people, because they made the calf, the one that Aaron made. After repenting and getting back to serving only God their reward was an angel to go before and help clear the path, but no sin goes unpunished so they got a plague for the calf worshipping. If these revivals show you anything is that God will keep increasing the pressure until we repent or are destroyed. Up to us! We have not repented as a people yet. Surely I am not the only one feeling these plagues?

Listen, this lesson has been a real fight with me this week. I will be honest it still is. I have always gotten mad and quit. I truly wanted to give up Monday. I even told a couple people I was going to. I can’t explain how after allowing him to change me so much and all this work, I felt he left me more alone than ever in my life. I felt like no one cares anymore or ever listens. I know that is not true, but I sure understand how my pastor must feel too often. Nevertheless, I was ready to give up on God and everyone else. He told me if I ever really loved him like I claimed that I will never quit! He proved he loves by his actions. It is my turn now! The perfect example is God so loved he gave his son (a selfless action) and no greater love than a brother giving his life for another (a selfless action). God sent the most important thing he had and Jesus died willingly for us not for himself. Loved regardless of our response. I still don’t know much, but if he says don’t quit I just can’t ever quit again. How can I quit on the one saved my life? I am sure glad Jesus did not quit on us! He also showed me by sending some people out of the blue Monday that each just said God asked them to check on me and see if they could pray. I am still amazed he loves me as terrible as I can be! He is trying to show us every day if we will let him. No matter how we feel we need to show him our love!

Look, I ain’t married or never have been, but if you are and you really love that person, you should never quit showing them same as with God. If we give up on God or our families we just simply don’t love them the way we claim, do we? It is a deception to believe we do not need others. Once we believe we can handle everything on our own we are close to not needing God’s help either! I will fix that tomorrow is your next hurdle. Once again, you are not promised tomorrow! Everyone has bad days, but ask for forgiveness and keep working at improving. That truly shows you love someone! I read this and could not find quitting anywhere.

1 Corinthians 13 The Way of Love

1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
13So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

I love you cause Jesus loves us both and there is absolutely nothing you can do about that!

BEZ

Genesis 35 The first revival!

Most times the first example is the best. This is the first revival in the Bible. The rest of them all have the same structure, but teach different things we have forgotten or have messed up that have caused this struggle that God is putting on us so we will come back to him. He always answers if we truly obey. I believe the size and power is all about the number of people that will agree, obey and how serious we really are. All these start with one, or a few hearts that give in with everything and it can turn into all and then it will start reaching outside of the original group. Our reward could be something like Pentecost! Thousands of people saved in our community! One is worth it though. I believe our only limit to this is our love for God/obedience, and our desire to disciple others in this/loving your neighbor. We will see if everyone really cares most for the two greatest commands of the Bible. God really enjoys using normal people! We are all normal to God! So no excuses! Anyone can choose to obey!

1God said to Jacob, "Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there. Make an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau." As we ended Genesis 34, Jacob’s sons had withheld mercy and forgiveness on a people trying to conform to God. Is there any greater sin that this? Christ said, better to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around your neck than keep someone from him! Matthew 18:6, Mark 9:42, Luke 17:2 The solution started with “arise and go”! Everything with God starts with us obeying. If we choose to obey he is helping. If we choose to disobey he is not. When we choose to disobey he is always trying to restore fellowship thru loving discipline which can be as tough as HE chooses. This is how he can be with us always, but against us at the same time. What do you wish? Shall I come to you with a rod, or with love in a spirit of gentleness? 1 Cor 4:21 It took losing the most important thing ever, before I finally understood this! God is hoping you are not as slow to feel the rod that we are getting right now! There should be our only two concerns in life with every breath we take. Am I choosing to obey God or am I choosing to do this my way/disobey. He begs us, but never forces us to obey him! We first choose to obey Christ and are saved! After that, if we choose to break fellowship, it is only restored when we repent and start obeying again. These two choices are the basics for all revival and the basics for every single story in the bible.

Second thing is where he told Jacob to go. Bethel means “House of God”. Yep, God said the first revival would start when Jacob got his tail back to God’s house (church) where he first appeared/spoke to him and DWELL there. 4 times a year because your Mom made you feel guilty does not count! Ain’t your Mom making you feel guilty anyway! Better than zero times a year though! It does not get much simpler than this does it? I fought seriously getting back in church for much longer than most would believe possible. I made every excuse I could to people that cared enough to invite me to go back. After making enough excuses why I quit visiting God’s house, I even started to believe I didn’t need to go back. As someone that has really made a ton of excuses, I would like to address some you are already running thru your head.

I needed to get back in church because my best example, Jesus, was always there. Jesus is the head of the church. Why be head of something people don’t need? When his parents were looking for him he said they should have known where he was. Now this one hits me hard. If someone asked where I was two years ago, church would have been there last guess! Where would people guess you are? It is a lie of the devil that I was not supposed to be in church, and often, but was my fault for believing it.

Most of the New Testament are letters written to the churches to instruct them. God sure wasted his time if church is not vital? I am to be taught about these letters at church. Moses read and taught the law that God wrote to everyone during their assemblies. Deut 4:13-14 Church is for helping to stir up love and good works by encouraging each other, not forsaking the assembling together, as is the habit of some, and even more often as time goes by. Hebrews 10:24-25 That is a command, meaning not a debatable topic, but once I started going and actually serving I wanted more! I’ve already thought about Jesus spent time by himself too, that was only for short times to focus more on God. “I have Christ in me”, I do not need to be in church? If you have that good of a relationship, God would like you to come and teach some of us people that struggle. The need for more teachers is actually in the other revivals. If you got it down come help make disciples!

Sabbath is holy and is a commandment also. Anything you do that keeps you from his assembly or forsakes his Sabbath is an idol! Work, play, tired, lazy, stubborn, drunk, all the same. You have made it more important and placed it higher. God the Father created a house for us to come and worship at (make an alter). He is the one to be feared! It is time we remember this! We meet together to worship our savior! For where two or three are gathered in his name, there am I among them. Matthew 18:20 Surely this is not a hard one? If you are not sure how important this is the other 12 revivals talk about his house too. God never ever says come after you do what you need to do either!

If you have been harmed in some way you can’t expect God to forgive you, if you won’t come back home and forgive those that harmed you. He loves them too and you would be teaching big time forgiveness then! Be a teacher!

I can keep this up, but it is simply a sin to avoid church! The bottom line was I knew I would be spoken to in his house and I did not want to hear from him right then! I was busy figuring all this out on my own and I would do anything to not feel convicted of my sinful lifestyle. If I ignore him maybe he will go away? I pray you lose this fight! It is time to get all our tails back in church and serve and worship the one true God that saved our life! No church is perfect. It can’t be, it is full of sinners! I do know of a few that do their best to accomplish the role of the church as Paul stated in Hebrews 10 so no excuses. I can suggest some if you would like. I do this to take any doubt away that not going is wrong and if you don’t start back you are choosing to ignore God not me. That means broken fellowship with God! Your call. Last thing, I started asking myself, where is a better place to be than in God’s house? I can’t figure out a logical debate for that one. There is not a better place!

2So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, "Put away the foreign gods that are among you and purify yourselves and change your garments. Listen up men, as the head of the household you are responsible for this! If Dad ain’t in church or making me be there, why should I go? That is what our children are thinking. If you love your kids you will make them go to church WITH you! Lady’s you are still responsible too, but as the head of the household I apologize, we have let God and you down! It is going to change! After his household he shares with all. God’s word is same for all! We need to conform to it, not make it conform to us. Bible is very clear about teaching and being fruitful. If the seed isn’t growing, we are doing something wrong. Put away all other gods – this is the first commandment for a reason. If we can’t get this one right we don’t have a chance. He has to be most important. Love him first and with everything -- If something else is stopping you, fix it.

Clean/Purify yourselves – ask for forgiveness and accept it, repent and stop sinning. Once saved you did not get a pass on not asking every day to be forgiven for that day’s sin. And yes, we sin every day. This is actually being obedient. God knows you will mess up and just wants you fess up. When you don’t, human guilt builds and broken fellowship with God.

Change garments – Be different than the world. Allow him to change you. Adam and Eve tried to cloth themselves but God has to do that thru a blood sacrifice Genesis 3:21 – clothes, name whatever it takes, the changed garments is the spirit filled life that people can see and the example Christ left us – still begging us for this in Rev. 3. Listen up, if people can’t see this change you are doing something wrong!

This is a heart issue. I have tried to half do this and it never works. He knows. You know. Everyone else knows too. It is a waste of time and we are lying to God. That is a poor plan. Putting it off is just as bad. This may hurt a bit, but not as bad as us not doing it and you can’t image the joy after. John 16:16-24 explains this.

3Then let us arise and go up to Bethel, so that I may make there an altar to the God who answers me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone." Let “US” arise and go, seed spreading, build and alter to the God who answers in our distress and is always there! We are hurting. All of us or we see people that are. Jesus is the only solution. We have run God off. If we will cry out with all our heart he always answers. At this point in our separation we have to really mean it. And that goes for all of us. Genesis 28:10-22 is actually when God first revealed himself in a dream to Jacob.

4So they gave to Jacob all the foreign gods that they had, and the rings that were in their ears. Jacob hid them under the terebinth tree that was near Shechem. All obeyed and gave up foreign gods and materialistic stuff, hid it under/at the base of a tree. Sinful items under a tree – the cross – pretty cool how often he speaks of his son taking our sins whenever we will give them to him.

5And as they journeyed, a terror from God fell upon the cities that were around them, so that they did not pursue the sons of Jacob. After obeying and repenting and allowing God to change his garments his greatest worry was resolved. A lot of obeying before he fixes some of our biggest concerns. Not only did the other nations “not” destroy him, but they were terrified of him! Not because he was special, but because he had God with him because he simply obeyed. He went before them to protect so they didn’t have to fight. It’s about time we learn to fear him again, this is the only way we will ever obey him and that is for our own good. Deut 6:24

6And Jacob came to Luz (that is, Bethel), which is in the land of Canaan, he and all the people who were with him, This is another cool name change. Luz = almond tree. It would have already been a beautiful and important place, but was nothing and useless to God until changed to Bethel (House of God). No matter how great the world thinks something is, it’s nothing without being useful to God!

7and there he built an altar and called the place El-bethel, because there God had revealed himself to him when he fled from his brother. God sent Jacob back to where he had revealed himself to him before – we can’t be afraid of going back to be able to move forward – we have forgot so much or more shamefully never learned it to start with -- we need to allow his spirit to teach us as children again.

8And Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, died, and she was buried under an oak below Bethel. So he called its name Allon-bacuth. Following/obeying God is tough! He never said it wasn’t, but promises it is worth it! This is where many would just quit. God says that easy love is worthless! Anyone can do that!

9God appeared to Jacob again, when he came from Paddan-aram, and blessed him. Crazy how when I returned to his house and started obeying more often, he appeared/spoke again. Thing is, he was always saying get back in church! I just was ignoring him. Why would he say anything else if I would not do the first one? Would you bless someone that never did anything you asked? If Jacob had refused he would not have kept helping. Glad he did!

10And God said to him, "Your name is Jacob; no longer shall your name be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name." So he called his name Israel. God appeared to him again and blessed him. How did he bless him? Changed his name to Israel – gave him a new start – once we get back in fellowship thru repenting and obeying he will continue to reveal more of himself to us thru his spirit. I still have tons of things to improve on, but I feel these changes and it is not changes we can do on our own!

11And God said to him, "I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall come from your own body. Sure, this is talking of physically multiplying on earth, like most in my Sunday school class are blessed at. lol God is more concerned with multiplying his kingdom though.

12 The land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you, and I will give the land to your offspring after you." God will give them the promise land and even to their children. If we get right with God our children benefit greatly for this. They learn from us, we have let them down and we will be held accountable for this. Never too late to correct our mistakes!

13Then God went up from him in the place where he had spoken with him. 14And Jacob set up a pillar in the place where he had spoken with him, a pillar of stone. He poured out a drink offering on it and poured oil on it. Jacob poured out a drink offering and poured oil on it. Finished it and gave all. The spirit is described this way many times. The spirit is our ultimate reward. Jesus said he had to leave so something greater could come. The spirit now lives in us, do not be mistaken though, we can break fellowship with him too. Flesh and spirit war against each other, we must listen to the spirit and do opposite of our human nature.

15So Jacob called the name of the place where God had spoken with him Bethel. If you haven’t ever been spoken to in God’s house you ain’t listen!

16Then they journeyed from Bethel. When they were still some distance from Ephrath, Rachel went into labor, and she had hard labor. 17And when her labor was at its hardest, the midwife said to her, "Do not fear, for you have another son." 18And as her soul was departing (for she was dying), she called his name Ben-oni; but his father called him Benjamin. 19So Rachel died, and she was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem), 20and Jacob set up a pillar over her tomb. It is the pillar of Rachel’s tomb, which is there to this day. This is the second person to die on the trip God sent him on, but Jacob never stopped obeying. Listen, obeying God does not equal easy. Awfully easy to question him when it gets hard, huh? This does show that if you are willing to do anything he will finish what he promises. This was the 12th tribe, the completion of the nation of Israel. God finished what he promised Abraham! Bottom line is when it gets tough, and it will, do you really love enough to love even when it hurts? All this struggle and still showing future glory with first reference to Bethlehem.

21Israel journeyed on and pitched his tent beyond the tower of Eder. I like how his name change to Israel makes me think of an entire nation when heard. One man’s obedience fathered an entire nation. Jesus did something like that, huh? Would be nice if people thought of God when they heard of America as when founded?

22While Israel lived in that land, Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father’s concubine. And Israel heard of it. Now the sons of Jacob were twelve. 23The sons of Leah: Reuben (Jacob’s firstborn), Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun. 24The sons of Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin. 25The sons of Bilhah, Rachel’s servant: Dan and Naphtali. 26The sons of Zilpah, Leah’s servant: Gad and Asher. These were the sons of Jacob who were born to him in Paddan-aram.
27And Jacob came to his father Isaac at Mamre, or Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron), where Abraham and Isaac had sojourned. All this and finally back to his father’s fellowship! :)

28Now the days of Isaac were 180 years. 29And Isaac breathed his last, and he died and was gathered to his people, old and full of days. And his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.

This is pretty simple. Get back in church and if you are there go tell everyone that isn’t. I keep hearing people complain about the state of this world. Well it is our fault that it is getting worse! Evil does not win on this kind of scale if God’s people are obeying. This is what God said to do for his first revival. Jesus is our only solution to any problem and we better start acting like we really believe that! God is awesome! :)

I love you cause Jesus loves us both and there is absolutely nothing you can do about that!

BEZ