“And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring me an offering: of every man that giveth it willingly with his heart ye shall take my offering. And this is the offering which ye shall take of them; gold, and silver, and brass, And blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen, and goats’ hair, And rams’ skins dyed red, and badgers’ skins, and [acacia] wood, Oil for the light, spices for anointing oil, and for sweet incense, Onyx stones, and stones to be set in the [high priest’s] ephod, and in the breastplate. And let them make me a sanctuary [tabernacle]; that I may dwell among them.” Exodus 25:1-8 The Great Jehovah, under the direction of His Father, created all things – the heavens above, the earth, and all things in and on the earth. In order for Him to dwell with Israel here on Earth, He asked the Israelites to create something back. A gift to the Lord. An habitation for His presence. Creation to express gratitude for THE Creation. And He asked it to be done with a willing heart. There wasn’t a tax or a levy. Individuals and…
Tag: faith
“The problem with the self-made man is that he worships his creator. But eventually, we grow weary. Life is hard. Its propensity is to wear us down. It is hard being on the throne.” Jim Ramos It’s hard to be your own god. You weren’t made that way, and neither was I. We were made to worship the true and living God and to draw closer to Him through His only begotten Son, Jesus. Ending my time in the wilderness Last November, as my mom was approaching death, I wrote that My Mood Matches the Desert. From a personal standpoint, I have been through a season in the wilderness of about four years, and that article captured many of my feelings after spending two sacred days in a sacred room, watching the veil between this life and the next become less tangible. But that was only part of a culmination of a long season of life. One book in my library calls the process which my wife, Michelle, and I have been through Wintering. The author, Katherine May, wrote: “Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the…
Thousands were executed by crucifixion by the Roman Empire during its existence. Thousands upon thousands more throughout history have been scourged and beaten for unknowable reasons. Only one in all published history has had the details of His day of death preserved in such painstaking detail. Four writers whom we know about, and probably more whom we don’t know about, preserved nearly every moment of the original “Good Friday”, even noting when prophecies made centuries before were fulfilled. This note by John the Beloved caught my attention this morning: “Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments, and made four parts, to every soldier a part; and also his coat: now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout. They said therefore among themselves, Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be: that the scripture might be fulfilled, which saith, They parted my raiment among them, and for my vesture they did cast lots. These things therefore the soldiers did.” — John 19:23-24 Jesus’ coat was too rare, too valuable to cut into parts. One of the soldiers, whomever won the game of chance, took it home. Jesus’…