Focus on God

 Psalm 44              Ephesians 2         Leviticus 15-16

Today’s reading from Psalms is a reminder that even when we work hard to do and be all God calls us to be that times can still get tough. Sometimes in those hard time we feel rejected by God and those that hate us are allowed to feel like they benefit from it. Yet our faith is that even in those time God has not forgotten or forsaken us and that our call is to remain faithful to God. Our desire like the Psalmist to know that God continues to love us even when we feel disconnected and lost. In the end we will trust that God will redeem us and bless us.

In Ephesians Paul reminds us that in our sin we were dead in our relationship with God. When we give our life to following Jesus and begin to talk in the Spirit, we are made new. Not because of anything that we did but because loved us enough to send us Jesus to show his love for us. It is by grace, unmerited love and forgiveness that we are raised up with Jesus and we can claim a seat with him in heaven. During this season of Lent we are reminded that it is the blood of Jesus that sets us free from sin. There is nothing we can or should do to earn it other than believe. The price has been paid for what separated us from God and broken down the dividing wall between us.

Together we make up the church and are no longer strangers to one another but fellow citizens of the Kingdom of God of which Jesus is the cornerstone. We are the church being built up upon Jesus and it is God that is building us up together to be the church in the world.

Today’s Leviticus reading tells us God expects us to be very aware of our own bodies and that we are to set them apart before we present them to the Lord. The tabernacle that was built by Moses and the people was set aside as a place of worship and therefor Holy to the Lord. It is in those places of worship that we are called to come before God and present an offering and therefore what we give becomes holy, set aside for his work. God wants us to be reminded that we are sinful and an offering is a sign of repentance and the need for renewal.