God's Expects and Delivers

 Exodus 23-24                    Psalm73               Acts 11

As God continues to instruct the people of Israel through Moses. Chapter 23 is instructing them to be and become known as a people of integrity. If you read carefully though this, you will see it is about treating your neighbor with justice and truth. One of the things I notices differently today was that the instructions to plant to yield a crop and then let the field fallow for the 7^th year is so that the needy may be fed and then even the animals. The command to work six days and rest on the seventh is so that the workers and animals used can rest as well. The goal is that we are all better off and so as a nation better off.

Part of God’s instructions are that we are not to forget where what we are comes from. Whatever we are able to do and whatever we have comes from God. The next set of instructions are simply the way God wants us to recognize with thanks how he has blessed us. It starts by setting aside the first and the best for God’s use.

God then reminds them what he is preparing them for, to enter the promised land. He assures them that they will not go alone. As a matter of fact, He will send his angel before them to prepare the way and create a environment where there will be great blessings to thank Him for. There is also the reminder that failing to follow His instruction will lead to being drawn away from Him and toward others that claim to be god.

In Psalm 73 the writer starts out by how hard it is to remain pure in heart when we see all around us those that are wicked yet seem to prosper and receive so much good. The mock those that work hard to remain faithful and their voices are heard by so many.

The recognition that it at times feels vain to remain faithful when so many would turn you away from the way of the Lord. When we ponder to understand this it troubles us by what we see and feel. It is when we enter into the sanctuary of the Lord that our eyes can be opened to see their purpose and when we awake to I we understand that You oh Lord will despise them.

Even through all this, at times bitter because of our experience, it is when we are pierced with the truth that we can rejoice that we have stayed with you continuously. We can thank the Lord that he took us by the hand and provided us with counsel in preparing to receive us with glory. The psalmist recognizes that our heart may fail, and it is then the strength of God that upholds us.

In the end those that are far from God will perish and we will be able to rejoice in the Lord God our refuge and be able to tell of His great works.

The story of the spreading of the gospel continues in Acts 11 with once again the early church needing to be challenged in what they believed to be the will of God. One of their leaders, Peter, on who Jesus said he would build his church, returned from a trip throughout Judea they challenged him because he was spending time with gentiles. His response is one of those responses that should give us all reason to pause. As he explained, and they listened carefully, he outlined how God had done a work first in him, while at the same time working in the gentiles. It would cause both to do things they would not have done without the Spirit’s leading. The result was the unexpected that the gentiles, thought of as the rejected, were receiving the same blessings of the Holy Spirit they had. Peter’s question is one we should always be asking, “Who was I to stand in God’s way?”

The reading ends with the church growing, becoming known as Christians, followers and disciples of Jesus, and their supporting the faithful in Jerusalem.

So often we think we know what is best for others when we are so busy wanting our beliefs to be right that we fail to leave room for the work of the Holy Spirit and God to use unorthodox ways to advance his Kingdom and the church. Who among us would want to stand in the way of God, even if as well meaning as Peter and the other apostles? I for one do not.