Thoughts in Worship

Message Magazine's Online Devotional for Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Audio Link: https://buff.ly/2vW1e37

This is devotional thought number 6 in our devotional series, “Removing the Veil: Sanctuary Living in the 21st Century.” Our subject is: Just When You THOUGHT You Knew it All

Here’s the question for consideration: Did YHWH have a plan for His people, even in the Old Testament era?

“Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.” (Exodus 19:5–6).

Here’s something you absolutely must recognize about God if you wish to worship Him in spirit and in truth. God, the One who inhabits eternity thinks long-term. His thoughts are not our thoughts. His ways are not our ways. As the heavenly bodies and the very throne room itself are higher than the earth, as God’s ways and thoughts higher than our ways and thoughts. While most of us were casting a forward vision into New Testament era for God to establish a royal priesthood of all His people, and a holy nation, He was moving to do so as He taught the Old Testament peoples through the symbols that represented the coming Messiah. While you were thinking He had to wait for the veil to be rent from top to bottom at the death of Christ for Him to reveal His intentions for the entire body of believers and heirs according to the promise He made to Abraham, He was already at work to manifest His royal plan through anyone who would keep covenant with Him and obey His voice. Now, for those of you that may be a stickler for the details (like me), don’t worry. You have already read the facts in our theme text.

It is true indeed that God needed to deliver His children from Egyptian bondange before He could teach them covenant living. It is true that we need to be delivered from the penalty and power of sin, by faith in the blood of Jesus so we can be equipped to live holy lives. It is true that the Old Testament peoples needed to walk through the the training of rites, ceremonies, priests, high priests, sacrifices, etc., to begin to understand the depth and breadth of the cost of sin. It is true that all of this and more prefigured Jesus Christ giving His all to save us. However, if God were to wait for those folks to finally get it, fully, to establish His intention to make them a royal priesthood, it would have been too late for them to finally function as such.

When we are training our children for entrepreneurship, some parents set up the famed lemonade stand. The parents buy the lemons, sugar, pitchers, cups, materials for building the stand, and paper for getting the word out. The parents do all of the heavy lifting while they enlist the help of their children to do what they can according to their stage of development. OK. Got it. It would not make sense to talk to them about investors, venture capitalists, OPM (other people’s money), balance sheets, depreciation, revenues, profits, etc. They just wouldn’t get it, even if they are very intelligent. It would not make sense talking about the the various tax benefits of trusts, corporations, partnerships, etc. They really don’t need all of that at the moment while we set their foundation to become wise entrepreneurs.

However, it would be foolhardy of us to wait until they’re are old to give them a good work ethic, teach them responsibility with their supplies, teach them how to get the word out, and sell a quality product at competitive rates. Afterall, while fresh lemonade being sold from a giant makeshift wooden box with the back cut out of it may be quaint, the supermarket down the road could easily undercut their...