I read through Isaiah 4 and 5 today.
The words that really jumped out at me in these chapters were the first half of Isaiah 5:13 (ESV)…
“Therefore my people go into exile for lack of knowledge”
Because he is a God that takes pleasure in blessing his people, God bestowed much wealth upon the Israelites. The Israelites, being human beings, became consumed with desire for more worldly riches and pleasures. They no longer sought to have a personal relationship with the Lord. As a result, God took away their possessions and laid their homes to ruins.
The earthly wealth that we receive from God is by no means a bad thing. It is when this wealth interferes with our desire to seek him that it becomes an object of sin. Our one and only purpose in life is to have a personal relationship with God such that we might further learn of his character and glorify him through our lives. We do this through prayer, reading the Bible, and seeking to imitate Christ. God gives us wealth in order for us to use it to advance HIS kingdom on earth, not to advance OUR own kingdom. We are to seek more of God rather than to seek more stuff.
I also read Exodus 16-18.
I think Exodus 17:12 (ESV) is one of the best verses for accountability in the Bible…
“But Moses’ hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side. So his hands were steady until the going down of the son.”
The context of this verse is that the Israelites are fighting against the armies of Amalek. During the battle Moses stood on top of a hill, I presume overlooking the battle. Whenever he held up his hand with the staff of God Israel would push back the armies of Amalek. Whenever his hands dropped they would lose ground. So it is with our fight against sin. Sin is a tough mutha, no matter how pious we are. By fighting against sin, we are fighting our very nature…our default setting. I know I often feel like I am led to sin by extremely stupid stuff that surely no one else would allow to trip them up. However, when I hear the struggles of fellow believers, I realize that they struggle with the exact same things that I do. God never says we have to fight sin alone. For one, we have the Holy Spirit living within us. Second, he has placed people in our lives to help us overcome our desire to sin and to encourage us when we fall short. In the same way, he has put us in their lives to reciprocate.
This may be a little cheesy, but in reading through Exodus you see many references to the “staff of God” that Moses carried. It is first mentioned in Exodus 4:20 when Moses returns to Egypt to confront Pharoah. It is often used as a physical device by which God displays his power and reassures Moses of his presence with him. In my reading through Exodus, I’ve thought about what I could use as my own personal “staff of God” — a trinket to carry around to remind myself of the mighty power of God when I forget. I haven’t really figured out what to use yet since I admittedly keep forgetting about it, but maybe it’s something that could help us stand strong in our walk.
And thus concludes my nightly commentary. I’m gonna have to start doing these at a better time before vet school starts up…