Exodus 28:1-43, Matthew 25:31-26:13, Psalms 31:9-18, Proverbs 8:12-13
Today is the 8th day of February. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian and it, of course, is great to be here with you every day including today as we round the corner on another work week. So, we’ve been reading from the Amplified Bible this week and we’ll continue to do that until this week is over. And we’re reading our way through the book of Exodus right now, and the formation of a culture, and the shift of an identity from that of a slave to that of a chosen people. So, God has been telling Moses about the tabernacle, the place that would be in the center of the culture, the center of the camp, the Place where God would dwell with His people and how He would like that to be set up and the proper care for it as they moved around. So, we’ll pick up where we left off yesterday. Today, Exodus chapter 28.
Commentary:
Okay. So, for the last several days as we’ve been moving through the gospel of Matthew Jesus has been holding a discourse on the end times and we conclude that conversation in today’s reading. And it was a lengthy conversation with a lot to chew on. But as Jesus concludes this final discussion He describes the final judgment and he talks about sitting on His glorious throne and then all the nations are brought into His presence and then separated, right? Some to His right and some to His left. The sheep on the right, the goats on the left. And can we pause here and understand that Jesus is holding a conversation about the end times and the final judgment. So, it would not be a bad idea to pay attention to what He’s saying. And what He’s saying is, “He will sit on a throne and the nations of the world will come before Him and He will separate them into two camps, the sheep and the goats.” So, what’s the difference between the sheep and the goats? It’s the way that they cared for other people, right? So, to the sheep Jesus would be like, “come, your blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom that has been made for you from the beginning of the world because I was hungry and you fed me, thirsty and you gave me drink, right, stranger and you invited me in your home, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you cared for me, I was in prison and you visited me.” And in the story the sheep respond like, “when did we ever do that”? And the response is, “you did it when you did it for the least of these”. The goats on the other hand were sent away. Same kind of conversation happens only they did not care for others in the way that Jesus is describing. So, from Jesus teaching on the end times and His teaching on God’s kingdom, we learn that our ability to see and participate is directly connected to whether we’re paying attention or not and maintaining the posture of a servant. And if there’s one thing that Jesus gave us an example of its being a servant. And if there’s one thing that Jesus was outspoken about it is that we are to follow that example and be a servant. And that can only happen out of a relationship with Jesus. I mean, our actions will align themselves with the most important relationships in our lives. So, we have to be awake and aware and vigilant, which we were talking about yesterday because God’s kingdom matters to us more than any other distraction and we’ll steward what we’ve been given because we understand that everything we have is wholly dependent on God’s grace and we’ll work on behalf of the Master by seeing the world through His eyes and caring for those who need a touch from Jesus because when we touch someone we can be giving them the touch of Jesus. We are, after all, the body of Christ in this world, His hands and feet. So, when we do these things on behalf of the least of these we’re doing it to Jesus.
Prayer:
Jesus, we acknowledge that we’re often not paying attention, especially to those who might need a touch from You, those who are the least of these. And when we think of the least of these we think of the poorest of the poor and that matters greatly because You speak about caring for the less fortunate throughout the Scriptures, but a person can gain the whole world and lose their soul, so some of the poorest of the poor among us are perhaps even those who have plenty of worldly goods, but they do not know You. And what You are suggesting here is really a change of posture, that we simply become more aware as we move through this world, that we simply become less self-focused on what we’re dealing with and equally focused on what others are dealing with because we’re all dealing with things. So, show us how to shift our hearts and begin to look outward with love at everyone around us. So, practically, rather than being angry at somebody who’s not paying attention to their driving or something like that, give us the eyes and ears to understand that they may be going through something that we can’t even imagine having to endure. Give us a heart to bless those who curse us, whether with their mouths or with their erratic driving. Help us Jesus to change the way that we look outwardly because we spend so much of our lives looking at ourselves and what we’re experiencing as if we’re the only people here when You’ve actually given us permission and empowered us with Your Spirit to do in this world the things that You did and continue to do. Show us how we fit into that story. Show us how our attitudes and postures need to change. Show us how to find Your face in the least of these. We ask this in Your precious name. Amen.
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I have mentioned a couple times this week that…man…little over a week from now and we will be off on our annual pilgrimage to the to the Promise Land where we will experience the land of the Bible and contextualize the Bible by its geography. And, yeah, those of us who are going a person, it will be epic, no doubt, but this is a community experience. And, so, whether you’re going physically our or not, you still get to go, you still get to go virtually. This is a good time to follow Daily Audio Bible on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram if you just want to see kind of the posts that are coming sometimes even hourly. We try to post as often as we can. Sometimes there’s, you know, not as much connectivity and we have to wait until we’re in some zone where we have cell, but we’re continually kind of making this a virtual experience. And I will obviously be discussing and describing the things that we are seeing and doing as we take this journey. So, this is kind of a time when the Bible begins to come alive inside the community as we’re journeying forward toward springtime. So, my request of this community, is that we pray, that we ask God for strength and stamina and traveling mercies and health and jet lag, and all of these things that kind of go along with basically going to the other side of the world. So, if we can begin to pray into that, it gives us as we leave an enormous amount of comfort to know that we are not alone and that our brothers and sisters all over the world are praying. So, thank you, thank you for your prayers over the upcoming trip to Israel.
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And that’s it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.