To meet with God

DEVOTION

EXODUS

TO MEET WITH GOD

Ex 29:31-46

31 "Take the ram for the ordination and cook the meat in a sacred place. 32 At the entrance to the Tent of Meeting, Aaron and his sons are to eat the meat of the ram and the bread that is in the basket. 33 They are to eat these offerings by which atonement was made for their ordination and consecration. But no one else may eat them, because they are sacred. 34 And if any of the meat of the ordination ram or any bread is left over till morning, burn it up. It must not be eaten, because it is sacred. 35 "Do for Aaron and his sons everything I have commanded you, taking seven days to ordain them. 36 Sacrifice a bull each day as a sin offering to make atonement. Purify the altar by making atonement for it, and anoint it to consecrate it. 37 For seven days make atonement for the altar and consecrate it. Then the altar will be most holy, and whatever touches it will be holy. 38 "This is what you are to offer on the altar regularly each day: two lambs a year old. 39 Offer one in the morning and the other at twilight. 40 With the first lamb offer a tenth of an ephah of fine flour mixed with a quarter of a hin of oil from pressed olives, and a quarter of a hin of wine as a drink offering. 41 Sacrifice the other lamb at twilight with the same grain offering and its drink offering as in the morning — a pleasing aroma, an offering made to the LORD by fire. 42 "For the generations to come this burnt offering is to be made regularly at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting before the LORD. There I will meet you and speak to you; 43 there also I will meet with the Israelites, and the place will be consecrated by my glory. 44 "So I will consecrate the Tent of Meeting and the altar and will consecrate Aaron and his sons to serve me as priests. 45 Then I will dwell among the Israelites and be their God. 46 They will know that I am the LORD their God, who brought them out of Egypt so that I might dwell among them. I am the LORD their God.

NIV

Aaron and his sons are ordained by eating the meat of the ram as well as the bread in the basket that was offered or sacrificed for an atonement. For seven days they do this each day as well as Moses must sacrifice a lamb for the consecration of the altar. What happens at the end of all this consecrating by sacrifices to the LORD by fire is the key to the whole activity. Once Aaron and his sons are ordained by God, and we should note that it is God doing the ordination, not men, and the altar is set apart for God, being made holy, he will speak to Moses in the tent of meeting. It is God who is doing the setting apart of Aaron and his sons. It is God who is doing the setting apart of the tent of meeting. It is God who is making the altar holy. He has had Moses make a place and he consecrated it so that it would be a suitable place for him to dwell among his people and be their God. Surely he has done that with us. We cannot make ourselves holy. We cannot consecrate ourselves. We cannot set ourselves apart for God. It is his action that does all that.

Heb 2:10-12

10 In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. 11 Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers.

NIV

Heb 10:8-10

8 First he said, "Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them" (although the law required them to be made). 9 Then he said, "Here I am, I have come to do your will." He sets aside the first to establish the second. 10 And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

NIV

It is God who makes us holy through the sacrifice of the body of the Lamb of God, Jesus. Just as Moses had to offer a one year old lamb each morning and twilight, to make the altar holy, God has offered the perfect Lamb to make us holy. He was showing them they needed the sacrificed lamb in order to make the altar holy which was showing them Jesus who makes us holy. Of course we can offer our bodies as living sacrifices, but that does not make us holy. We do that as an act of worship. Although we are admonished to present our bodies holy and pleasing to God, this is our spiritual act of worship. The question here is can we actually present our bodies holy? The word here holy can be applied two different ways. First in the physical sense, pure, morally blameless. Second, religiously, ceremonially, consecrated. It may not be possible to fulfill the physical part, but surely the religious or spiritual part is possible. We can set ourselves apart for his service. That is we can decide to follow Jesus, we can make that choice to be a person of God, but he is the one who makes us holy, pure morally blameless, because we have been washed in the blood of the Lamb. The other word that is also interesting, pleasing. The original word actually means fully agreeable. We are to present our bodies, as a sound whole, which is all of ourselves, our being, fully agreeable to God. That would mean we would not disagree with him on anything. If he tells us to do something, or not to do something, go somewhere or not to go somewhere, we then would not disagree with him and do what we wanted or not wanted to do, or go or not go where we wanted or not wanted to go. Sounds a little confusing, but that makes perfect sense. We present ourselves to God, we set ourselves away from the world, and we leave the world behind and become dedicated, set apart for his purpose being fully agreeable with what he wants in and for our lives. Then he will meet with us and speak to us in this tent of meeting, our bodies. Then we will know he is the God who brought us out of bondage, he will dwell within us and he will be our God.