Exodus 24 - Our House of Mirrors

In this chapter we find God reaching down to His people and aligning His purposes with theirs. Moses shares Gods plan and reads the Book of the Covenant to the people and twice the people corporately confirm "we will do all that The Lord says". I have no doubt that the people were sincere, but what becomes clear is that they underestimate the holiness of God and overestimate their own ability to reach his standard of righteousness. 

Our view of ourselves

No one likes to think they are working against God or that we are out of fellowship with Him. We like to think of God as loving us and accepting us no matter what. The truth is that God loves us immensely - so much that he will not allow us to wallow in sin. BUT God is also holy and cannot be associated with sin. 

The people responding to God really wanted to believe that they could honor God's commands and meet the terms of the covenant being offered.  They offer their obedience with every intention of following through, but their sin nature they inherited from Adam works against even our best intentions. They thought they were able to meet the requirement, but the laws God gives make it clear that we cannot in ourselves meet the standard. We are hopelessly lost in sin. It is in us and we cannot separate ourselves from our sin nature no matter how much I want to and no matter how hard I try. We console ourselves by comparing our righteousness against the rest of the sinners in our lives, but if we rely on that we still fall woefully short of God's standard for acceptance. 

Our view of God

In our sin nature, we resist deep consideration of God's holiness. It is so starkly contrasted with our sin that it is like a bright light shining on the depravity of our souls. Our response often is to discount God's holiness. It makes us feel better about our condition of sin. God however demonstrates his holiness to the people. Look back at the chapter. 

Moses offers a sacrifice. The animal sacrifice would not be required if the people could meet their side of the covenant between themselves and God. 

The glory of God resided on the mountain as a devouring fire for six days before Moses was allowed to enter into God's presence. We are not able to stand before God apart from God's special accommodation. Even Moses needed to wait for an invitation from God. 

Thank God we have special provision in Jesus Christ - the only perfect bridge between God and man because he was fully God and fully man wholly equipped to be the perfect and lasting sacrifice able to pay the penalty for our sins. Not only did he pay the penalty of sin (death) for our sins but for the sins of all mankind from Adam to all generations after. 

We cannot meet God's holy standard but Jesus can and he makes his life an offering for us so that we can enjoy fellowship with God now and for all eternity. We can know our eternal home; if you have accepted Jesus' substitutionary sacrifice it will show as you make serving Him our life work. The work doesn't save, but it is our response to the gift Jesus gave us. If we continue to live for ourselves we probably have not realized the benefit of Jesus sacrifice on our behalf. 

Check out some of the results of a life lived in fellowship with God in Galatians 5 and Ephesians 5. This is the measure of a saved life. God places His spirit in us and grows fruit evidencing his power. 

May God richly bless you as you seek Him and as you serve Him.