What a great way to begin the day… I’m re-reading the Bible at the moment from cover to cover in a one year reading plan.  I have resolved to repeat this in one form or another every other year.  Today I was reading from Exodus 33 to 35. It was one of those occasions when some of the words just jump out of the page at you.

Moses is speaking to God (remarkable in itself) and He asks God to reveal Himself to him. He wants to see God.  God agrees to pass before Moses and as He does so He proclaims, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.”

We serve an amazing God of grace and love who seeks the hearts of those He has created.  Not because of some desperate, lonely need of His own, not because He can not live without us, but because His nature is to love.

As I read on to Exodus 35 I reached the part of the story where Moses gathers the people together so that they may now make the Tabernacle that God has asked him to build.  This will be the place of encounter between Moses and God.

What struck me here were the words “all who are willing“.  In verse 5 it tells us that Moses says to the whole community, “everyone who is willing is to bring to the Lord an offering…”  And then later in verses 20-22, “everyone who was willing and whose heart moved them came and brought an offering to the Lord…”

Then I decided to revisit an old You Tube favourite of mine that I hadn’t heard for a long time.  It is “Father of the fatherless” by Jason Upton.  Again, one phrase just leapt out at me:

“Your words are true, You never leave us alone.”

We are privileged to serve and worship a God who created us out of and for love, whose grace is a precious gift. He seeks our hearts in response – our own sacrifice of love… not of fear, or selfish ambition, or for our own sake, but for His.  For us to respond in like. To love and serve the creator as He loves and serves us… The one who made the ultimate sacrifice on the Cross.