Day4
Week10
1Samuel
“And they sent messengers to the inhabitants of Kiriath-jearim, saying, The Philistines have returned the ark of the Lord. Come down and take it up to you.”
1 Samuel 6:21 AMPC
Cross references
Jeremiah 7:12;
Judges 18-12
What are you seeking?
When we meet the holy God, we are excited and afraid all at the same time. It’s like going up on a roller coaster – you want to be there, but at the same time you don’t want to be there.
Many of the thrill-seeking pleasures of our modern world are simply weak attempts to imitate the fulfillment we can only find by meeting the holy God.
b. Who is able to stand before this holy LORD God?
In one sense, the men of Beth Shemesh showed a bad heart in asking this question.
Their question made God seem too harsh instead of showing themselves to be too disobedient.
Here they seem peevishly [angrily] to lay the blame of their sufferings upon God, as over-holy and strict: of their sins, the true cause, they say nothing; but take care to rid their hands of the ark, which they should have retained reverently.” (Trapp)
c. Who is able to stand before this holy LORD God?
In another sense, the men of Beth Shemesh asked a good question.
God is in fact holy and Who is able to stand indeed?
Holiness is not so much achieved through our own efforts, but it is received as we are new creations in Jesus. Holiness is part of the new man we are in Jesus (Ephesians 4:24), and we are invited to be partakers – sharers of Jesus’ holiness (Hebrews 12:10).
Though God is holy, though He is apart from us, instead of building a wall around His apartness, God calls us to come to Him and share His state of being set apart.
As it says in 1 Peter 1:16, God calls us to be holy, for I am holy.
Holiness is not so much something we have, it is something that has us.
Action Step
Examine yourself and ask:
Am I seeking a thrill, comfort, ease, pleasure, relief…..?
Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you. Matthew 6:33
d. And to whom shall it go up from us?
For the men of Beth Shemesh, the holiness of God was a problem, a problem that could be fixed by putting distance between themselves and God. Their question was not, “How can we be made right with a holy God,” but it was “Who can we give this problem to so the holiness of God is no longer a burden to us?”
コメント