God Wants Your Best Stuff! – Exodus 25:3-7

3 These are the offerings I want you to receive from them: gold, silver, bronze; 

4 blue, purple, and scarlet material; fine linen; goats' hair; 

5tanned rams' skins; dolphin skins; acacia wood; 

6 lamp oil; spices for anointing oils and for fragrant incense; 

7 onyx stones and other stones for setting in the Ephod and the Breast-piece.

– Exodus 25:3-7

God Wants Your Best Stuff!

What are you least willing to part with?  You know, the one thing that would hurt you the most to give up . . . Money?   Jewelry?   Your Home?  How about that fancy car?  Maybe it's something even more precious . . . a child?  A parent?  A spouse even?  Hmmmm.

God doesn't really want (or need), the things that we have, but He doesn't want the things that we have to own us either.  He wants to be our everything.  He desires to be the first and the last thing on our minds every day.  He yearns for the kind of relationship with us that would allow us to see Him in all things and through all circumstances.  God wants the very best for us and it must pain HIm to know that we settle for so much less, and then call those things good.

In today's scripture reading, God is asking for offerings of the "things" that the Israelites considered "precious."  He knew that if they used these materials to build a sanctuary for Him, they would revere and honor and consider It holy – they would treat His sanctuary with the respect and awe that It deserved.  How sad is that?  I mean God doesn't need gold, or silver, or bronze; He doesn't need silk or animal furs and skins, or fragrant oils . . . God is in the clouds, and in fire, and He shakes the earth with a mere whisper.  But God loves us so much, and He knows that we have this need to hang onto "things."  So God, in His infinite wisdom, sets things up so that we can feel closer to Him.  He asks for us to offer those "things," our finest possessions, so that we can feel and know that He is to be honored.  I think if I was in His position, I would be so mad, and I would say "forget all these ungrateful and fickle people!"  Whew!  Thankfully I'm not or I would have to "forget" about myself most of all!

This has really opened my eyes and it makes me want to give all that I am; all that I have to Him.  Whatever He wants.  Whenever He wants it.  However He asks for it.  But most of all, I want to give Him all of ME.  My hopes, my dreams, my wants, my future – my EVERYTHING!  I don't want God to have to chase after me (even though I know He would).  I want to be the man that chases after God.  I want to be a man that wrestles with Him and refuses to let go.  I want to be right smack-dab in the middle of His will.  I think that would be an awesome place to be . . . and I pray that for you as well!

Prayer

Father, Thank You for allowing us to give you our best.  Forgive our idolatry and covetousness.   Help us to recognize those things that have ahold on us so that we can have a true perspective on who You are in our lives.  

Have a blessed day everyone!

– Richard