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It is easy to laugh at these foolish Israelites and their golden calf. But we have our own version of this. Did you ever consider how most of our living rooms are arranged — chairs and couches in a half circle around a glowing screen. Doesn’t that kind of resemble an altar? How much time do we prostrate ourselves in front of it and let it feed our minds every day? How about those little shining boxes we carry around with us everywhere, to our dinner tables, into the bathroom, into our beds? The Israelites worshipped an idol made of gold. How many of us also worship money. Maybe we aren’t so different from those foolish Israelites?

This way that God provided, Jesus, is the greatest gift ever given to us. And God has poured out many gifts upon us — life itself, laughter, sex, procreation, beauty, nature… too many gifts to list! He gave us guidelines to navigate through this life in harmony and spiritual communion with Him. He doesn’t need to punish us when we stray outside of these guidelines. We punish ourselves. Look around at this wretched world, all the pain and misery, and you can see the undeniable truth of this.

There is a correlation between faith and Jesus working in our lives. Our faith opens up a doorway that Jesus chooses to work through. Faith IS extremely important, not faith in any particular miracle necessarily, but faith in JESUS — that He is God, He is personal, He hears you, He cares about you. He will work in your life if you ask Him to. LORD, please help us to no be afraid, but only believe!

I believe that everything in our natural world has a pure perfect match in heaven. God created our universe in this parallel fashion to allow us to know Him, to teach us about the kingdom of heaven. God’s greatest desire is for us to know Him intimately. So he made all of creation to be an immense puzzle of clues to reveal heaven to us. Isn’t that neat?!

Today I work hard to be good soil. I spend time every day enjoying God’s presence. We have “dates” every morning. I talk to Him, sit with Him in silence, and I read His love letter to me, the Scriptures. The more time I spend with Him, the deeper our relationship grows. The better I know Him, the more often I hear His voice, the more joy our relationship brings me. It is an eternal love affair.

The Pharisees had turned it all upside down. They were more concerned about the rules than about relationship with God. When rules replace God, there is no relationship. This is legalism and Jesus hated it. Legalism goes by different names: judgmentalism, narrow-mindedness. Today it is called political correctness. The name keeps changing but the spirit is the same. It is the great eye blinder and soul killer.

Jesus’ true MISSION was the MESSAGE. He came to tell people the good news, that the kingdom of heaven was at hand, that salvation had come.

Steadfast faith says I don’t understand why these terrible things are happening but I recognize that You, God, are sovereign. You created me and gave me life so I will trust You even when I don’t understand.

And He is here NOW, with us today. The very last words He spoke to His disciples in his physical form were “behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (v.20) And it is true. Soon after this, Jesus returned to us as the Holy Spirit. He never left us. He is still with us today. Hallelujah!