I am struck by the fickleness of people. I am probably more struck by my own fickled nature. I am even maybe even a bit frustrated at my fickleness.
When Moses is leading the Israelites out of captivity and the come to the wilderness, he lays out God's covenant to them. They have just seen the great deliverance from Egypt and the destruction of Pharaoh's army in the Red Sea. They have seen the cloud by day and pillar of fire by night. They've tasted manna from heaven and drank water from a rock. So when Moses comes before them and tells the people all the commands of the Lord and all the ordinances, the people respond in unity, with resolve in one single voice, "We will do everything that the Lord has commanded!" (Exodus 24:3)
Great picture of obedience and love for God and His laws, correct? Then why just a few days later when God is giving His Law on the mountain, the people turn completely away from God, have Aaron (who is supposed to be maintaining order) cast for them a golden calf idol that they begin to worship, dance and bow down to? I can only think of one word: fickleness!
Actually, I can think of many other words to describe this: sin, carnal nature, superstition - the list goes on. But my first thought is, "how can people be so fickled that at one moment they are praising and worshipping God and the next they are bowing down to idols?"
Here are the lessons....
1. If we take our eyes off God for even a moment, we are subject to the human condition called fickleness. We become more and more like Jesus by gazing into His glory. We tend to become more like ourselves (and the Father of all lies) when we take our eyes off God and place them on things like a golden calf.
2. It is easier to see the fickleness of others than it is to see our own fickleness. Really, I was angered once again when I read through this passage. I kept saying to myself, "How could they do this? Worship God one moment and dance like heathens before an idol the next?" But don't we do the same today (just not in front of a golden calf)? We go to church on Sunday morning, worship and rush to our favorite restaurant (we want to beat the members of that other church who lets out about the same time) while passing by housing projects full of hungry people (both physically and spiritually). We "do our devotions" in the morning and shortly after we close the covers on our Bible, we are consumed with the worries of the world and work out of our own strength, ideas and cunning while all the time living as if the God we just read about was some distant and irrelevant figure-head of a nice religion. We, as good standing Christian people, waltz through our whole day, encountering countless numbers of lost people and never once stop to take time to share the gospel. You get the picture...
I am a pretty good person. But I am also a pretty fickled person. I live a life of contrast somewhere between who I know I ought to be and who I really am. I join the Apostle Paul in proclaiming...
"...For the desire to do what is good is with me, but there is no ability to do tit. For I do not do the good that I want to do, but I practice the evil that I do not want to do...So I discover his principle: When I want to do what is good, evil is with me. For in my inner self I joyfully agree with God's law. But I see a different law in the parts of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me prisoner to the law of sin in the parts of my body..." (Romans 7:18-25)
So maybe the core of my spiritual journey is simply stated as this: I need to grow out of my own fickleness...
When Moses is leading the Israelites out of captivity and the come to the wilderness, he lays out God's covenant to them. They have just seen the great deliverance from Egypt and the destruction of Pharaoh's army in the Red Sea. They have seen the cloud by day and pillar of fire by night. They've tasted manna from heaven and drank water from a rock. So when Moses comes before them and tells the people all the commands of the Lord and all the ordinances, the people respond in unity, with resolve in one single voice, "We will do everything that the Lord has commanded!" (Exodus 24:3)
Great picture of obedience and love for God and His laws, correct? Then why just a few days later when God is giving His Law on the mountain, the people turn completely away from God, have Aaron (who is supposed to be maintaining order) cast for them a golden calf idol that they begin to worship, dance and bow down to? I can only think of one word: fickleness!
Actually, I can think of many other words to describe this: sin, carnal nature, superstition - the list goes on. But my first thought is, "how can people be so fickled that at one moment they are praising and worshipping God and the next they are bowing down to idols?"
Here are the lessons....
1. If we take our eyes off God for even a moment, we are subject to the human condition called fickleness. We become more and more like Jesus by gazing into His glory. We tend to become more like ourselves (and the Father of all lies) when we take our eyes off God and place them on things like a golden calf.
2. It is easier to see the fickleness of others than it is to see our own fickleness. Really, I was angered once again when I read through this passage. I kept saying to myself, "How could they do this? Worship God one moment and dance like heathens before an idol the next?" But don't we do the same today (just not in front of a golden calf)? We go to church on Sunday morning, worship and rush to our favorite restaurant (we want to beat the members of that other church who lets out about the same time) while passing by housing projects full of hungry people (both physically and spiritually). We "do our devotions" in the morning and shortly after we close the covers on our Bible, we are consumed with the worries of the world and work out of our own strength, ideas and cunning while all the time living as if the God we just read about was some distant and irrelevant figure-head of a nice religion. We, as good standing Christian people, waltz through our whole day, encountering countless numbers of lost people and never once stop to take time to share the gospel. You get the picture...
I am a pretty good person. But I am also a pretty fickled person. I live a life of contrast somewhere between who I know I ought to be and who I really am. I join the Apostle Paul in proclaiming...
"...For the desire to do what is good is with me, but there is no ability to do tit. For I do not do the good that I want to do, but I practice the evil that I do not want to do...So I discover his principle: When I want to do what is good, evil is with me. For in my inner self I joyfully agree with God's law. But I see a different law in the parts of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me prisoner to the law of sin in the parts of my body..." (Romans 7:18-25)
So maybe the core of my spiritual journey is simply stated as this: I need to grow out of my own fickleness...
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