How to Build a Tabernacle: Part 12

Today's Reading: Exodus 35

Comments:

Today I have posted my answer to question number 11 mostly in the form of my prayer to the Lord.  Please see Part 1 for an explanation of this study into chapter 35 of Exodus.

11. What is the significance of the different stages (the call/the prep/the doing)?

Prayer:

Lord please give me eyes to see what you would have me learn from your Word today and show me the application that I can move into my day instructed by you Lord. In Jesus name I pray, amen.

Jeff- do you see that this command to build the tabernacle is accomplished in at least three stages?  I call them, they respond in willing preparation, and then I cause them to fulfill the calling and be a people of action.  The beautiful balance of my sovereignty and your free will Jeff results in this type of process in you when I call you to something.  Know that you have many purposes to fulfill as there are many parts to the tabernacle and many tasks to be performed in its preparation, construction, and even its application.   Learn the lesson of this process and walk into my calling with purpose and resolve Jeff.

Lord, I hear in your Word that you want me to listen and to take caution to not follow my plans, but I need to seek out your plan and your design for my tabernacle where you will move, where you will work, where you will light my face.  Lord, please give me ears to hear and let me not grow faint of seeking you in your Word.  Let me not grow faint of seeking you in prayer.  Let me not trade more sleep or more time at work for the wonderful blessing and necessary step of seeking your lead Lord.  I know your will for my life is that I love others, that I lead my family, that I make disciples and that I enjoy you…but I also know that you have some specific things that you want to do in me and with me Lord.  Please teach me to seek these out and to receive your direction with joy as Moses did in the instructions for the tabernacle.  May I regularly reflect on the lessons you teach me and may I be cautious to put everything you tell me into action Lord.  Please don't let me forget to plate the ark in gold before setting it in the most holy place!  Please don't let me forget to bear all the proper adornment before stepping past the curtain into your presence Lord!  Let me not be so distracted by work or by anything that I don't apply your lessons Lord.  That I don't listen with intent to follow.  Lord let me not try to get to the temporal so quickly that I do not adequately take account of what you are leading me in for the eternal.  Lord, I know you call me to surrender and to give up everything for you.  I know that this is a heart question and that you do not necessarily want me to quit my job and live on the street like St. Francis, but yet there needs to be a willingness to do so just like Abraham raised the knife ready to slay his son Isaac in obedience and trust in you Lord.  You stopped his hand Lord but his heart was willing.  Crying out in pain and anguish and was no doubt torn apart…but willing, trusting.  

As I hear and as I move forward Lord please prepare this heart for whatever it is you have planned.  Please prepare this heart to fulfill its purpose in you Lord…that I would desire that more than anything.  Please show me how to actively participate in this molding and strengthening of my inner man.  Please show me the ways that I can invest in you and how I can immerse myself in your Word and in your counsel Lord that I might be prepared.  Please continue to surround me with wise counsel and with faithful, loving friends Lord.  Please let me learn well the lessons you are teaching me Lord.  Let me not just slide past something that was supposed to teach me Lord.  Even the painful stuff Lord, please let me see your good in it.  You promise in Romans 8:28 that you work all things together for my good Lord and I believe this means that in all things you are working to conform me to the image of your Son.  Not that I am not individual and having my own personality, but that you are molding me into the type of man you are.  You are making me have the character and you are aligning me with the purposes of your Son.  Let me see how each experience you put me in Lord serves to accomplish this and let me not miss the lesson lest you need to teach me again.  Show me how to have a heart prepared for complete surrender to your will Lord.  Please let me have a heart that rejoices in you and that seeks not my own low and meager desires.  You offer so much more than a paycheck Lord.  You offer so much more than a badge or a title.  You offer so much more Lord and I pray that you would indeed continue to train my heart to be sensitive to what you have planned for me.  Lord- I also understand that you might have a lion's den or a fiery furnace or a great battle, or something quite terrible planned.  Please build in this heart a trust in you that is entirely separated from circumstances.  A trust that is entirely removed from outcomes Lord.  A trust like that of Shadrack, Meshack, and Abednego Lord who trusted not in an outcome of deliverance but their trust as in a deliverer.  This is it Lord.  You are about relationships.  You are about winning our hearts by your love and not by your sovereign power.  You desire that we know you.  You desire that we experience you and my heart needs to be soft for this purpose Lord.  Let me not be so focused on circumstances (good or bad) that I would miss the relationship.  Let me always remember to trust you, not what you might do, not what I hope you would do, not what I desire that you would do, not what I think id right for you to do.  Your ways are higher than my ways Lord, your thoughts are higher than my thoughts.  Please do your good pleasure Lord and teach me that you define what is good and right, not me.

Lord, I see you give me various levels of this doing.  I apply lessons and I do all the way down this path but there is also a doing that you are preparing me for Lord.  And no doubt it is one and then another…not some great singular act that you are planning for me to fulfill.  So Lord, let me not be overlooking the doing that you are calling me to on a daily basis for some thought or hope of a greater action you call me to.  Rather, let your Spirit have me idling and ready for that potential while I work to always be doing every day.  Let me always be watching for what it is you would have me doing Lord.  Use this heart that you are building Lord and let me not hold in the love and glory that you reveal as if I were to hide it under a lamp stand.  Let me share and bless others and teach me to partake in the fellowship as all members of this one tabernacle where you dwell and where you work out our salvation Lord.  Show me how to proceed each day looking in the near term as well as in the long term Lord where you no doubt have plans that extend beyond this phase of my life.  Let me have eyes on being prepared for the actions you require of me as a father of growing kids, as a fisher of men, as a faithful employee and leader in the fire service.  Teach me what is this doing that you call me to Lord.  Let me hear your voice and may you call me out if you have a specific role for me Lord.  Please anoint me uniquely to perform whatever it is you desire of me Lord and let me not look to the left or to the right.

Thank you for your great love Lord.  Thank you for pursuing your bride.  Thank you for setting in my heart a desire to know you.  Thank you for granting me faith in your Son.  Thank you for choosing me Lord.  Thank you that I have done nothing to earn you or to deserve you but you still sent your Son to die for me and you still call me by name Lord.  

Application:

• Today I will listen for His lead.
• Today I will look at my job and my life as temporal.
• Today I will look at my family and friends as eternal relationships that you have placed together in fellowship.
• Today I will reflect on the lesson you teach me.
• Today I will search for the lessons you are giving me that I might tend to miss.
• Today I will wait upon you to direct me Lord.
• Today I will make you Word my priority because this is how you communicate with me Lord- by your Word and by direct communion with my spirit in the inner man.

Thank you for speaking to me today Lord.  Please bless me as I go ahead and look for your lead. In Jesus name I pray, amen.

Soli Deo Gloria!

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