Hello everyone. I hope you had a great weekend. I certainly did. Friday night Chris and I started a fire in the fire pit right outside of our dorm as we each enjoyed our pipes. The next thing we know there are about ten to fifteen guys outside hanging out with us. It was a blast and we spent most of the night just talking and sharing plenty of laughs. Then Saturday we took full advantage of the spring weather. Chris and I got up and played racquetball ball before brunch. I worked brunch and then we were going to play basketball. Instead we decided to play softball. We mainly just took turns hitting and fielding, but it was fun. I forgot to wear a hat and got my bald scalp just a little pink. Then Saturday night I got everything ready for church and went to bed early to try to beat the time change.
Sunday morning I lead liturgy at church, and then watched a video on Noah's ark with the youth group. It was a really cool video and made me do some extra thinking about exactly what Noah went through. Then a couple from church took us three students and pastor out for lunch to this huge buffet. They had every type of food you could ever imagine. Needless to say I ate way too much. Then Sunday afternoon a few of us guys were going to hit the driving range, but the rain cancelled those plans. So Chris and I played some video games instead before I spent the rest of the night catching up on my reading. Chris, Stein, Brennan, and I are keeping each other accountable with a program that completes reading of the Bible in sixty days. We read the assigned reading for each day and then three Psalms. I am personally going to add reading one part of the Small Catechism to it each day. This addition is two fold because I personally want to know the Catechisms better, but we are also required to have the Small Catechism memorized for one of my classes. So I figure the more I read it the easier it will be to memorize it. I finished Leviticus last night and am kind of glad to be through it and Exodus.
Today it literally is almost eighty degrees and sunny out. It is a bit windy, but still a beautiful day. Also, the food bank received a huge donation of food that they put out for all students to go through and pick out what they wanted. It was mostly cereal bars and fruit snacks and Gatoraid, which is all good stuff and it was all free. Now I am just typing this up quick before I start on my readings for classes and work ahead in my daily Bible readings. I am not going to have much time this weekend as I head to Decatur to babysit the nephews while Nate and Kari have stuff to do.
My thought for the day comes from my readings in Exodus. I want to look at the story of the golden calf. Moses goes up to Mount Sinai to be with the Lord and receive His commandments. While he is gone, the Israelites do not last very long before they are wondering where Moses is and start bugging Aaron. They demand for him to make them gods for them to worship. Now an important thing to remember is that Aaron has not only been Moses's aid through the entire Exodus starting in Egypt, but he is also the head priest. Right before the story of the golden calf is the Lord telling Moses how to make the tabernacle and everything in it. Part of that everything in it is the garments and vestments for Aaron and his sons to wear as the priests of the tabernacle. Aaron has special garments to wear when he enters the Most Holy place that only he is allowed to go into once a year. He is the most holy priest and in charge. Then as soon as you get done reading about Aaron being the high priest for the Israelites, you read the story of the golden calf. The people demanded from Aaron gods to worship. Instead of directing their focus and faith to the Lord who he knows has brought them up out of Egypt and saved them from slavery, he tells them to bring him all their gold. He makes for them the golden calf and tells them to worship the idol. The best part is when Moses finds out. Moses also plays an interesting part in this story. He pleads with God not to let his anger burn against the people for walking against the Lord. The Lord listens to Moses, but then as soon as Moses returns and finds the people worshiping the statue of the calf, his anger burns against them. He just asked God to forgive them, but then personally gets mad at them. However, you cannot really blame him. He just stuck out his neck to save these people and now finds out they are not making him look very good. He confronts Aaron about it all. This is part of the story that makes it seem so real to me. Moses asks Aaron how he could possibly let something like this happen and Aaron lies! Instead of just confessing to being the one who let the people turn away from God, he says he threw the gold in the fire and the calf was what came out. As soon as Moses is standing in font of Aaron, it finally hits Aaron and he realizes how big he has messed up. He feels the guilt and shame for the wrong he has done. Instead of just owning up to it and confessing, he makes up a lie, an excuse. How many times have we done that in our life?! We are confronted about something we know we messed up; we did something that we know we should not have done, but the guilt and shame scares us into lying instead of just confessing to the mistake, we make another mistake by lying about it. I know I have personally done this time and time again. I have found every time that lying only makes it worse, and those excuses we make up do not help anybody. Even if Moses believed Aaron's excuse, the Lord still knew he was lying. We may get out of trouble by lying or making excuses some times. However, the Lord always knows the truth and on judgment day, we will all answer the truth for those lies and excuses. We should fear the Lord enough to be honest with Him and confess all our sins. He knows them anyway, so why not just come clean and tell Him the truth. Then do the same when we are confronted about our mistakes. When some one is standing in front of you asking how you could possibly make such a mistake, do not make another mistake by lying. Just tell the truth and confess that you have done wrong. And you may have to pay the consequences of your actions. However, when you confess your sins to the Lord, you know there are no eternal consequences. Jesus Christ has died as the consequence for every sin you and I do. He has paid the price so we do not have to. His resurrection was the triumph that wiped away all our wrongs. So when we find ourselves in Aaron's shoes, and we have lied about sinning, confess both sins to God knowing we are forgiven because of the gracious and loving Savior we have in Christ Jesus. All Praise Him who forgives us, even when we lie about the wrong we have done.
This prayer was given to me and I want to use it for today:
Lord, You know what is best for me
Give me what You will and when You will and as much as You will.
Do with me as You know best and as it pleases You and brings You the most honor.
Place me where You will and guide me according to Your wisdom.
I am in Your hand as Your servant and ready to all that You command.
I want to live, not for myself, but for You alone.
I want to live worthily and profitably and to Your honor.
Amen.
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