The other day during my quiet time, the Lord led me to Exodus chapter 13. There's an interesting, almost random arrangement to the chapter in that the first part starts off talking about how Israel was commanded to give their "firstfruits," the firstborn and the best of their crops, animals, and even people to the Lord. In the case of people, they would redeem a financial gift, etc., but the point was that they were required to put God first.
God tells them to teach and remind their children regarding this custom and to pass on through the generations that the reason for the law of the firstborn and firstfruits was to remember how he had taken the firstborn of the Egyptians so they would set the Hebrew slaves free and release them from Egypt. Powerful stuff and miraculous memories!
Then, almost out of order in the flow of the text, Moses says in verses 21-22, "Yahweh went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might go by day and by night the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night didn't depart from before the people."
Wow--you mean if they gave God their best and their first and remembered what he had done for them in the past--He--God--would lead them and remain with them?
I'm sure you get the point God was impressing on me. It's WAY too easy to let anything and everything, anyone and everyone take first place over God. Actually, it's easiest of all to let self be God. Bur, when we roll out of bed onto our knees and start the day with Him, or make sure that the first of our pay, our calendar, our thought life, our everything is His, HE WILL LEAD AND HE WILL NEVER LEAVE!
Good stuff to keep in mind during the hectic pace of the holidays right?
In His Love,
Pastor Joel
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