A Willing Heart

 

Our Bible Study has been focusing on the Tent Tabernacle and the furnishings.  I took notes and present an edited lesson.

When the Children of Israel left Egypt, God told them to borrow from the Egyptians, Gold, silver, precious jewels, incense, spices, expensive cloth and what ever else they could collect of value.  Each household took this from Egypt as a ransom as payment for the years they spent in slavery.

Now they were camped in the wilderness, and God gave Moses instructions in detail how to build a tent tabernacle that could be packed up and move with them as they traveled to the Promised Land. 

When they set up camp, the priest’s tents were to be closest to the tabernacle, with the twelve tribes situated around the sides.  As they prepared to build the tabernacle and its furniture, the people were asked to give with a willing heart from their holdings they had taken from Egypt.

Exodus 35:5 Take from among you an offering unto the LORD: whosoever is of a willing heart, let him bring it, an offering of the LORD; gold, and silver, and bronze,

Each gift was important and all the people were willing to contribute to God’s tabernacle.  The people were no different from us.  As we give offerings to our church, it must be with a joyful and willing heart.  No sacrifice was too small but it was important for the attitude to be freely given.

God gave special wisdom, understanding, knowledge and anointing for some to be skillful with their hands and to be creative in shaping cunning works of art for the furniture for the tabernacle. 

Exodus 35:35  Them hath he filled with wisdom of heart, to work all manner of work, of the engraver, and of the cunning workman, and of the embroiderer, in blue, and in purple, in scarlet, and in fine linen, and of the weaver, even of them that do any work, and of those that devise cunning work.

God filled them with wisdom, to complete each task.

Talented hands were needed to fashion the Priests garments with delicate and intricate embroidery work.

Spices were important to blend with pure olive oil for anointing, and sweet incense to be burnt as an offering in the Holy Place.

Everyone had an opportunity to give something toward the work of the Lord.  No one was more important than the next person and each gave liberally of what they had available.

Finally God said: “We have more than enough and it is sufficient for all of the work.

We are reminded that the Golden Lamp Stand gave light in the dark Holy of Holies.  It represented Jesus as the Light of the World to light the darkness.  Jesus turned and said that we too are to be the Light of the World and to shine in our corner of our world.

It is important that our light be pure and honorable; full of sweet incense and undefiled.

There are a lot of “good lights” out there, but not all are pure Gospel.  They have nice sayings, but are tainted with an unholy background.  Where did they originate and where are they coming from?

Let the pure Word of God be held supreme.  Real inward change comes from a Spiritual Awakening.  We are Spirit, Soul and Body, and we must feed our Spirit and our Soul with Living Water, the Bread of Life, the Meat of the Word and the Wine of the Holy Spirit.

Our teacher brought a small bottle of sweet smelling oil of Frankincense to class and each person put a small drop on their finger and rubbed it in the palm of their hands.

 

This simple illustration was to remind us that God has anointed each of us with His Holy Spirit and we are to come to Jesus with a willing heart; and commit to serve Him all the days of our life.