STRENGTH TO ZION

Holy Day

October 9^th

Last Day of Tabernacles: 

Deuteronomy 14:22-16.17;

Ezekiel 38:8 -39.16;

I Kings 8:54-66;

Numbers 29:35 – 30:1

God’s Holy Days Are Dates That Need To Be Regarded, If For No Other Reason Than Courtesy

God’s timing is important.  There is no way around it; no way around that statement, and no way around His timing.  When God is not “in” it, nothing is there.  It doesn’t matter how brilliant you are, or how much research you’ve done to support your claim, when God isn’t in it, it is foolishness.  Now, why is that?  Because God can cause you to see what isn’t even there, and God can cause you to overlook what is impossible to miss.  That’s simply the way He works. You might as well accept it early on.  You need God, whether you like it or not.  And because you need him, you would do well to come to the table when he calls you, and to make it all about Him on that day, even when your mind is wandering all over the place at other times.

We Make The Dumbest Mistakes When We Think That God Doesn’t Know Everything

“Did you see the muscles on that guy?”

“What guy?”

“Our waiter.”

“No…I didn’t see anything.  I didn’t even notice him.  Matter-of-fact, I didn’t even realize that we had a male waiter.  I thought that girl was our waitress.  I guess I wasn’t paying attention to him.  Where is he?  Did we actually have a waiter yet?  I didn’t notice a thing.  You noticed?  Why would you think I noticed?  Haven’t I been here with you the whole time?  I try to give you my undivided attention.  Why would I look at him when I’m sitting across from you?”

God knows everything.  There, I said it.  Hopefully we can move on from here.  Now the foolish part is to think that God doesn’t know that you think that He doesn’t.  It’s foolish to pretend like you trust everything God says and does, and to truly believe that God doesn’t know when every bone in your body is turning the opposite way.  Trust me, he saw you looking at the waiter.  He knows that you noticed other options.  That’s not the question.  The question is will you overrule how you feel and what you think, and believe him anyway?  What will you do to prove that you came with God and that you are dedicated to leaving with God when he gets up from the table?  That’s the question.

I am convinced that faith is directly linked to works.  I am convinced that it is impossible to prove that you believe something if you’ve never given any evidence to support that belief.  And I am convinced that when you move on something that you don’t really, really, really, want to do because you doubt that it is the right decision, somewhere in you, you believed that it was right enough to endorse.  Wow!  That changes everything doesn’t it?

That means that every “unplanned” pregnancy was planned by somebody (if not by both parties).  That means that every murder was planned by somebody (even though the recipient of the bad act was a victim).  That means that every act of adultery was a choice and not a set-up, as we’ve been taught to believe.  That means that people are actually responsible for what they “do” rather than what they said that they believed they would do.  People choose their pits, for the most part.

All About Steve–  The Story About What We Are Willing To Do To Get What We Really Don’t Want!

Consider this movie for example.  Do you know where the pit stop was?  Let’s go from the end to the beginning.  At the end of the movie, Sandra Bullock is running wildly across a dangerous field in order to embrace her one true love whom she only met a few days prior.  She overlooks the camera men, the crowds of people, and of course….the King Kong foot imprint of a deep pit in the middle of them all.  She races head-long while looking at “Steve” and avoids seeing the hole the size of a football field.  She sinks to the bottom of the pit where she must devise a plan to get out alive before it is too late.

Now, “Steve’s” a decent guy, but who WOULD choose this maniac of a girl?  Of course she knows that he won’t choose her because she set it up that way.  She set the stage for “Steve” to reject her because, although she says she wants to enter the world of normalcy with Steve, what she does is all but normal.  She doesn’t really want “Steve”.  She wants to prove that she can never have Steve, and the whole movie supports her brilliant theory.  Here it is:

It is impossible for one human to desire another in their uncensored condition.

The reality is that it would be impossible for anyone to love her in her uncensored condition, because it is impossible to love anyone at all without some editings.  The somewhat savvy, back-handed message of this movie is that it wasn’t all about Steve.  It was all about her (whose name I can’t even remember) and what she was unwilling to do in order to make it all about Steve.

What am I really saying?  As the daughter said to the father in Meet Joe Black, “Can you give me the short version?”

It’s not all about God.  It never was.  God knows that about us.  He knows that we go to great lengths to make it appear as if it was always all about God.  We are liars.  When we try to pretend that we are solely devoted to Him, we lie.  God doesn’t expect us to be solely devoted to him.  He expects us to be “soul-ly” devoted to him, and that’s not the same thing.  He expects us to be devoted to him ABOVE our devotion to everything else, not in lieu of.  God doesn’t expect us not to notice what is around us.  He expects us to notice, but to give him full attention when he commands it. 

Sandra Bullock’s character fell in the pit long before she met “Steve”.  She fell into the pit when her parents made her believe that it was all about her!  There was no room for a date with Steve.  She lacked the simple courtesy that is necessary to entertain another soul while in her company.  She lacked consideration.  We are the same with God.  We say that it is all about God, but we don’t leave any room for him to enter; not even on those days that were scheduled dates with him.

Those times are invitations from God for us to “dwell” (tabernacle) with him.  But we must clear our calendar in order for him to stay. 

God says, “Hey, I don’t mind that you noticed the waiter with the muscles, you don’t need to pretend that you didn’t.  But could you at least pay attention to me and what I’m saying when we have a date?  Because when we get up from this table, you’re going to need to remember everything that we talked about and those muscles can’t help you out of the pit that awaits you just around the corner.  Only my timing can.”

And by the way…there was no waiter, Narcissus. Neither was there really a “Steve”.