The Lord spoke to the Israelites at
Mount Sinai and they were scared to bits! They trembled with fear
and immediately rushed to Moses and told them that the Lord must
stop talking to them! He must rather speak to Moses. Now as I
discussed last week they were wrong in asking Moses to tell the
Lord to stop talking to them. God wanted to speak to them and today
He wants to speak to us too.
But another thing stood out for me
when I read this. If anything, the Israelites definitely were
not blasé with God and about God. They had the necessary
reverence for God and His holy character. And I think we have lost
something of that today. I have often heard people speaking very
blasé about God as if He was their best next door buddy. How God
told them this and that, and how God had shown them everything
about the future and how God always answers their prayers
immediately and how He moves when they pray etc etc. I think we
have all met someone like that or seen them speaking from
pulpits/at seminars.
I think we have lost a bit of the
awe of God that is such a precious part of our relationship with
Him. In our day and age with everything happening instantly, we
also reduce God to Someone who needs to respond instantly too. When
I hear people speaking like they and God are bosom buddies, I look
to the Bible and I see that people who really met the Lord were
definitely not blasé about it, they fell like dead to the ground!
Let's look at only three examples of great people of God:
"When I saw God, I fell face down
in the dust." Ezekiel 1:28
"When I saw Jesus, I fell at his
feet as dead." Revelation 1:17
And when Daniel saw a vision from
God and heard Gabriel speaking to him:
"My strength left me, my face grew
deathly pale, and I felt very weak. When I heard him speak, I
fainted and lay there with my face tot the ground." Daniel 10:8,
9
They had reverence and a healthy
fear of the Lord, after all, the Bible tells us that 'the fear of
the Lord is the beginning of wisdom'. Now I am not suggesting that
we all fall to the ground every time we hear God's voice through
His Word, but I think we need to have a healthy reverence for God
again and not treat Him as our equal.
God is holy and He is worthy to be
praised! We need to treat Him with the respect He wholeheartedly
deserves!
Forgive us Father when we tend to
treat You like our next door neighbor. Please forgive us for
reducing You to our level. You are holy and You are worth praising
forever more. We love You Lord. Amen