3.3.25

Good morning!

This past weekend, our Torah portion began with a request from the Lord for materials to be used in the construction of the Mishkan, the holy Tabernacle (Ex. 25:3-7). It continues with detailed instructions for how the Tabernacle and His furnishing should be made (Ex. 25:10ff). One of the furnishings that was central to the tabernacle Was the Aron/Ark, about which the Lord instructed Moses...

 "You shall put into the ark the testimony that I shall give you" (Ex. 25:16)

He gave Moses the specific instructions for making the ark saying, 

 "They shall make an arc of acacia wood to Cupid and a half shell its length a cubit (18") and a half  (9") its breath and a cubit and a half its height. You shall overlay with pure gold inside and out. Outside shall you overlay it and you shall make on it a molding of gold all around it." (Ex. 25:10,11)

The art was made of three parts. An inside box made of pure gold, a middle box made of acacia wood, and an outer box made of pure gold. All three of these boxes came together to make a single unit. 

For the casual observer, It makes sense for the wood to be covered with gold on the outside, but why does it need to be completely encased in gold? Why is the inside the ark of solid gold; something that will almost never be seen by anyone on earth. Why would it need to be made of pure gold? 

On a spiritual level, we can learn a very important lesson from this. The Ark, a container holding the Word of God (Tablets of stone; both broken and new, the symbol of resurrection, Aaron's rod, and a golden jar of manna, daily food from heaven (Heb. 9:4) and the place where God meets with those who come before Him (Ex. 25:22). 

These golden boxes are symbols and a reflection of what a person should be in their daily life. Just as the Ark is the same on the inside as it is on the outside, so must a person be. Our inward character should not be different than how we represent ourselves outwardly. 

This was the primary criticism Yeshua had against some of the Pharisee...

"You hypocrites. You clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside you are full of greed and self indulgence. You blind Pharisees, first clean the inside of the cup and the plate and the outside also might be cleaned. You scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites for you are like white washed tombs which appear beautiful but within or full of dead men’s bones and on the outside you appear righteous to others, but with you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness (Matt. 23:25-28)

Hypocrisy is representing ourselves in one way to others while privately being someone or something else. Yeshua hated hypocrisy. He told his disciples to deal with the inside and let it work its way to the outside rather than pretending to be righteous outwardly and never dealing with our inside. 

This is important because our actions are determined by who we are on the inside in the same chest Yeshua also deals with how some of the Pharisees were speaking more highly of themselves than they ought saying,  

"You brood of vipers. How can you speak good when you are evil for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." (Matt. 12:34)

He also said, 
"A good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks"  (Luke 6:45).

Our actions can be motivated out of purity or impurity. Speech has one form of action and our speech ultimately reflects the condition of our heart; just as the Ark of the Covenant was covered with the same pure gold on the outside as it was on the inside. Disciples of the Yeshua should reflect on this reality as well as people in general.  This means our public life should be a reflection of our private lives and not to cover up for them. While we all want others to look at us with some degree of approval and admiration, we should work to develop our character rather than pretend to be someone we are not; putting on a false front.  

When we do this it’s like covering the outside of the ark with iron pyrite, fools gold. It resembles gold, true, but sooner or later they will be recognized for what it is and discarded.

On this 2nd day of the week, may each of us be a true reflection of our master Yeshua (Rom. 8:29) both inside and out; of that pure precious treasure that houses the holy Torah within us. 

Happy 2nd day of the week!

Shalom

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

3.8.25

Good morning! Have you ever considered the meaning of the 153 fish that were caught by Yeshua's disciples in John 21:4-12? You remember the story, right? It's the story many of us have experienced too often in our journey...we've been 'fishing' all night long and NOTHING. Then, with a listening ear, we grab our nets one more time, and with a mighty heave we throw the net in a different direction over the boat, and...my oh my, the boat's about to sink because there are so many fish in the net; yet the nets don't break. What a story! What a miracle! What 'fish finding vision Yeshua had'! What obedience; especially after doing it for so long 'my way'. What an enigma that Yeshua already had fish cooking on the shore when the boys arrived! What wisdom he displayed in His instructions to the boys! Am I listening, acting, and throwing in the right direction? Are my nets empty (Matt. 4:19)? Have you ever felt like you're outside the camp, isolate...
Read more

3.20.25

Good morning! Yesterday, we learned some essential truths about how to 'be still and know that He is God (Psa. 46:10). Today, I want to ask you a different question based on life's ability to throw a wide variety of circumstances at us!  One of the most difficult situations is when we are threatened by someone or some circumstance. Have you ever been threatened?  Oh, maybe no one came up to you with a gun, or shouted at you with malice, or told you that you were going to be tortured or punished.  Maybe all the threat you ever had was the innuendo of rejection, or the social snub or something much less violent than jail time.  But my guess is that if you are traveling the road with Yeshua, living a Torah lifestyle, you know what it means to be threatened. Every time the circumstances of your life look as though they are about to cave in, you are threatened.  It might not be a threat from a physical enemy, then again...but we all know that in one form or another t...
Read more

3.22.25

Good morning! Shabbat shalom! Although the portion of Vayakhel/and he assembled is almost entirely focused on the construction of the tabernacle, it begins by reminding the children of Israel that no work may be done on the Sabbath (Ex. 35:2,3). Why does it begin here rather than jumping right into how to construct the Tabernacle? Enquiring minds want to know :-) By placing the topic of the Sabbath against the construction of the Tabernacle it's God's way of defining the boundaries of the Sabbath...that even the most intimate work for the Lord needs to be put aside for His 'Date Day'. However, upon further investigation, there’s another layer to understand that connects us back to the golden calf (Ex. 32). As we know, while Moses was up on the mount getting the instructions from God the children of Israel decided to make an object that would replace Moses, their deliverer; The object, later known as the golden calf, originally intended as a 'necessary' means to ...
Read more