May 20, 2018: Day 36 – Exodus 36

Did you read what is happening in these first 7 verses?  It reminds me so much of First Presbyterian.  Moses had to command the people to stop bringing in offerings to the Lord for the work of these master craftsmen because they were bringing in too much.  They were being too generous!  What a great verse and what a great problem to have!  “So the people were restrained from bringing; for what they had already brought was more than enough to do all the work.”  Can you imagine if in the middle of the service I said something like…”I know that we are only halfway down the aisles for the offering, but ushers, you can stop right there, you don’t need to go to the back, we have enough.”  That would be different.

You don’t want to get lost in the details in this chapter, but you do need to notice the amount of material that was needed to make this tabernacle work.  The amount that was needed is mind-boggling.  And yet, the people were able to bring in more  than what was needed.  First Presbyterian is blessed with a generosity that is, well, what it should be.  It is normal to want to give to the work of the Lord.  In this Scripture it lays it out without any big proclamations.  It seems as if it is normal to be in overabundance of what the Lord requires.  It seems to be normal to go beyond what the Lord wants us to do.  

My desire is that all of us would see as normal our blessings to the work of the Lord, and not as a drudgery.  If we are giving of our time, our material gifts, our skills to the church and we are not pleased about it, or we see it as unrecognized, then maybe we are in it for the wrong reason.