GOD spoke to Moses and Aaron, "When you enter the land of Canaan, which I'm giving to you as a possession, and I put a serious fungus in a house in the land of your possession, the householder is to go and tell the priest, 'I have some kind of fungus in my house.' The priest is to order the house vacated until he can come to examine the fungus, so that nothing in the house is declared unclean. When the priest comes and examines the house, if the fungus on the walls of the house has greenish or rusty swelling that appears to go deeper than the surface of the wall, the priest is to walk out the door and shut the house up for seven days. On the seventh day he is to come back and conduct another examination; if the fungus has spread in the walls of the house, he is to order that the stones affected by the fungus be torn out and thrown in a garbage dump outside the city. He is to make sure the entire inside of the house is scraped and the plaster that is removed be taken away to the garbage dump outside the city. Then he is to replace the stones and replaster the house. Leviticus 14:33-42 THE MESSAGEI can't say that reading these last two chapters were easy. I can't say I completely understand its purpose. So how do I apply this to my life? I can honestly say that I feel my heart is the house in which it has this ugly fungus or sin that goes "deeper than the surface." As the Lord has brought in the light of His Word, it has illuminated the dark places of my heart. As we work to tear out and throw in the dump the affected areas of my heart, upon reinspection, there is evidence of my fungus so that we have to scrap the entire inside of my heart and replaster it. It is a work in progress and it doesn't feel good and the work is hard.
Lord, this very day I need you to continue to replaster my heart. In the midst of this reconstruction, I feel vulnernable to discouragement. I need to feel Your presence and peace.
--michele
I posted. Saw it. Deleted it---where did it go? Ha! I said: Love your humble honest heart Michele! Remember the verse in Exodus 1 about God sees, remembers, listens, understands. I'm struggling with you! We are fellow pilgrim strugglers held fast by a good God. You are precious to me! Love, Bev
ReplyDeleteMichele - your thoughts this morning brought me back to the letter to the Hebrews. The author of the letter reminds them (and me) of the exhortation from Job 5.17 not to regard the discipline of the Lord lightly. It was addressed to them and to us as "sons." He goes on to remind us that our Father disciplines us for our own good so we can share His holiness. "All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful, yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwords it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness." - Hebrews 12.11. Every "remodeling job" we have undertaken, perhaps a better verb would be, ENDURED, has been difficult; took longer than planned; revealed unforseen barriers; cost more than originally budgeted. However, the end result has been something much better that we had imagined. Be encouraged and remember we must keep our eye on the prize...without the process of sanctification we cannot enter the Shekinah Glory, the Presence of our wholly other, thrice Holy God. I love you! Thank you for being my friend....
ReplyDelete