Exodus meets 2019

February 5, 2019

Exodus 21:22-23;13, Matthew 24:1-28, Psalm 29, Proverbs 7:6-23

I'm a person who loves rules....standards... guidelines. It's 100% due to how I was raised in the church, my personality, and working at Starbucks for 17 years. I love always having a black and white, consistency, and knowing that the result is safety, quality, and something great!  I know that many of you cringe as we enter the end of Exodus and Leviticus with all the laws, but not gonna lie, I just love it! 

Even through my love of the Law, I acknowledge there are definitely some hardcore commands in these chapters in Exodus. Reading though them it's easy to skip over the ancient ones that seem "out there", but in the same breath I write "today/2019" next to them as well. I have the same thoughts when reading Matthew as Jesus presents dark images of the end times to come....but that doesn't apply to me now, right? Or does it?2019 might be jumping out over and over. And as I write this post, I don't mean for this to be anything political, but just God glorifying. 

In the last couple years up leading up to the last couple weeks, we have seen history repeat itself over and over. Our reading in Exodus opens up with a warning and covering over pregnant women and as I'm in my 33rd week of pregnancy, you know I'm gonna pay extra attention. "But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise." Exodus 21:23-25 NIV. Serious injury includes the loss of the life and heartbeat that the woman carried. The scriptures are clear that this is life and is worth another life when following "The Golden Rule" of an eye for an eye. Lift our nation in prayer. We have seen laws passed over and over that do not protect our unborn babies. We pray for God's mercy. 

Also in Exodus we hear Gods command "not to oppress" and "mistreat" "an alien" or "foreigner" in different translations. It's mentioned twice in these chapters. Israel was a wandering nation and stranger in many lands for centuries. God called on Israel to remember what it was like to be a stranger in a land. I know our nation is a mess, but what I do know is that I am called to show love and compassion and kindness to others: the strangers, the widows, the orphans. As Followers of Christ, we are called to show love. 

As Jesus said in Matthew, we will see nations rise up against nations, there will be famines, and earthquakes. "All these are the beginning of birth pains" (Matthew 24:8). The end times began the day Jesus ascended to heaven. At times we feel the end is near, but in God's eternal time clock, there could still be centuries and centuries that follow. We don't know when the end will come, but we should live each day with the purpose of Loving God and Loving others as our Church as been themed before. 

Even in all the hardness of some of these verses, the shadows and sadness that comes with watching the evening news, my greatest take away is this, "When he cries out to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate," Exodus 22:27. In an ugly world of sin, we have a Great God. We serve a God who shows love and compassion as we fall so so short. We will NEVER keep all the commands, the laws, the rules, the standard. We will never be close to perfection. But because God is compassionate we can have hope. The name of this hope is Jesus. Ephesians 2: 8-9, "For by GRACE you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast."  Keep praying for our nation. Our neighbors. Our families. I pray that Gods compassion will bring mercy. That people will see Christ through us.