I am a man, no one important and easily replaceable in my job, but there are times that I hold dear. I realize that my life is not mine. I have a family with wife and children. It would be easy to follow my ego and do as I choose. I could come home from work and hide, tending to my hobbies or watching T.V. Just last night I was so tempting to disappear. I have been working on building a guitar by hand. I am not a woodworker so this task has been hard with long study. I getting close to completion and all I want to do is work hard and finish it. However my wife wants to loose weight and get back into shape since she has recently had a child, so I pause and as a family we go on a walk for exercise. God knows I could use it with my great desire for my wife's good cooking. When we got back I wanted to work some more but I saw the Peach tree in our back yard had come ripe with all its fruit. It would have been easy to let it go but I knew my wife would be busy with our baby, so I picked the fruit. I was glad, the tree was overfull of peaches and seeing how ripe they were wondered if they would have lasted much longer. I give and give and when I think I can do no more for my family I find I can cause I love them so. I am not perfect but I love them with all my might. God is the same, but he is perfect. God in respect to what he provides asks very little. He loves you and so he wishes for your love in return. Giving you life and a world full of everything you could ever need he just wants you to love. Out of the 7 days each week he asks that you only come to worship and commune with him on 1. For all the bounty that he helps provide he asks that you only give back 10%. Why, so that you can help those less fortunate, he wants you to share, not out of obligation, but out of love. For many this is too much. For some the thought of loving everyone they meet is foreign. We live in a world that calls everyone to serve themselves. God does not want your money so that he can have big fancy church. God wants a home, a place of escape for his followers to meet, regroup, learn and commune as the next week begins. He doesn't want you to give your money with empty purpose, rather he wants to use that to care for the poor and less fortunate. It is easy to take for granted with what God provides because we are surrounded by it always, but he loves and cares nonetheless. God provides you with free will, and while you can turn your back on him at any moment he is waiting always for your arrival. Many do walk away. Many cannot see the love that he offers. Many cannot believe that someone so grand exists even though they are surrounded by his creations every waking moment. The choice is ours. Shall we love with all our might and bound with the aid of Jesus and the Holy Spirit, or shall we love ourselves and spend a lifetime trying to fill a hole in our heart that God-sized and one that that only God can fill. For like a perfect father his love is only prevented by our decision to walk away from him.
Leviticus 23:1, 4-11, 15-16, 27, 34-37
1The LORD said to Moses, 4"These are the appointed feasts of the LORD, the holy convocations, which you shall proclaim at the time appointed for them. 5In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month in the evening, is the LORD's passover. 6And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread to the LORD; seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. 7On the first day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall do no laborious work. 8But you shall present an offering by fire to the LORD seven days; on the seventh day is a holy convocation; you shall do no laborious work." 9And the LORD said to Moses, 10"Say to the people of Israel, When you come into the land which I give you and reap its harvest, you shall bring the sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest; 11and he shall wave the sheaf before the LORD, that you may find acceptance; on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it. 15"And you shall count from the morrow after the sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven full weeks shall they be, 16counting fifty days to the morrow after the seventh sabbath; then you shall present a cereal offering of new grain to the LORD. 27"On the tenth day of this seventh month is the day of atonement; it shall be for you a time of holy convocation, and you shall afflict yourselves and present an offering by fire to the LORD. 34"Say to the people of Israel, On the fifteenth day of this seventh month and for seven days is the feast of booths to the LORD. 35On the first day shall be a holy convocation; you shall do no laborious work. 36Seven days you shall present offerings by fire to the LORD; on the eighth day you shall hold a holy convocation and present an offering by fire to the LORD; it is a solemn assembly; you shall do no laborious work. 37"These are the appointed feasts of the LORD, which you shall proclaim as times of holy convocation, for presenting to the LORD offerings by fire, burnt offerings and cereal offerings, sacrifices and drink offerings, each on its proper day;
Psalms 81:3-6, 10-11
2Raise a song, sound the timbrel, the sweet lyre with the harp. 3Blow the trumpet at the new moon, at the full moon, on our feast day. 4For it is a statute for Israel, an ordinance of the God of Jacob. 5He made it a decree in Joseph, when he went out over the land of Egypt. I hear a voice I had not known: 9There shall be no strange god among you; you shall not bow down to a foreign god. 10I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.
Matthew 13:54-58
54and coming to his own country he taught them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished, and said, "Where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works? 55Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? 56And are not all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all this?" 57And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not without honor except in his own country and in his own house." 58And he did not do many mighty works there, because of their unbelief.
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