Reading

• Ex. 39:2-40:35

Devotional

Ex. 39 records the creation of the clothing for the priests and the high priest. Seven times during this chapter the Holy Spirit uses the phrase, “as the LORD had commanded Moses.” Moses followed GOD’s instructions exactly as GOD had said. This was very important. If Moses had heard GOD and decided he would follow almost everything GOD said, but then he’d add some of his own ideas to “make it better”, would GOD have been pleased? Of course not.

When GOD gives us commands He expects us to keep them exactly as He said. This is called obedience. We must always try our best to obey GOD and to keep His commandments. Jesus said:

“If you love Me, keep My commandments. … If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent Me.”
(John 14:15, 23-24 NKJV)

Why should we obey GOD and keep His commandments? Here are three reasons:

1. GOD loves you and He wants to bless you.
   Moses said to the Israelites:

   “And the LORD commanded us to observe all these statutes, to fear the LORD our God, for our good always, that He might preserve us alive, as it is this day. Then it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to observe all these commandments before the LORD our God, as He has commanded us.’”
   (Deut. 6:24-25 NKJV) 

2. The word which GOD has spoken will judge us after we die.
   Jesus said:

   “He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him—the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day. For I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak.”
   (John 12:48-49 NKJV) 

3. Breaking GOD’s commandments is sin, and that separates us from Him.
   GOD is holy and He wants us to be holy too. Peter said:

   “but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, “Be holy, for I am holy.””
   (1 Pet. 1:15-16 NKJV)

   Isaiah told the Jews of his day:

   Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; nor His ear heavy, that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.
   (Isa. 59:1-2 NKJV)