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Daily Reading: Exodus 29

Scripture Focus: There I will meet with the people of Israel, and it shall be sanctified by my glory. (Exodus 29.43)

Devotional Thought: I enjoy watching golf on TV. Yeah, I can almost hear you say, "Boring!" - but it does help me catch up on my sleep! At times, the camera shows the golfers going to the next hole. They generally proceed within a roped-off area with fans on either side. These fans, of course, have their hands extended to receive a 'high five' from the passing star. I am amused by this desire to be acknowledged by the golfers. I get a little sad when I see the fans that are bypassed.

Our culture longs to be in the presence of greatness. In Exodus 29, God gave Moses instructions about the altar and the Tent of Meeting. Day by day, God said they were to offer their sacrifices and meet with him. Then he says that this place of meeting "shall be sanctified by my glory" (v. 43). This innate longing to be in the presence of Greatness is answered by the glory of the Lord. How often I pray for God to shower us with his glory when we come together in worship. To be in the presence of Greatness!

Do you long for the glory of God in your life and church? Better yet, do you pray for it? I think our prayers are like those golf fans who line up along the ropes - hands extended - in hopes of brushing up against greatness. Prayer puts us in the right place, with the right attitude.

May God sanctify our lives and our churches with his glory! Get ready and get those hands out!

Prayer: Lord, I am excited to go to church today to worship you. Come in your glory, O God! I reach my hands out to you in prayer and faith. Meet with all of us today. Amen.

Psalm of the Day: 40 How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness and grieved him in the desert! 41 They tested God again and again and provoked the Holy One of Israel. 42 They did not remember his power or the day when he redeemed them from the foe, 43 when he performed his signs in Egypt and his marvels in the fields of Zoan. 44 He turned their rivers to blood, so that they could not drink of their streams. 45 He sent among them swarms of flies, which devoured them, and frogs, which destroyed them. 46 He gave their crops to the destroying locust and the fruit of their labor to the locust. 47 He destroyed their vines with hail and their sycamores with frost. 48 He gave over their cattle to the hail and their flocks to thunderbolts. 49 He let loose on them his burning anger, wrath, indignation, and distress, a company of destroying angels. (Psalms 78:40-49)