Download Lesson: 12.14.14 Class Notes Ex 32.15-35

LOOK:

Moses provides us a good model of spiritual leadership.

• When his people failed, he interceded for them.

• When he met with the people, he confronted them with the goal to help them turn from their sin of idolatry.

• He listened to the Lord’s instructions as to how to discipline the people instead of taking matters into his own hands.

• He was willing to sacrifice his own life to atone for the sins of the Israelite nation.

Download Lesson: 12.7.14 Class Notes – Ex 31, 32.1-14

LOOK:

The Israelites are so much like us. We can bask in the presence of God and give Him our word that we will obey Him and follow Him when things are going well. But we are so fickle! No sooner do things start to get a little hard, or we don’t think God is showing up in our circumstances fast enough and all of sudden we’ve turned our back on Him and have placed our trust elsewhere. If God’s plans are always perfect and He knows what’s best for us, then we need to quit being impatient and let Him roll out the red carpet!

Here’s our lesson: Instead of focusing on our circumstances and our perception of God’s presence or lack thereof, we need to fix our eyes on God and lock into the following TRUTHS we know of God based on today’s Scripture:

1. God has a plan already in place for each of us. We may not understand His timing or even know all the details of it. [X-Ref: Jer 29:11-12. God told the Israelites that He would lead them into the Promised Land, yet as soon as He seemed absent, they were fashioning a golden calf to follow.]
2. When God calls us into His kingdom, He fills us with His Holy Spirit, and He equips us with the necessary skills and abilities to accomplish His will. [Remember Bezalel and Oholiab.]
3. God is a Promise-keeper. He made a covenant with His children, and we need to trust that He will continue to fulfill His covenant to us.
4. God is accomplishing His purposes through each of us in all of our circumstances. Rom 8:28 “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purposes.” When our circumstances don’t make sense, remember that God has sacred intentions underlying all of our circumstances for good of those who have been called by Him.

Download Lesson Plan: 11.23.14 Class Notes Ex 24-30

LOOK:

What’s amazing to me is that the Tabernacle illustrates the GOSPEL message. When Jesus died on the cross and his substitutionary sacrifice was completed, He said, “It is finished.” At that moment, the veil was torn supernaturally so that anyone who placed their faith in Jesus would become His priest. Once we became His priest, He allowed us to have direct access to Him inside the Holy of Holies.

The New Testament picture of this is beautiful. You and I became the “temple” of the Holy Spirit:

• I Cor 3: 16-17 “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you ARE that temple.”

• I Cor 6:19 “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own

• 2 Cor 6:14-18 (v.16b) “For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: ‘I will live among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.”

You and I have an awesome privilege as a “priest” to LIVE INSIDE THE VEIL daily. We need to ask ourselves if our temple is free of idols. Is it free of distractions? Is our temple filled with incense to burn so that we can offer sacrifices of praise, an aroma that is pleasing to Him?

I am also challenging us to evaluate the content of our prayers and reallocate the percentages between petitions, intercessory prayer, and praise and thanksgiving, such that the highest percentage of our content goes to praise and thanksgiving. Giving God praise, glory, honor, adoration and thanksgiving is the only thing we have to offer Him that doesn’t come from Him. Praise is His love language, so let’s not withhold it from Him. Let’s pray.