God’s face is toward us. It is the time of His favor. God has initiated this meeting and He covered ALL THE COST. Why were there two tablets?
Zechariah 1:3 But now I say to you, Return to Me, and I will return to you.
James 4:8 Come near to God, and He will come near to you. Cleanse your hands, sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
You Said If I Return
You said if I return
You will to take me In
That I shall not fear judgment
Nor taste death because of sin
You said if I return
The rejoicing would be grand
For in the day of redemption
Snatched out, by Your right hand
You said if I return
I would meet You face to face
I would not be turned away
Nor sentenced to disgrace
You said in Your promises
And Yes I have read
Summon me now oh Lord
Spirit teach me to be led.
Give me the strength to obey
In this season of return
That I may dwell forever in Your house
O Lord how my heart doth yearn
Repentance opened the way
inside my knees did crumble
Tears to water my face
I bow before You, humble
Thank you Father, oh Thank You
Yes I desire to obey
The season of return
Is opened to all today!
Poem written by laurette laster © 2018 August
It is said at the beginning of Teshuvah we are back to back, with God due to un-confessed sin. The bible clearly makes numerous references to God’s face being toward His people in times of His favor, or turned away from His people when they have become rebellious. If His face is shining upon us, we are in right relationship with Him. Like we read yesterday, we like Noah, have found favor or grace in the eyes of God, and we are pleasing to Him.
Teshuvah is during the month of Elul and is the forty days when Moses ascended back up Mount Sinai. Moses was called to meet with God again for a face to face meeting. Moses told the Lord that if He was going to blot the names of the children of Israel out of His book of life, that He could blot out his name also.
(There is a saying of “L’shanah tovah tikatevi v’taihatemi” which is to say, may you be inscribed and sealed for a good year. This is the season of our Joy and the time of year when Jewish tradition says that God is looking over the books and writing about the blessings He is going to pour out. Now we are sealed with His precious Holy Spirit until the Day of redemption. So we do not fear losing our salvation. The perfect sinless blood of Savior Jesus Christ has been accepted once and for all; however the seeds we have sown determine what we grow. I know I have to pray for a crop failure when I let my mouth get the best of me.)
When we have an encounter with the living God we are forever changed. After a face to face encounter our relationship and our intercession for others will be eternally changed. It will unravel us down to our core. A deep change in our hearts and minds will occur that will be the undoing of our filthy carnal nature. What we used to think was important; will no longer be so important that we insist on having our own way.
The way we understand or see, undergoes an immediate transformation. Our eyes are opened and our ears hear. We view eternity and the destinies of others through the heart of God. When this change occurs you will not desire that your worst enemy or enemies go to hell.
At this meeting Moses was required to carve out the two tablets himself. God required Moses, to carve the tablets and appear before The Lord God. God told Moses He would write His word on the tablets. “Now the LORD said to Moses, “Cut out for yourself two stone tablets like the former ones, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the former tablets which you shattered.” (Exodus 34:1)
The first stone, table or tablet lists four commandments of how we are show honor to God. Is it a coinencedencce that the fifth commandment is how to treat our mothers and fathers and is included on the same stone of how to honor God? The fifth command is “Honour thy father and thy mother: that thou days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.”
Is the first stone our heart and therefore needed to change our hearts? Our hearts must be free from offence to God or with God. The second stone, is this our hardened way of thinking and believing? How we treat others is very important to our Father. This is the changing of our minds.
Have you ever felt like your heart has been shattered? Have you experienced some things in your life that have tried to shatter your mind, affecting the way you feel about our Lord? Or maybe you believe you have shattered the words or the commandments The Lord has given you, just like Moses did. Do you feel distant from The Lord because of others behavior? Have you maybe reacted to what someone has done, and now think, well I blew that? Or have you ever blamed God and said, “God why did You let this happen?” Or maybe you have said, “God why did You do this?” All of these thoughts require a time of repentance and a time of reflection. We need a time to assess the thoughts in our hearts and our minds. We must align our thoughts with what the word of God says.
The good news is God knows. In His knowing He still wants an appointment and a time together with each of us to set it right. Only at this meeting we must do the work of carving the two tablets or two stone tables (KJV). If we have allowed our hearts to become hardened it affects our minds more than we may realize. A stony heart creates a rigid mind. Is this why there are two tablets? Is each a picture? Is one for the heart and the other for the mind? Did God know we would have other gods, idols, images, and various other images before we turned completely to Him? In turning to God we purpose in our hearts and in our minds, to love Him and His word as commanded by our Lord Jesus. Read Mark 12:29-31.
I believe our Lord did indeed know! He is the creator of mankind and He knows us! We cannot fool God. He knew we had the ability to act out of self; He created us with the ability to choose. God in His perfect love gave us free will. God knew that once sin entered the heart and mind of mankind we would need a new strategy to follow and work out to find ‘The Way’ and understand His salvation.
We shattered the first set of plans, so to say, in the Garden of Eden. Mankind fell and we all are shaped in iniquity according to Psalm 51:5. Read Psalm 51
I believe the Lord has revealed to me and is allowing me to see deeper into the two tablets. I believe this is the revelation given to me this year. These two stones or tables are representative of our heart and our mind after sin. The tablets or the tables are pictures of our heart and mind after long term affects of sin. I believe this is a picture of how sin hardens our hearts and minds and changes or ability to believe. We now must understand the parable of the Sower, which Jesus taught His disciples. We have some hard work to do allowing the word of God to change us. We return and repent and come back to the meeting. We are welcomed back into right relationship with God and Jesus becomes the propitiation for our sin. Seedtime and harvest are seasonal and necessary. We must agree to the work and the changes and bring our heart and our mind on board. One tablet is about how we relate to God and the other how we treat our brothers and sisters. When we love, truly love God and His word we cannot help but see the fallen condition of His creation. Loving God will change how we see and understand Him and how we see others. We will see them through a heart of love and then setting our minds on things above we are given the ministry of reconciliation.
Pray this prayer
Dear Heavenly Father, help me remove the hardened selfish images of this world from out of my heart and out of my mind. I am accepting Your invitation to return to You, and I am returning with my whole heart and my entire mind. Oh Lord I desire to be pleasing to You. I want to know what You had in mind when You created me. Lord, make me, take my life and do something worthwhile with it. My life is not my own. I have been bought with the blood of Jesus Christ. Jesus you emptied Yourself of Your divinity and humbled Yourself to become a man that I may become a child of God. Oh Jesus teach me the how to be good ground. I want to be a laborer in Your field and bring forth a harvest for You of choice fruits. Create in me a clean heart; restore to me the joy of thy salvation. Amen
God bless you and keep you and make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you and give you Shalom.
Until next time, thank you for listening with me. Laurette
Through All Seasons 