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For I know the plans I have for you,declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jer 29:11 |
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| Archived Manna: | |
Dear
Friend,
If you do not already have a habit of gathering daily manna the first thing in the morning (we can look at the example given to us in Exodus 16 and find the pattern for make it a habit. Establish your life and your schedule to allow you the necessary time to do your daily collection first thing every morning to give you the strength to make it through the day. And remember that today’s manna will not be sufficient for tomorrow; tomorrow’s manna must be collected tomorrow morning. Tuesday, March 1, 2022
Today's Passage : Today's Passage :The Golden Calf Bible Verse:Exodus 32 (heavily redacted) (NLT) "When the people saw how long it was taking Moses to come back down the mountain, they gathered around Aaron. “Come on,” they said, “make us some gods who can lead us. We don’t know what happened to this fellow Moses, who brought us here from the land of Egypt.” So Aaron said, “Take the gold rings from the ears of your wives and sons and daughters, and bring them to me.” Then Aaron took the gold, melted it down, and molded it into the shape of a calf. When the people saw it, they exclaimed, “O Israel, these are the gods who brought you out of the land of Egypt!” Aaron saw how excited the people were, so he built an altar in front of the calf. Then he announced, “Tomorrow will be a festival to the Lord!” The people got up early the next morning to sacrifice burnt offerings and peace offerings. After this, they celebrated with feasting and drinking, and they indulged in pagan revelry. golden calf Egyptian bull-god When Joshua heard the boisterous noise of the people shouting below them, he exclaimed to Moses, “It sounds like war in the camp!” But Moses replied, “No, it’s not a shout of victory nor the wailing of defeat. I hear the sound of a celebration.” When they came near the camp, Moses saw the calf and the dancing, and he burned with anger. He threw the stone tablets to the ground, smashing them at the foot of the mountain. He took the calf they had made and burned it. Then he ground it into powder, threw it into the water, and forced the people to drink it. Moses . . . stood at the entrance to the camp and shouted, “All of you who are on the Lord’s side, come here and join me.” And all the Levites gathered around him. Moses told them, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Each of you, take your swords and go back and forth from one end of the camp to the other. Kill everyone—even your brothers, friends, and neighbors.” The Levites obeyed Moses’ command, and about 3,000 people died that day. Then the Lord sent a great plague upon the people because they had worshiped the calf Aaron had made." Message:
Today is Shrove Tuesday. We eat pancakes: Do you know why? In the Middle Ages, knowing that Lent was about to start, housewives would want to use up luxury foods like butter and sugar (which they would avoid during the fast of Lent) so that these expensive foods would not go to waste.
This led to a Shrove Tuesday being a bit of a feast, by accident. It isn’t a special “holy day” in any theological sense, but people got to eat their last tasty supper for a while; so it was a “feast” in a practical sense. Mardi Gras, “fat Tuesday,” was the day cooks used up all their fat.
Of all the Christian practices that have been bastardized into absolute evil, Mardi Gras takes the cake. Christmas has been commercialized, and even worse, St. Patrick’s holy life is celebrated by riotous public drunkenness.
But Mardi Gras, as practiced in such places as Rio de Janeiro and New Orleans, has become an outright public orgy. People wear masks, and one can understand why. They do not want their identity known. Giant replicas of imaginary figures are worshipped; they become the gods, the golden calves, of the partygoers.
Mardi Gras parade
The Golden Calf, updated
Women pull up their shirts to show their bare breasts in public — and more recently, some men and women pull down their pants! — to get a reward of a string of brightly colored plastic beads. This, then, is what their bodies and their sexuality are worth to them; a gaudy plastic necklace worth 10 or 20 cents.
But it’s all in fun, right? Not to God. When the Hebrews did just about the same thing, 3,000 years ago, He killed the worst offenders, and sent a plague upon their entire tribe. “Mardi Gras makes me want to vomit,” as one lovely Louisiana woman puts it (The Fervent Mama).
Christ tells us, “judge not, lest ye be judged,” and that we will be judged by the very standard we use. Have I ever partied too hard? Er, yes. I cannot judge these people, and in fact I pray that they will be forgiven as I have been; but surely I can speak out against this nauseating perversion of a day named for a Christian practice.
I do not really know if God punishes sinners in the flesh today, as He did in the time before Christ. The New Testament is murky on the point. Widespread decadence, however, does seem to signal catastrophe in the future, from the Roman Empire to Berlin in the 1930s. And in this regard, the most extreme behavior at Mardi Gras, something called the “Decadence Ball,” last occurred in 2005; Hurricane Katrina apparently put an end to it. (If you have the stomach for it, you can read about the last formal Decadence Ball here.)
Let us enjoy our pancakes and pray that those lost to Christ may find Him.
Meditation : Prayer : Almighty God, who does freely pardon all who repent and turn to Him, now fulfill in my contrite heart the promise of redeeming grace; forgiving all my sins, and cleansing me from an evil conscience; through the perfect sacrifice of Christ Jesus our Lord. And turn my heart to your will at every moment, I pray........Amen |
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