Exodus 35

Then Moses gathered all the congregation of the children of Israel together, and said to them, “These are the words which the Lord has commanded you to do: Work shall be done for six days, but the seventh day shall be a holy day for you, a Sabbath of rest to the Lord. Whoever does any work on it shall be put to death. You shall kindle no fire throughout your dwellings on the Sabbath day.” Exodus 35:1-3 NKJV

Here we see Moses give the Israelites the “Sabbath Law.”  I have heard Christians today use our modern disobedience of the Sabbath rest day as an example of how “weak” we modern Christians are, how corrupt our culture is and how angry God must be with us as individuals for not keeping His laws.  This provides us a perfect example of how careful we must be when reading the Old Testament through New Testament eyes.  If we just pick up the Old Testament and read about how God apparently gave the Jewish people a bunch of laws and was wrathful when they did not follow those laws, we miss God’s character altogether.  In fact, Jesus Himself performed miracles on the Sabbath and attended to the needs of His disciples, which was against the rules and regulations of the Sabbath.  In Mark 2:27 Jesus says: “The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of the people, and not people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath.”  The Sabbath was meant to be a blessing for man, not a legalistic requirement.  Even today we tend to legalize some of God’s blessings for us.  For instance, prayer is supposed to be an intimate relational blessing between us and our heavenly father.   We can, however, turn it into a guilt based obligation (to be practiced for 15 minutes every morning, for example) in an attempt to please God and fulfill our religious duty each day.  We need to make sure to allow God’s blessings to be the positive, life-giving things that they were intended to be for us.

And Moses spoke to all the congregation of the children of Israel, saying, “This is the thing which the Lord commanded, saying: ‘Take from among you an offering to the Lord. Whoever is of a willing heart, let him bring it as an offering to the Lord: gold, silver, and bronze; blue, purple, and scarlet thread, fine linen, and goats’ hair; ram skins dyed red, badger skins, and acacia wood; oil for the light, and spices for the anointing oil and for the sweet incense; onyx stones, and stones to be set in the ephod and in the breastplate. All who are gifted artisans among you shall come and make all that the Lord has commanded: the tabernacle, its tent, its covering, its clasps, its boards, its bars, its pillars, and its sockets; the ark and its poles, with the mercy seat, and the veil of the covering; the table and its poles, all its utensils, and the showbread; also the lampstand for the light, its utensils, its lamps, and the oil for the light; the incense altar, its poles, the anointing oil, the sweet incense, and the screen for the door at the entrance of the tabernacle; the altar of burnt offering with its bronze grating, its poles, all its utensils, and the laver and its base; the hangings of the court, its pillars, their sockets, and the screen for the gate of the court; the pegs of the tabernacle, the pegs of the court, and their cords; the garments of ministry, for ministering in the holy place—the holy garments for Aaron the priest and the garments of his sons, to minister as priests.’” And all the congregation of the children of Israel departed from the presence of Moses. Then everyone came whose heart was stirred, and everyone whose spirit was willing, and they brought the Lord’s offering for the work of the tabernacle of meeting, for all its service, and for the holy garments. They came, both men and women, as many as had a willing heart, and brought earrings and nose rings, rings and necklaces, all jewelry of gold, that is, every man who made an offering of gold to the Lord. And every man, with whom was found blue, purple, and scarlet thread, fine linen, and goats’ hair, red skins of rams, and badger skins, brought them. Everyone who offered an offering of silver or bronze brought the Lord’s offering. And everyone with whom was found acacia wood for any work of the service, brought it. All the women who were gifted artisans spun yarn with their hands, and brought what they had spun, of blue, purple, and scarlet, and fine linen. And all the women whose hearts stirred with wisdom spun yarn of goats’ hair. The rulers brought onyx stones, and the stones to be set in the ephod and in the breastplate, and spices and oil for the light, for the anointing oil, and for the sweet incense. The children of Israel brought a freewill offering to the Lord, all the men and women whose hearts were willing to bring material for all kinds of work which the Lord, by the hand of Moses, had commanded to be done. Exodus 35:4-29 NKJV

God asked the Israelites, through Moses, to give yarn, fine linen, gold, silver, and many other valuable materials for the construction of the tabernacle.  While much of Exodus lays out God’s rules and the expected response from the Israelites, here God repeatedly asked those who have a willing heart to bring their offerings to fulfill His purpose (verses 5, 21, 22, 26, 29).  This holds true today as well; God absolutely desires our offerings and our gifts, but only if we give them with a willing heart.  We see yet another example of this in Exodus 25:2 when the Lord says to Moses: “Tell the Israelites to bring Me an offering. You are to receive the offering for Me from everyone whose heart prompts them to give.”  Remember that when you willingly give financial support or donate your time in order to help further God’s Kingdom, the blessings received in return are amazing.  Try it!