Insightful Musings on the Scriptures

by

Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67

Good morning, dear ones.

The view out this window in the dim morning light at present offers a beautiful eerie scene of fog and mist engulfing the trees. I don’t think I’ll have time to knock out a jog before we have to head for church. We plan to do an early service to accommodate Thano’s Safeway shift just after noon. The little boys are returned to their mom about the same time.

It’s kind of neat to consider that the face of the Son can shine upon us even when clouds block the sun. That great blessing is at the tail end of the reading. May that blessing flow into your today.

Love, Dad/Ray.

Is it possible to over-emphasize the importance of a HEART AFTER GOD? If so, I can’t imagine when, where, how, or why. This essential condition of our private world covers just about everything—what we say, what we do, how we think, how we live, how we relate to others, and how we worship. And I see it as a basic key to each of topics presented in this passage.

Let’s list out those topics and see how this principle fits.

1. Job descriptions for those responsible for handling the Tabernacle components (4:1-49). Even the work of the ministry can be subjected to boring monotony without a HEART AFTER GOD—without the vital sense of purpose that says, “My life and work is about Him—it’s not about me.”
2. Separation of those with infectious diseases (5:1-4). Without a HEART AFTER GOD, the victim of any kind of life-altering disease could yield to a depression that becomes high-centered on, “Why me?”
3. Restitution for wrongdoing (5:5-10). A HEART AFTER GOD will be eager to do whatever is reasonably possible to make wrongs right. And it will reduce wrongdoing to a bare minimum—to the level of ignorant accident as opposed to intentional deception.
4. Testing a wife for unconfessed adultery (5:11-31). I don’t understand why there was not some kind of test for husband adultery. But, to be sure, adultery cannot happen from the condition of a HEART AFTER GOD.
5. Regulations for special Nazirite vows (6:1-21). This was apparently an option available to any of the Israelites who chose to designate a specified period of their lives in complete devotion to the LORD. A HEART AFTER GOD equips anyone today for holy living and freedom from the superficial performance of lifeless religious form.

Here’s the blessed benefit of a HEART AFTER GOD: “The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace” (6:24-26).