returning....

Here is the meditation I did for BS yesterday. I hope you like it! I love you all and wish you a most God-drenched day!

And a question..... What do you guys think of the new pope?


Now let them put away their prostitution, and the dead bodies of their kings, far from me; and I will dwell in the midst of them forever. You, son of man, show the house to the house of Yisra'el, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities; and let them measure the pattern. If they be ashamed of all that they have done, make known to them the form of the house, and the fashion of it, and the exits of it, and the entrances of it, and all the forms of it, and all the ordinances of it, and all the forms of it, and all the laws of it; and write it in their sight; that they may keep the whole form of it, and all the ordinances of it, and do them. This is the law of the house: on the top of the mountain the whole limit of it round about shall be most holy. Behold, this is the law of the house.
(Eze 43:9-12)

I lifted up my eyes, and saw, and behold, a man with a measuring line in his hand. Then I asked, "Where are you going?" He said to me, "To measure Yerushalayim, to see what is its breadth and what is its length." Behold, the angel who talked with me went forth, and another angel went out to meet him, and said to him, "Run, speak to this young man, saying, 'Yerushalayim will be inhabited as villages without walls, because of the multitude of men and livestock in it. For I,' says the LORD, 'will be to her a wall of fire around it, and I will be the glory in the midst of her.
(Zec 2:1-5)

A reed like a rod was given to me. Someone said, "Rise, and measure God's temple, and the altar, and those who worship in it. Leave out the court which is outside of the temple, and don't measure it, for it has been given to the nations. They will tread the holy city under foot for forty-two months.
(Rev 11:1-2)


I searched measurement in e-sword and came up with a couple conclusions, I am honestly not sure what I think about. God tells people to measure stuff in the Torah. He tells them very specifically that he has very specific instructions for how things are going to be built.
Then, in Ezekiel, he reminds the people that he still has very specific plans for her. They are in captivity, mind you, when Zeke says that if the people are ashamed that their sin has gotten them into trouble, that they should keep ‘whole form of it’ this plan of God should be the ‘law of the house’, the framework of their daily life and where they dwell. God’s law should be where they live in the deepest most primal way. At the end of Zeke’s book, the angel tells Him that THIS is where God is- this law of the house that God has measured out to His people.
Then Zack sees someone try to measure Jerusalem (this is where the crack about the walls comes up--- the walls were how you measured a city). God says very simply, “Don’t even try! I am the definition and scope of my people. I give them life and hope and substance. I am the wall of fire. I measure but I cannot be contained. I cannot be measured!” In a very real sense, this glory of the Lord, this heaviness and wall of fire that one could say is part of very God Himself. This is the law of the house we are supposed to live in—the law of the house is our awesome God of the wall of fire who defines his people, provides their shelter and their very house, but he Himself refuses to be defined. He cannot be measured.
Now, this is all God or angels of God doing the measurement here. Rightfully, it should be. However, in the New Testament, God hands us the ruler. He gives John the stick to try and measure the temple. It is almost as if he is saying that He wants us to process how we define ourselves in the law of His house (which is himself). This is not relativism, a mushy soup of values where we make our own truth. This is deeper than that highly unthoughful idea. No, this find out what living in God looks like today really looks like. We are to seek out our own definition in HIM, we will fail (notice John never actually gets around to measuring the temple….) but to seek God to find out what living in His house really looks like. God gives us the reed and tells us to work it out….