FELLOW LEVITES
Today's reading:  2 Chronicles 29-32

"My dear Levites, do not neglect your duties any longer!  The Lord has chosen you to stand in his presence, to minister to him, and to lead the people in worship and make offerings to him."  2 Chronicles 29:11 NLT

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we are Levites.

Oh, yes, I know, most of us have a genetic heritage lacking in Jewish DNA.  I realize the majority of us are as Gentile as they come.

But as the Levites were chosen, so are we.  At the moment of our salvation.  At the confession of our sins and the public announcement of our faith in God.  We became the Levites.

And the duties they were shirking back in Bible times, are the same duties we're shirking today.

1.  They had allowed defiled things into the Temple.  Probably small, innocent-looking things at first, but things of evil, none the less.  Things that distracted their attention from God.  Things that dirtied their hands.  Things that swallowed up their time--time needing to be spent in worship and drawing others into worship.  Things that associated them more closely to the world than to God.

2.  They had become unfaithful.  In today's terms?  They'd started missing church services for worldly reasons.  I'll just leave it at that.

3.  They had abandoned God.  They'd left him in the church and went on their way.  Monday through Saturday they played in the mud of the world--cleaning up to see their Savior on Sunday morning.

4.  They had shut the doors of the Temple and turned off the lights.  They had narrowed down worship time to a minimum.  They determined that the things going on in the Temple/church to be less important that other things on their calendars.

Hmmm.