The Detestable Shepherd

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Genesis 46:33,34  

“When Pharaoh calls you in and asks, ‘What is your occupation?’ you should answer, ‘Your servants have tended livestock from our boyhood on, just as our fathers did.’  Then you will be allowed to s settle in the region of Goshen, for all shepherds are detestable to the Egyptians.”

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Goshen must have been pretty far removed from the general population.  They were not assimilated into the citizenship of Egypt because they were detestable.

But I guess that was also the reason, after the time of Joseph, when no one remembered him anymore, they were enslaved.  They were seen as other, different, unclean, country hicks, uneducated.

And it does make me wonder about how, in the Law of Moses, shepherds were declared unclean.

Were they viewed the same way as lepers?  They could not participate in worship or bring sacrifices without ceremonial cleansing.

If a son was born to a  shepherd and he chose to be something else; a baker, a carpenter, etc…., could he break out of his “caste” and do that, and then be welcomed into the temple courts?

Wouldn’t it be neat if that was Joseph, Mary’s husband’s story!”  After all, he shepherdeded the Lamb of God, who became the greatest of Shepherds, who became the most unclean man in all of history so that we could enter in the courts of the temple and dwell in the most holy place!

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Jesus, my constant companion and dearest friend.

Lord Jesus, thank you for coming as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

Thank you bearing my sins on the cross.

Thank you for making a way for me to enter into the Holy of Holies and stand face to face with Abba.

The Effervescence of Creation

Genesis 1:4

God saw that the light was good and he separated the light from the darkness.
Seven times the words, “God saw that it was good.” are repeated in Genesis, chapter 1.

The word, “saw”, in Hebrew means many things in many different situations.  In Strong’s Concordance, they are given in alphabetical order.  These are the ones most people think of when reading these verses;  He approved; He beheld; He considered. 

But there are others, that when I look at them fill me with a new assurance of understanding; like “make to enjoy”, to “have experience”, to “joyfully look”, “be near”, to “stare” and “visions”.

The story of creation is the story of how excited God gets when He makes something new.  He gazes at it, He enjoys it.  He looks joyfully at it.  He stares at it.”

He made this thing called Earth and he was delighted with what He’d done!  Any creative person know that feeling when something we’ve made comes out just as we “envisioned” it.  It’s that feeling join our core that is warm and delightful and when flows outward from our center to our skin it becomes effervescent and the roots of our hair tingle.  It’s like, if we don’t do something physical right away, that effervescence will burst out of us and just make a terrible mess!

I think that’s what our Father felt when He was creating the earth.  Each new thing He made filled Him with bubbling joy.  He stared at it, thinking how wonderful it was!

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”

Every time someone chooses to believe in the salvation offered through Christ, the Father makes them a new creation!  That same bubbling joy comes from His core and fills heaven with His delighted laughter!

 Isn’t it amazing to think of how much hilarious joy we bring God when we say yes to his perfect plan?

                For each and every one of us it’s His first day of creation all over again!

                                             It makes me tingle just thinking about it!