the story cont'd - begin ch 5

God, the owner and ruler of the entire universe, told moses that he'd give him and his people a holy nation and land to live on. also, God told moses to get the israelites to start preparing to receive God's commandments and covenant. so israelites consecrated themselves by cleaning themselves and staying away from sinning.
on the third day since God told of moses about his plan, there was a thick cloud over the mountain, smoke, thunder, lightning, and a very loud trumpet blast. God came down to the top of mount sinai and moses went up to meet God. israelites were scared but God had planned it to be this way b/c they will have a fear of God. then God gave moses the ten commandments.

the way that God revealed Himself to the israelites was very grand and striking... and very apparent. i wish i could see God like that in an in-my-face kind of way. i feel like God works more subtly in my heart and i wish i could attest to being able to see - with the naked eye - God's presence in my life.

one thing that really struck me from james and faith's testimonies today was that they drew a lot of the references from scripture from the old testament... and more specifically, genesis and exodus. i was grateful and kind of amazed that i was able to say "hey i know that story. hey i recognize that..." even one of the slides used the visual of God's thick pillar of cloud leading the israelites out of egypt. i JUST read that like... a few days ago. this is meaningful to me, because when i read these stories from the beginning of the old testament and was subsequently touched/moved by them in my personal life, i still felt like such a noob for having JUST learned the significance of those stories of God's faithfulness in abraham's life and having JUST been moved by those stories. in other words, i was kind of ashamed b/c i felt like, for other christians that have been walking with the Lord longer than i have, they were too far advanced in their walk and knowledge of scripture that they would consider abraham/moses's stories to be "too fundamental/foundational" and the scripture that they are influenced more would be from like the new testament like acts and books by timothy and john and etc. so basically i was surprised that james and faith are still deeply moved and influenced by God's relationship with abraham and moses and used those in sharing their testimonies with us.