Stop…Enough!

Ex 36:6b,7 "And the people were restrained from bringing, for the material they had was sufficient for all the work to be done--indeed too much." (NKJV)

You can say all you want about these people's stiff necks, but you can't ignore their willing hearts. Kind of weird how people can change so rapidly, yet this is what happens when God is at work. This is what happens when we pray. This is what happens when God's vision is clearly communicated. And what a problem to have! Too much money…too many materials…STOP! The people actually had to be held back from giving. Even when there was more than enough they still tried to give more and Moses had to ask them to refrain from giving because they had more than they needed.

We are on the brink of making some significant decisions in our church. God has blessed us with a nice facility that we are renting, but this is going to eventually come to an end. We have to do what Moses did and get our plans in order. We have to spend time with God and allow Him to direct where we go from here. As He develops this vision, we need to pray. We need to ask that He would work in all of our hearts so that we can see a willingness, a stirring in all of our lives so that the result is generosity. We need to select men and women who are skilled in what they do to put this stuff together. God directed Moses to do this with Bezalel and Aholiab. These guys were skilled. They had wisdom. They knew how to take what the people gave and put it together to create the tabernacle that God showed to Moses. We have to do the same. We have to trust people who have the skill and wisdom to oversee this. The interesting thing is this: Once Moses delegated this responsibility to these men, he let them do it. He did not interfere. He trusted them. Then finally, once we spend time with God, when we are all prayed up, and when those with wisdom have been selected, the vision is then shared with the people. In Moses' case, the people's hearts were moved and they gave more than what was needed and he had to stop them.

I pray that this is what we will see as we move forward…that we will have to say: "Stop…enough." When this happens we don't get the glory. The guys who direct the project do not get the glory. God gets the glory because He is the One we spent time with. He is the One who directed. He is the One who answered prayer. He is the One who gives wisdom. He is the One who moves in hearts.