WordLive - Year OneSample

Prepare: Consider that every time you open your Bible, God is speaking to you. Doesn’t that stop you in your tracks? Ask the Holy Spirit to illuminate your reading today. Coming to God In these verses we have a poetic image of the way God spoke to our spiritual forefathers and the way he speaks to us now. For the original readers – the first few generations of believers to have crossed over into the new covenant – these words would have had even more power. They may have even sounded dismissive and not a little arrogant. In the Old Testament and under the old covenant God spoke as he did at Mount Sinai: by fearful means of fire and storm (vs 18–21). God was unapproachable by ordinary people and spoke to his people by proxy – through prophets and priests. Now, because of what Christ has done, we come to God the Father by a ‘new and life-giving way’ (Hebrews 10:20). An invitation to worship We are invited up Zion’s mountain to join with the saints and the angels in a song around the throne of God himself. That’s the reason the encouragement to come and worship sounds so strong – like a warning, in fact (v 25). The stakes are higher now – we are summoned to obedience not by earthly representatives of God, but by the living God. It’s not a bush that’s burning for our attention and devotion – it’s God himself. Respond: How else to respond? ‘Let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe’ (v 28, ESV). http://www.wordlive.org/Session/Classic/2012-08-24