To Flaunt or Not?


The Lord spoke to Moses: "go leave here, you and the people you brought up from the land of Egypt, to the land I promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, saying: I will give it to your offspring. I will send an angel ahead of you and will drive out the Caananites, Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebhsites. Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go with you because you are a stiff-necked people; otherwise, I might destroy you on the way. When the people heard this bad news, they mourned an didn't put on their jewellery.
For The Lord said to Moses: "Tell the Israelites: You are a stiff-necked people. If I went with you for a single moment, I would destroy you. Now take off your jewellery, and I will decide what to do with you. So the Israelites remained stripped of their jewellery from Mount Horeb onwards. Exodus 33:1-6

When I first read how the Israelites took off their jewellery when God told them they were stiff necked, I laughed. I laughed because I thought: 'as if an outward act changed an inward problem.' It is almost childish. Yet as I read further I saw that God had told them to take off their jewellery.

'Stiff necked' infers proud. What do proud people do? Dress in finery and bedeck themselves with jewellery. What do the humble do? They know they do not need jewellery to make them anything because they know they are something, in Christ.

Over the years I have noticed that most truly rich people do not flaunt it, they wear jeans and are happy in their skin. Richard Branson is almost always in jeans, he wears an occasional white shirt, bedecked with a black leather jacket. He does not look rich but he is rich.

Conversely, those struggling to be rich wear all the jewellery and junk but are not. Truly rich people are generous with their money, time and affections. (Mostly)

Why did a rag tag bunch of ex-slaves need jewellery and finery in the desert? They were there to get to know the pearl of great price, their God, not outdo one another.

Why are we here? We are ex-slaves. We were slaves to sin and now must become slaves to Christ. Sin demands stuff, a yielded life does not need it. Get free! Amen!

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