Week 1 July 2025, Devotion Part 1

I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship…  Exodus 31:3

We have no reason to suspect that a “ghost” will pop up in this story. In 1962, “Gus the Friendly Ghost” won the hearts of millions of kids, by befriending a cold and hungry mouse. In 1984, the supernatural comedy film “Ghostbusters” began to earn millions, and to this day Disney keeps raking in a fortune from visitors to the Haunted Mansion.  “Doombuggies” go for a ride through a cemetery and hitchhiking ghosts jump on-board. The spectral beings in the literature of England’s haunted mansions were a creepy lot. In the early sixties, the foul-mouthed Texan atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair launched her nationwide attack on the Church and the Trinity, by referring to “Father, Son, and Holy Spook.” She mysteriously disappeared and later was found murdered. Her legacy of having the Supreme Court ban prayer in school, remains to this day. Might there be some churchgoers among us who worry about the “spooky” aspects of the Holy Ghost?  Here then – of all places – in Exodus, is God’s reassuring smile poured into an uneasy soul. If cultural conditioning and irrational fear of the unknown have kept us from the riches of God, He means to rouse the bugaboos of our concerns and put them to eternal rest. How gracious of Him to weigh in so early on the subject on a very personal and practical level in the book following hard on the heels of Genesis. Exodus is a far cry from the manipulative emotionalism of religious showmen who convince their gullible public that they own the original Holy Ghost franchise. The Holy Spirit does not bully people or cajole them to dance to the human piper’s tune.

 At the dawn of creation the earth was a study in shapeless chaos, emptiness, and darkness. When the Spirit of God – in Hebrew roo’akh, meaning breath and therefore life – hovered over it and God spoke, the planet we call home received form, function, and beauty. When God told Moses that He had called out by name Bezalel of the tribe of Judah (meaning Praise in Hebrew) and filled him with the roo’akh of God, He specified that this would be evidenced by ability and intelligence, knowledge and craftsmanship. He and his similarly appointed fellow artisans were to carry out God’s building plans for the tabernacle. It was to reflect His redemptive reach across all generations and was to be meticulously crafted.  Part 1 of 2

Comment:  I grew up in a God-fearing, church-going family and loved God’s Word early on, but it wasn’t until I was a mom with young kids that I heard a sermon series on the Holy Spirit.  An all-consuming God hunger took hold of me, but precisely then I began to fear the Holy Spirit.  What would He DO TO ME if I surrendered?  God neither shamed nor ridiculed me, but had me experience what He could DO FOR ME!   He befriended this hungry “church mouse,” who now delights to sneak the Exodus “ghost story” into the house of life of others who yearn for God’s love that casts out every kind of fear!