God asks Moses to build him a tent - the "tabernacle", so he can be present with his people. He has been giving detail instructions on how to make this tent, the furnishing in it, and the people who will tend to the rituals and up keep of this tent.
By now, the listeners must be a bit overwhelmed. So God pauses and reminds them the original point of it all: friendship.
God reminds them that in the midst of building, crafting, weaving, they are to remember that this is the place where they will come to meet God, and God will come to meet them. This is a "holy" designated, set aside place of meeting between God and his people.
They need reminding just as we need reminding - that in the living of life, even with our "religious" life, it is easier to focus on the proceedings and forget about God altogether.
The reality is that if we are not meeting God, and if we are not interested in hearing what God says and doing what God says, then our church attendance, our Bible readings, even our money giving amounts to nothing.
There is a story about a ship doctor who got bored treating colds and blisters at sea. He became ecstatic when one of the sailors became seriously injured and needed an amputation. He seized the opportunity to do serious medicine, and to show off. While he is busy pointing out this part and that organ, and offering the other sailors a play by play of the procedure, he didn't notice the patient died.
The Good News for the Hebrews and to us is that God wants us to live life WITH him, and he with us. It is in friendship with God, because of our friendship with him that we do all that other stuff.
Write
Think about your faith story: how have you experience the struggle of investing in your friendship with God and doing church stuff.
Presently, what are the things you do that are building your friendship with God? What are the things that you are finding hard to do because you have left God out of it?
Who do you know has left God out of the things they do?
Pray
What
is God saying to you today? What's Good News to you?
Talk to God about your experience of his friendship in the "church things" you do. Thank God for his desire to have a relationship with you, and not merely for you to act religious.
Pray for all the things you do that supports your hearing of God and doing what he asks. Ask God for the wisdom and support you need to restore relationship with God in those things where you have left God out.
Pray for yoru friends who have left God out of their lives. Pray for the wisdom and opportunity to help them become open to God again.
Pray for an experience of God's love, grace and mercy in the way he wants intimacy with you, and the way he uses you to befriend others to himself.