Community

The Lord commanded the Israelites to celebrate the Festival of Tabernacle in the seventh month starting from the 15th day. They were to celebrate it for seven days. The first day is the Sabbath where they do no work and the eighth day is also the Sabbath day. They people were instructed to build for themselves temporary shelters from luxuriant trees: palms, willow, and other leafy trees. They were to live in there during the duration of the festival (Leviticus 23:37-44). This was to remind them that the Lord had the Israelites lived in temporary shelters during the time he delivered them out of Egypt and into the promise land. The people listened and did as instructed by Nehemiah, Ezra, and the Levites and their hearts were all glad and filled with joy. This is a wonderful reminder to us why the Lord had the Israelites lived in temporary shelters. We must also remember that the Lord is bringing us into His eternal salvation, and like the Israelites, we are put in a temporary place, full of trials and testing of our faith, before we reach the promise land, which is God’s house. Let us remind ourselves of this and learn not to hold on to this world and the things of this life more than holding on to the promise of God, a promise land that He’d prepared for us since the beginning of time. If seven days of the festival of Tabernacle represents our temporary life in this world, are we using our lives to glorify God or are we building up temporary shelters for ourselves that will vanish one day? What is more important? Temporary life or Eternity in the house of God?