Reading
SAA Notes
Compensation and restitution were the rules of ancient Israeli justice. If someone was caught stealing your DVD, he, or his extended family, had to pay you back double. Financial liability meant that extended families policed their own members. We don’t get this standard of justice today!
SJA Notes
* Mighty God, please refine us today, burning off the dross, purifying us before You.
“You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.”
The general meaning of the word “sojourner” is someone who resides for a time, or temporarily, in a place.
Israel were in Egypt for approximately four hundred years.
In the span of all of time, this is a temporary residing!
Sometimes we can get so blinkered that anything outside of our own lifetime can seem like a very long time.
Israel’s time in Egypt was only for a period.
So too is our time on this earth.
“You shall not oppress a sojourner. You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.”
We are to know the heart of a sojourner.
A fundamental truth is that our life here on earth is finite. We are mortal. God has allotted for us our days, and so our time on earth is temporary.
We want to live for the Lord in the now, but long to be with Him in the not yet – We look forward to glory!
When the Lord shall appear, and we shall see Him face to face.
What a day that will be!
As we read in Revelation 22,
“They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.”
* Dear Lord God,
Please fix within us a desire to see Your face.
Please may we have a heart of a sojourner, not set on earthly things as our hope, but on the heavenly, the lasting, the things of You.
Amen.