"Stepping Back" - Too

 "Above when he said, Sacrifice and offerings and burnt offerings and offerings for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law;" (Hebrews 10:8 KJV)

  "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life." (PSALM 139:23-24 NLT)

 If you were questioning this title, "Stepping Back," it shows the importance of 'pausing or distancing yourself from an activity, problem, or situation in order the think about it calmly and objectively.' There is this thing that has made me think about certain instances in the Bible, where I feel as though God did something that seemed at tad-bit extreme; something that was a little too much.

 Case in point was the too points in the Old and New Testaments: the first being the death of Uzzah, who simply just tried to steady the Ark of God, because it felt like the right thing to do. Second, were the two deaths of a husband and wife during the start of the church: Ananias and Sapphira, who gave a portion of the land they had sold to the church, but gave the impression they had given it all. 

 All three of those who had their lives taken, but I do believe that we will see them in heaven as God was using them as an example of the justice and holiness of His law. In Uzzah case, there was a very strict law that only a very few were allowed to touch that Ark, and they had to be totally purified to do so. In the case of two that lied about what they gave, this was the beginning of the church, which was an example to show that God's Spirit meant business. 

 Don't get me wrong, because God has every right to do whatever He does, as He knows best what is good and perfect, even if we don't understand why, His ways are always perfect! In this regard, those who are giving the message, whoever they might be, are showing us that when it comes to His law, which is based upon His justice and holiness, what we do can never be sufficient enough to cleanse us by the sacrifices that we might give or any work we might do.  

 As the Bible clearly says, "We are all infected and impure with sin, when we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags." (Isaiah 64:6a NLT) This means that there is nothing that we can do in order to make ourselves worthy; we are all sinners that need to be saved from our sins, nothing we try to do on our own will save us...

""'What will I do? the owner asked himself. 'I know! I'll send my cherished son. Surely they will respect him.' "But when the tenant farmers saw his son, they said to each other, 'Here comes the heir to this estate. Let's kill him and get the estate for ourselves!' So they dragged him out of the vineyard and murdered him. "What do you suppose the owner of the vineyard will do to them?" Jesus asked. "I tell you - he will come and kill those farmers and lease the vineyard to others." "How terrible that such a thing should ever happen," his listeners protested. Jesus looked at them and said, "Then what does this Scripture mean? 'The stone that the builders rejected has now become the corner stone.' Everyone who stumbles over that stone will be broken to pieces, and it will crush anyone it falls on." The teachers of religious law and the leading priests wanted to arrest Jesus immediately because they realized he was telling the story against them - they were the wicked farmers. But they were afraid of the people's reaction." (Luke 20:13-19 NLT)