1 Samuel 6:19 (NKJV)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThen He struck the men of Beth Shemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the Lord. He struck fifty thousand and seventy men of the people, and the people lamented because the Lord had struck the people with a great slaughter.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n God cannot change His character or personality for anyone. His identity is tied to His nature, and His standards, precepts, and expectations are tied to His character. To imagine that we can change God\u2019s standards based on emotional feelings or any other criteria is a fallacy. God\u2019s love does not and cannot negate God\u2019s nature and God\u2019s character. And one integral nature of God is His holiness. His eyes are too holy to behold anything that corrupts, and that is who He is. This cannot change. His love does not and cannot change His holy standards because if it did, it would poison the purity of God\u2019s personhood. As we relate with God and rejoice in God, let\u2019s never think we can change Him. He does not change and cannot change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the story we are studying, God had forced the Philistines to return the Ark of the Covenant back to Israel, and they did, sending it to Beth Shemesh on a cart. When the people of Beth Shemesh lifted up their eyes and saw the ark, they \u201crejoiced to see it\u201d \u2013 verse 13. The Levites took down the ark, and the people offered burnt offerings to the Lord. It was a great day of celebration and worship. The symbol of God\u2019s presence had returned to Israel, but alas, God struck them and slew many of them that day. Why? \u201cBecause they had looked into the Ark of the Lord\u201d \u2013 verse 19. This is a sad story, but it re-emphasizes the principle under discussion. God cannot change Himself for anybody. God\u2019s holiness is not negotiable, and His precepts are tied to His nature. To look into the Ark of God was, symbolically, to look into the face of God, and no man can look into God\u2019s face and live. They knew this. Yet, in their rejoicing and celebration, they assumed it did not matter. It did, and God took note.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let\u2019s take note that we live within the framework of God\u2019s holiness. God demands that His people stay within this understanding as they worship and serve Him. May we never assume that God will overlook His holiness simply because we are His children and we are ministering in His name. Who He is, does not change, and His precepts and expectations likewise cannot change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 1 Samuel 6:19 (NKJV) \u201cThen He struck the men of Beth Shemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the Lord. He struck fifty thousand and seventy men of the people, and the people lamented because the Lord had struck the people with a great slaughter.\u201d God cannot change His character or personality for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7372,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-reflections-from-1st-samuel"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/1-Samuel-Cover.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6494"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6496,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6494\/revisions\/6496"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}