Exodus 29:38–46 (Transcript)

Daily Devotional · Wednesday, December 17, 2025

Speaker: Pastor John Chen
Transcribed & Edited by: Joseph Wang(Yufan)

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Brothers and sisters, peace to you. By God’s grace we come to a new day to study our daily devotional. Today’s passage is Exodus 29:38–46.

Let us pray.

Our God, we thank you. We thank you that you are so merciful and that you are willing to dwell among us. You are willing to lead us—what a good God you are. We also ask that you would lead us to respond to you with holy conduct. Be with us, we pray. In Christ’s name, amen.

Now let us look at this portion, which comes within the consecration of the tabernacle and the ordination of the priesthood. Here we are told about the regular burnt offering—what must be offered every day. At first glance the passage seems simple, but it contains very deep meaning.

Let us consider it step by step. What is to be offered? After the priests have made atonement for themselves, a continuing duty is given: every day, two lambs a year old are to be offered on the altar—one in the morning and one at twilight.

How is this offering to be made? It is offered with fine flour—one-tenth of an ephah. One-tenth of an ephah is about two kilograms of flour. Along with it is one-fourth of a hin of oil—about two liters of oil. You can imagine: two kilograms of flour and two liters of oil. That would be a very rich, very oily cake.

There is also drink offering. The measurements are given in the same manner: one-tenth of an ephah, and one-fourth of a hin. In other words, the flour and the oil are mixed, and the drink offering is also brought. The evening offering is done in the same way. This is a pleasing aroma, an offering by fire to the LORD.

And this is to be a regular burnt offering throughout your generations at the entrance of the tent of meeting before the LORD. What do we receive from this? God says, “There I will meet with you, to speak with you.” When the burnt offering is offered in this continual way—morning and evening—God meets with his people there.

He also says, “There I will meet with the people of Israel, and it shall be sanctified by my glory.” God’s glory will descend upon the tabernacle, and it will become holy. The tabernacle is sanctified; the altar is sanctified; and Aaron and his sons are sanctified to serve as priests.

So after the burnt offering is offered continually, that place becomes the appointed meeting place between God and man. Morning and evening means continually. It signifies that at all times God’s people are to live under the covering of sacrifice.

The focus of today is verses 45–46:

“I will dwell among the people of Israel and will be their God. And they shall know that I am the LORD their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt that I might dwell among them. I am the LORD their God.”

Let us begin from these verses and unfold the meaning carefully.

What does Scripture tell us here? The LORD is willing to be our God. The LORD is willing to dwell among us. We know that God is perfectly free. There is nothing he must do; whatever he wills to do, he can accomplish.

God is most free. Yet God uses his freedom to choose and to define his love toward his people. This is God’s way. God chose to create the world. God chose to create the created order. God created mankind, and God’s intention was to dwell with man. In Eden this is very clear: God saw that everything was good. On the sixth day he created man, and he dwelt with man, entering into Sabbath rest.

This was God’s free choice. It is not that God had to dwell with man. God has no necessity placed upon him. But by his own will he chose to love the people he created.

After the fall, mankind was driven out of Eden, because the perfectly holy God cannot receive sinners.

But from Genesis 3 onward, what is the story of Scripture, all the way to Revelation? It is the story of God seeking man.

When man left Eden, when man was cast from the presence of God, what came upon man was curse, and ultimately the judgment of hell, the lake of fire. This is the destiny man deserves. Why? Because man sinned against the Infinite One. And when we offend the Infinite One, it is fitting that we bear an infinite wrath.

Why is hell unending? This is the reason. The question is the One against whom we have sinned. We sinned against the infinite and perfectly holy God, who will not tolerate any evil. Therefore man must be driven away from God’s presence, into judgment. That is the end man deserves.

Yet God, because of his love, intentionally seeks out a people from within fallen humanity. He takes the initiative. He first found Noah and his household; then Abraham; then the nation of Israel; then, through the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, he gathered the church—us.

So the first thing we must understand is this: salvation is obtained by God’s initiative. God seeks man. God desires to dwell with man. God desires to be glorified among his people. All of this comes from God’s initiative, not man’s initiative. It is not that man seeks God. It is not that man finds a way back to Eden.

And even if we speak of ability, we cannot find such a way. More than that, fallen man does not even have the desire to return to the blessedness of God’s presence. Fallen man is self-centered, corrupted, and depraved. That is man’s nature.

But what Scripture tells us is that God is willing to humble himself, willing to take the initiative to find a people who belong to him, and to bring them back into a renewed creation—a new heavens and a new earth. This is the story of the whole Bible.

Therefore, when we read verses 45–46, we must have a clear understanding of God’s redemptive purpose. God is intentionally and actively gathering a people from within humanity and bringing them into the new heavens and the new earth. This is redemptive history. This is the story of redemption.

But the word “find” does not mean that God is merely selecting good people, as though he were trying to choose from among them. No. In fact, these people are those whom he has chosen from before the foundation of the world.

They were not chosen because there was something beneficial in them, or because they were especially good, or because they would certainly respond once they heard the gospel. No. The reason is God’s own good pleasure: he chose a people to worship him, to bring them into the new heavens and the new earth, and he delights to dwell among them as their God.

God willingly and actively becomes the God of his people, and only for this reason can we become his people.

Then God says: “They shall know that I am the LORD their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt that I might dwell among them.”

Brothers and sisters, you must understand: in the world God created, the Creator’s willingness to be our God is the greatest blessing a creature can receive. He defines himself as your God.

Some people hear “God will be your God” and think negatively, as though God will control them, as though God will take away their freedom, as though God will not allow them to do this or that. They say, “Christians have no freedom.” This is a vain and foolish thought.

Why? Consider this: the Creator of the world is willing to take the initiative to find us sinners and to define his love in such a way that he brings us into the new heavens and the new earth. What blessing could be greater than that?

The “freedom” and “happiness” that man imagines on earth cannot compare with the perfect goodness of the new heavens and the new earth that God promises to give. They are not even in the same category.

Therefore, for a fallen creature, the greatest happiness is that God is willing to find him and be his God.

It is like an orphan in this world, with no help and no protection. What he longs for most is a father to protect him, to provide for him, to guide him, to teach him. That is a natural and reasonable longing.

In the same way, when God says that he will dwell among us and be our God, this is a weight of glory beyond measure. He has chosen us and adopted us as his children. This blessing cannot be compared with earthly gains—whether winning money, earning degrees, receiving awards, or becoming successful. Those things are momentary. This is eternal. This is an everlasting blessing.

So we must understand from this height what we have truly received. When God says, “I will be their God and dwell among them,” what does that mean for us? It means he gives to us the new creation; he grants us a glorious status; he calls us his children and his people. This is a weight of glory beyond measure.

That is the first point: God seeks us in his initiative. The second point: what it means for God to be our God—what we receive.

Now the third point: as fallen creatures, we cannot come before God. We are sinful and unclean. How can we see God? Must we become better people by our own training? Must we produce moral conduct to qualify ourselves? No.

Scripture tells us that the way for sinners to return to God is not by making ourselves better. It is by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ who was crucified for us.

The Holy Spirit regenerates us. The Holy Spirit gives us faith. And through the faith God gives, we trust in Christ who died on the cross. Christ bore our sins and our debt. His blood covers us, so that all our guilt is forgiven by the Father.

At the same time, as we said before, Christ has accomplished perfect righteousness for us. Therefore, in Christ, God regards us as righteous. In that sense we are holy—like Aaron, like the priests in the tabernacle. This is the third point: we receive salvation through faith in Christ, by his blood and by his righteousness.

But fourth, it does not end there. Today’s passage emphasizes that we must offer the burnt offering daily—that is, we must offer our lives wholly to God, in a way that corresponds to the salvation he has given us.

Many brothers and sisters misunderstand salvation. Some think that faith is merely one “part” of life among other parts: work, study, family, and then, somewhere in the list, religion. Some say you should reorder it, putting faith first.

But the issue is not simply the order. Faith is the foundation. Faith is the underlying logic of life. This is a point we have repeatedly emphasized.

To live as a burnt offering means that every part of our life must be lived before God, in a manner worthy of our calling. God has given you his Son, in order to bring you into his kingdom and into the new creation. With this identity, what do you do? You respond wholly. You offer every layer of your life as a pleasing sacrifice, striving to live a holy life.

That is what offering means: morning and evening you ask yourself, “Am I willing to live a life that corresponds to the salvation I have received?” When you open your eyes in the morning, the triune God is set before you: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

“Lord, what would you have me do today? Lord, how may I glorify you today? Lord, how may I obey your law in my daily life?”

This is the basic posture of a Christian life. When you live in this way, you begin to live “on earth as it is in heaven.” This is the only truly normal life.

The opposite posture is filled with “I want”—I want to do this, I want to do that. But the Christian’s posture is not “What do I want?” It is “Lord, what do you want? How may I glorify you today? What may I do that would be acceptable to you, like a burnt offering offered before you?”

This is the mindset a Christian ought to have. This is the state that belongs to those who will inherit the eternal kingdom. If you depart from this, you begin to depart from God’s way.

So this is not to say that I have already attained it. I am also being reminded. But we must remind one another: morning and evening we are to offer a burnt offering. If we were priests, the first thing in the morning would be to offer the burnt offering, and in the evening again. That is, we live with a sacrificial posture:

“Lord, what should I do today? How may I glorify you?”

Some may say, “Pastor Chen, that sounds too spiritual. What about my life? What about my work? What about my children?”

Brothers and sisters, Jesus is very clear: “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” God will provide what we need, as we live in this posture and receive from his hand.

I also work. The world also works. What is the difference? We work in Christ. We work for God’s glory. God uses our work as the means by which he provides—giving wages, sustaining us. It is not that work itself gives us life; rather, God provides through it.

The same is true for raising children. You fear God and care for your children for the sake of his name, and God also uses your service to guide your children’s growth.

Then you enter a normal pattern: you serve God, and God grants grace. This is the worldview, the view of life, and the system of values that belongs to a Christian: we live before God, we obey his will, and God supplies what we need. We receive our daily life from God’s hand.

When your life is calibrated in this way, you begin to walk in the right direction of a “burnt offering” life.

If you are not living in this posture, then you have gone off course. You will sense it. This is not a threat; it is a reminder. If our lives are not God-centered—if we forget the first three points—then our lives become distorted.

We must align our lives along one line:

First, God takes the initiative to seek man.
Second, God’s purpose is to bring us into the new heavens and the new earth.
Third, only by the blood of Jesus Christ, covering and cleansing us, can we enter the kingdom.
Fourth, therefore, we respond by living as a continual burnt offering before him.

When these are aligned, your life is calibrated. If not, you have drifted. And often our problem is that we live only for this world. This is where we must repent.

Finally, consider that the offering includes a lamb, fine flour, oil, and wine. This points to a feast. When we worship God, we are not living a miserable life. Some may hear “a burnt offering life” and think it means constant bitterness.

But God leads us into a rich feast. Ultimately this feast is expressed in the new heavens and the new earth as the marriage supper of the Lamb. This feast is good for every one of us. And in this life, there are also foretastes and expressions of it. God does not intend that you live in misery.

If God is not our highest joy, that is impossible. When we draw near to him, we will find the highest joy, because he is infinitely good. We simply experience it too little. May God have mercy on us.

God’s intention is to dwell among us. And we are to offer the burnt offering—offering our lives to God. This does not mean that our offering has merit. Even our best works are defiled. But in Jesus Christ, God is pleased for us to strive for holiness, that our lives may glorify and bear witness to the Lord.

May God help us to calibrate the foundation and direction of our life in this world, so that we may glorify him.

That concludes today’s sharing. Thank you, everyone.