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Day 29 or January 29. There's no substitute for the living God.

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Our thoughts today are rooted in Exodus chapter 32, verses 23 and 24.

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They said to me, Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought

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us up out of Egypt, we don't know what has happened to him. So I told them, Whoever has

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any gold jewellery, take it off. Then they gave me the gold, and I threw it into the

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fire, and out came this calf.

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Now the big picture surrounding these verses. Moses had been away at Sinai for a long time,

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and the people were beginning to wonder if he was ever coming back. They get Aaron, his

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brother, to make a golden calf for them, so that they had a god to worship, even if it

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was just an idol. As Moses descended Mount Sinai, he could hear a loud noise that made

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him suspicious. He got closer, and then saw the golden calf. In a blinding fury, he threw

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the Ten Commandments to the ground, breaking both of the stone tablets. Thoughts of anger,

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disappointment, murder, and much more, must have run through his mind, as he sought out

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his brother. God reassuringly tells Moses that he can write the Ten Commandments again

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if Moses prepares two tablets of stone and takes them up the mountain. We can only imagine

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the thoughts going through Moses' mind as he struggled to the top of the mountain carrying

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two freshly prepared stone tablets, and all because of his brother's poor leadership,

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rather than any fault that could be laid at his own feet.

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And now today's action step. Have you noticed we don't have road accidents now, we have

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incidents instead? No one is to blame for an accident, but an incident is invariably

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someone else's fault, and usually the other person's. Nothing's changed since Aaron's

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time. It wasn't his fault either. The golden calf just jumped out. Until we are ready to

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accept that our sin is our fault, and confess it before our Father in heaven, we can never

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be purified and cleansed from all unrighteousness, as John reminds us in 1 John chapter 1 verse

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9.