Overshadowed, Overjoyed, Endowed with Gifts

UV 3318/10000 Overshadowed, Overjoyed, Endowed with Gifts
And He has filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom and skill, with intelligence and understanding, and with knowledge in all areas of craftsmanship.

Exodus 35 v 31

This uni-verse describes the gifts of the Spirit manifested in a man called Bezalel, who was the chief craftsman who built the Tabernacle, the sacred dwelling of Jehovah as instructed by Moses. The name Bezalel means “Overshadowed by the Holy Spirit”. When we are overshadowed by the Spirit of God, we become a sacred dwelling or tabernacle of God. When we become a tabernacle of God, we overflow with joy. We have extraordinary gifts of wisdom, skill, intelligence, understanding, knowledge in all areas of craftsmanship. In short, the Holy Spirit invests the versatile genius of God so evident in the diversity of nature in ordinary humans like us. Bezalel was not only skilled but he had the overwhelming desire to build a worthy temple for the Lord. He had the willingness to work as teams and to teach or train others in his skills.

The materials that Bezalel used and crafted to design the tabernacle are symbols in the new covenant tabernacle: the gold that was smelted into different shapes and beaten into thin sheets is symbolic of our faith. Our faith needs to be refined like gold, tested in fire, moulded to suit our different contexts. The purple and velvet curtains hanging from rods and hooks of gold and fixed in sockets of gold are symbolic of the applications of faith and the word in our daily lives so that we walk in righteousness. We like Bezalel need to design, plan , execute things to make our lives, our very bodies and minds a veritable temple of God. However grand we make our life designs, we need to rely on the presence of God in and with and for us even as the Shekinah glory of the Lord manifested in the cloud over the tabernacle.

Every day we are building the temple. Unlike Bezalel we cannot say our work is over till our last breath. We need to give our best to this ongoing work of our lives. It is not something we do part time but it is our full time passion, purpose and plan. The Spirit of God will stir in our hearts to take up different tasks, projects, work in order to use our supernatural as well as natural gifting for the greater glory of the Lord. The Spirit of God releases the nine spiritual gifts in us to use on a constant basis- gifts of healing, teaching, deliverance, discernment, word of knowledge and word of wisdom, leadership, prophecy and interpretation. The living tabernacle is characterized by nine gifts, nine fruit and nine offices or vocations in which the nine gifts and fruit are manifested on a continual basis.