By what will your life be shaped?  The situations and circumstances in which we find ourselves (wether they be thrusted upon us or by our own making) can carry the most weight in our life.  Especially when these circumstances and situations are difficult.  This was certainly the case for the Israelites in Egypt,“Let heavier work be laid on the men that they may labor at it and pay no regard to lying words.” (Exodus 5:9 ).  However, the story of Exodus culminates in the climax of “the glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle.”  Over everything else, the Lord and His presence with His People was to carry the most weight in their lives.  In other words, the Lord being with His people was to shape their lives.  As the story of the Bible unfolds, we see Jesus show up as the Same God of Exodus, working the same plan of redemption for His people, but in Christ this plan is fully accomplished.  The veil was torn and removed so that God’s people can see the glory of the Lord embodied in Jesus.  Jesus also prepared the way for the Holy Spirit to indwell, not the Tabernacle, but the people of God as living stones.  We now, with unveiled faces to God’s glory and the presence of God in us, are empowered to be shaped into God’s people.  We finished looking at the parable Jesus told to the Chief Priests and Elders in Matthew 21.  Two sons were told to go work in their father’s vineyard.  One said, “yes,” but didn’t go.  The other said, “no,” but changed his mind and went.  This parable forces us to ask, “Which son am I?”  Am I giving lip service to God, but reflecting different loyalties in the way I live my life?  Or, has Jesus moved the glory and presence of God into my life?  If we claim the latter, then we must be willing to confess and repent from those wayward loyalties. The Israelites carried the story of Exodus with them.  It is the story that defined them.  The story of Exodus shaped the way they lived.  We have been ingrafted into Israel.  The Church is the fulfillment of Israel.  Exodus is our story, too.  However, our story is greater, because we have the greater mediator, Jesus the Christ.  Jesus saved us and He continues to shape us by moving the glory of the Lord into our lives through His finished work and the presence of the indwelling Holy Spirit, by whom we are empowered to live like God’s People—Because that is exactly who we are.  By what will your life be shaped?