Judges 11:39 And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed: and she knew no man. And it was a custom in Israel,

It has been my custom to write a devotional and update my blog every morning. Sometimes I write the blog in advance, sometimes just before its release. You would not know that unless I told you. It really does not matter unless you have an anticipation and are looking for something. I would not know that unless you wrote to me.

Customs for the most part are established by a pressing emotional force. There is no law involved. We get used to doing certain things at certain times, in certain ways. Obviously there will always be events that alter customs. Natural disasters would be a valid excuse. Death certainly would be excusable. In this modern era, servers go down, connections get lost, equipment failures, all understandable.

Today I am late because of a pressing emotional emergency. Pure emotions, no constraints on anything but my own emotions. When emotions get involved everything stops. Customs, schedules, plans, ideas, desires, hopes, appointments, everything gets set aside.

We are entering into a season of the year that is fill of customs. We just got over Thanksgiving and now we enter into the leading edges of Christmas and New Year. The one thing that this season and customs have in common is a deep emotional attachment. We attach high emotion to this time of year. Will we find comfort or stress? Will we find satisfaction or disappointment? Will we find joy or sadness?

Placing to high an expectation on customs could cause the slightest of disappointment or worse. I will try and make the most out of these moments in light of what happened this morning. There are times when I cannot even control my own emotions. I will lower my expectations and raise my joy at whatever comes my way.

Joy to the world. The Lord has come.

Isaiah 61:10 I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels.

I know you must have heard the expression, “The clothes make the man.” Dress for success also comes to mind. Nothing covers a less than perfect body better than a really great tailor. Seamstress for you ladies, I must not leave you out on this issue. Not all of us have perfect bodies. Those that do have a tendency to show that as much as possible. The rest of us try to hide as best we can our imperfections.

The garments of salvation, the robe of righteousness, they are not exactly well tailored clothes, but in a spiritual sense that is exactly right. Our imperfections are hidden from all. Now comes the interesting part, if we are to carry out this spiritual example to any spiritual result that we can use in our daily lives.

The hands and the face are not covered by a suit, a robe, a dress. Those things are where we are exposed. Hands signify works according to Ecclesiastes 2:11. According to Proverbs 27:19 a man’s face is a reflection of his heart, his countenance exposed. Take into consideration that spiritually speaking these two areas are exposed what has God provided to His children that will in any way reflect our true countenance, in light of our relationship with Jesus Christ.

I would guess that obedience of faith would account for the works, the hands. The face might be a little more difficult to cover since we are all different and no one “looks” like me.

Romans 14:14 I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean.

Our conscience is tailored according to God’s will.