God in a box

Devotional written by Dr. Barri Cae Seif.

This past holiday season had me searching for boxes, whether it was here in my residence, or at the stores. Finding just the right box for a gift becomes a challenge in itself, and now we have to pay for boxes.

You may have passed this little box before, and never noticed it. I am writing of a Mezuzah, and this little box is found on the doorpost of Jews and non-Jews. The word Mezuzah, is Hebrew for doorpost, and it is not a good-luck charm, but a reminder of God’s name and His presence.

If you search Mezuzah on the internet, you will find various types: mezuzot for children, brides, bat or bar mitzvah, outdoor, indoor, abstract art, even car mezuzot. Mezuzot is the plural form. The only type I have not seen yet is a doghouse mezuzah.

It was many years ago when I bought my first Mezuzah. I was a new believer and I did not have much money, but I wanted a brass one with the funny letter on the outside. Back then, I did not know much about mezuzot. After diligent search, I found one that was brass and had the little letter on it, and it was $ 8.00 – perfect for my budget. As the clerk was wrapping my purchase, she asked me if I would like to buy the parchment? “What is the parchment? ” I asked. She told me that the parchment was the most important part of the Mezuzah, that it held the verses
Deut 6:4-9 – which is the Sh’ma, the watchword prayer of the Jewish faith. That was what the Mezuzah was really all about.

Well, she told me that the price of the parchment was
$25.00, and I declined. Way over my budget! I took my little Mezuzah, went home and copied Deut 6:4-9 on a piece of paper and stuck it in the little box.

Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is One!
And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart
and with all your soul and with all your might. And these
words which I am commanding you today, shall be on
your heart. And you shall teach them diligently to your
children, and you shall talk of them when you sit in your
house and when you walk by the way and when you lie
down and when you rise up. And you shall bind them
as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on
your forehead. And you shall write them on the door-posts of your house and on your gates.

I got to thinking about doorposts in the Bible, and one particular doorpost stands out.

Moreover, they shall take some of the blood and put
it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the
house in which they eat it,
and the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses
where you live;
and when I see the blood I will pass over you..
Ex. 12: 7,13

As stated before, the Mezuzah is not a good-luck charm, but a reminder to me, a believer, of God’s perfect and beautiful redemption plan that He gave to us in the Body of Yeshua. The commands are in the heart of the Mezuzah, the funny letter on the outside is a Shin, representing the
First letter of SHEM, the Hebrew word for Name, The Name,
and it is hung on the doorpost, to remind me of my LORD’s sacrifice for me, and the Blood that forever cleanses me of sin.

There is such a Beauty of Messiah Yeshua. I have been saved for 21 years, and yet I am still learning about Him. Only tonight, did I realize about the Doorpost significance of the Mezuzah, and that we as believers, can all share in this wonderful emblem on our doorposts. I continue to learn about Yeshua, that I cannot put Him in a box. Dogma, denominationalism, personalities all hide His beauty. From the box of a Feeding trough, to the Box in the empty tomb, our God is not found in a box.

For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ Messiah may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ Messiah which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to all the fullness of God.
Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us; to Him be the glory in the church and in Messiah Yeshua Jesus to all generations forever and ever.
Amen. Jude 24-25