Day 85
Numbers 21:4-22:20, Luke 6:12-36, Psalm 37:21-31
Numbers today gives a real sense of journey. We know that the Exodus was a very long journey but this is the first account where we see the extent of the movement, detailing all the places that they visited. When we hold this in the context of the last few days, the fact that we know that they set up the tabernacle every night when they camped, you can see the mammoth extent of the Exodus.
I cannot let v16 go without comment though, the place where Moses brought forward fresh water was called Beer, a little ironic, but you will probably find that that is why beer is called beer, another way that the Bible impinges on our language and our lives. Other than Beer, we see a number of battles and we come to passages that we sometimes struggle with. When God delivers whole nations of people into the hands of the Israelites it can seem quite hard to read. When you understand the politics and way of the land though, we can see that nations would have risen against Israel in order to protect their land and we see that the people of God did indeed have God on their side. If God had stepped aside then we would have just been reading the opposite, that Israel had been swallowed up.
We start the Gospel reading with words that I always love to read. The greatest example for prayer is Jesus himself. In 2005/2006 the Methodist Church had a year of prayer without ceasing and the church I was in did its slot one weekend with the young people praying all night, with some creative results.
Jesus also prayed for a whole night, a huge chunk of time communicating with his father in heaven and we can learn a great deal from his example. One of the reasons that we need to pray so much is that we can see our names alongside those of the apostles. Jesus calls us to do his will, to be his disciples and spread his Gospel just as he called Simon, Andrew, James, John etc. They were able to talk to him face to face to learn from him and we can talk to him in prayer, in many creative ways, and if you are an insomniac, you can do it all night.
We are on a mammoth journey with Jesus and the only way that we can really tell the way that he wants us to go is to communicate with him in prayer, just remember that you don't always need words.
Numbers today gives a real sense of journey. We know that the Exodus was a very long journey but this is the first account where we see the extent of the movement, detailing all the places that they visited. When we hold this in the context of the last few days, the fact that we know that they set up the tabernacle every night when they camped, you can see the mammoth extent of the Exodus.
I cannot let v16 go without comment though, the place where Moses brought forward fresh water was called Beer, a little ironic, but you will probably find that that is why beer is called beer, another way that the Bible impinges on our language and our lives. Other than Beer, we see a number of battles and we come to passages that we sometimes struggle with. When God delivers whole nations of people into the hands of the Israelites it can seem quite hard to read. When you understand the politics and way of the land though, we can see that nations would have risen against Israel in order to protect their land and we see that the people of God did indeed have God on their side. If God had stepped aside then we would have just been reading the opposite, that Israel had been swallowed up.
We start the Gospel reading with words that I always love to read. The greatest example for prayer is Jesus himself. In 2005/2006 the Methodist Church had a year of prayer without ceasing and the church I was in did its slot one weekend with the young people praying all night, with some creative results.
Jesus also prayed for a whole night, a huge chunk of time communicating with his father in heaven and we can learn a great deal from his example. One of the reasons that we need to pray so much is that we can see our names alongside those of the apostles. Jesus calls us to do his will, to be his disciples and spread his Gospel just as he called Simon, Andrew, James, John etc. They were able to talk to him face to face to learn from him and we can talk to him in prayer, in many creative ways, and if you are an insomniac, you can do it all night.
We are on a mammoth journey with Jesus and the only way that we can really tell the way that he wants us to go is to communicate with him in prayer, just remember that you don't always need words.
I love verse 8 and 9. God says make a snake and put it on a pole ( a wee bit like the fog at ss) and any one who looks at it will live, if they have been bitten by a snake, which were sent as a punishment. Moses does it and the people live. Its great that God can forgive us so incredibly easily and willingly!!!!!
ReplyDeletewould it be possible to have a sermon on people like Balaam? all we ever seem to hear about are the main people, but sometimes its nice to give the wee guys a visit.
ReplyDeleteYou've hit the nail on the head with the forgiveness thing. We would be a bit lost without it.
ReplyDeleteAs for Balaam, we will see what we can do. I am still trying to figure him out. A sorcerer is not a good thing, but he did end up doing what God wanted. There may be a lesson in that! But then he went back to his ungodly ways and died in the battle. Hard one to tease out.