Our Church Family

Dear church,

God gave his people the land of Canaan. The land he gave them was much larger than the land they actually occupied and controlled, but that is a story for another day. They did not occupy all of it because of their own shortcomings, not God’s. 

The point for today is this: “This is the land that shall fall to you for an inheritance.” Canaan was a well-known region in the Middle East, even as far back as 1,500 BC, before the time of the Israelites’ conquest. This was to be their land, given to them by God himself.

Do you understand the inheritance God has given to you? And are you ready and willing to take possession of it? The apostle Paul said Christians are qualified “to share in the inheritance of the saints in light” (Colossians 1:12). We do not inherit a piece of land, no matter how promising it might be in an agricultural sense. We inherit no less than the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9).

This is the result of our righteousness as children of God. We aren’t righteous because of anything we’ve done but because of the work of the new Joshua – Jesus Christ, the Son of God – who leads us into our inheritance. 

What must we do now? We do not want to leave any part of our inheritance unoccupied. We see the fullness of the promise, and we know the Israelites fell short of living fully in the land God gave them. Is there anything still for us to do to ensure that doesn’t happen to us?

God said, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son” (Revelation 21:6-7). 

We conquer by our faith – nothing more. Faith bears itself out in obedience to God, of course. But faith in Him and in his power and work is where our hearts and minds must remain. We keep believing in the one who finishes all things in heaven and on earth. We come thirsty not for water but for eternal life – for Christ himself. 

Chris

Dear church,

Don’t let yourself get frustrated by all the starting and stopping in your walk with Christ. Just know our journey as Christians never will be finished until the very End, when Christ returns triumphantly. Perfection won’t come until the Perfect One comes to make things perfect. Until then, we follow – sometimes in fits and starts – the “cloud” of God’s presence (Numbers 10:33-36).

God didn’t want his people Israel to forget all the starting and stopping and the long journey through the wilderness. Nor does he want us to forget. Moses wrote these were “starting places” – 42 places where the people camped upon their journey to the Promised Land. Sometimes, the places were scenes of God’s blessing and grace. Sometimes, they were places of Israel’s failure. 

We all start from somewhere, too. And it doesn’t really matter where we start. “And such were some of you,” Paul said to the former idolaters and adulterers and thieves in Corinth (1 Corinthians 6:11). Even after we’ve started, we might stop. And we might turn aside. This likely shames us the most, even more than our lives before Christ (Mark 14:72). 

We aren’t to forget these things, just as Israel was not. All of it – the entire hard journey – tells the story of God’s grace. God always was with his people, always protecting, always forgiving. The cloud was ever present. 

“And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). It is good to look back on our own journey with Christ and remember it is but a journey. The End – perhaps we can call it the new Promised Land, a new heaven and earth – is where we are headed. 

We remember so we may learn from our mistakes. And we remember so we can see again the grace of God in our lives.

Chris

Dear church,

If Christ invites you to enter into the kingdom of God. Don’t delay. Just go. Too many do delay, and too many don’t go. They walk right up to the edge of the Promised Land, and then they turn their heads and see something they think is better, or at least good enough. 

“Let this land be given to your servants for a possession. Do not take us across the Jordan.” A new term in American Christianity is “exvangelical.” These are people who have stopped just short of believing in the full gospel – about the reality of human sinfulness and its remedy in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. For these “exvangelicals,” other things have caught their eye. 

Perhaps they can’t come to terms with some core doctrine of traditional Christianity. Or perhaps they have agendas that don’t quite square with the faith. Or maybe they had a bad experience in church and cannot see beyond that experience to the historical Jesus.

No matter. They have stopped short of responding to the invitation. “Please have me excused” (Luke 14:18). And they begin to point out what else is on their mind. “We have found a place that well-suited for us, and we want to stay here,” they say. But it is not the land that was promised. It is something else. 

God, of course, is gracious. He gives people what they want. But he also will keep issuing invitations. “Go out on the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled” (Luke 14:23). 

Are you responding to the daily invitation of Jesus to take up your cross and follow him? Has anything else caught your eye that this world has to offer? Faith is believing, even when the temptation to stop believing becomes strong – and even when a “promised land” of our own making seems to appear right before us. 

Chris

Dear church,

One of the most uncomfortable things for Christians are the war chapters of the Bible. And this is partly because one of the least understood things by Christians is the depth and cost of humanity’s sinfulness. We don’t comprehend how much God cannot tolerate sin – and how much different God is than we are. 

Sometimes we have the self-awareness of skunks that have wandered into the dining room. We don’t know understand what there is to hate about us – why the women scream and the men grab their guns. A skunk, if it were to have thoughts at all, probably would consider itself a pretty innocuous animal. It has characteristics to which it has become so accustomed that it likely would be surprised that others find those things repulsive, and violently so.

So it is with sinners. We are so accustomed to our sinfulness we fail at times to understand what’s so bad about it and why anyone, even God, would take offense at some of the things we do or some of the things that are in our hearts.

But sinners and sinfulness have no place in the presence of God. Israel was not immune to the vengeance of God, and neither were the Gentiles like the Midianites. “We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things” (Romans 2:2). We must recognize it only is the grace of God that keeps us hanging around. If he gave us what we deserve, we would experience his vengeance, too. 

“He will render each one according to his works” (Romans 2:6). God is aware of our actions and our thoughts. He knows our hearts better than we know them ourselves. We often wander around thinking there’s nothing unpleasant about us. But we are not fit, on our own, for the kingdom of heaven.

“There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality” (Romans 2:9-11).

God hates sin. But in his impartiality, he gave good news to all. Have you rid your life of every bit of self-righteousness? Do you understand where you would be but for the grace of God that is found in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ? Christianity has no place for spiritual pride.

Chris

Dear church,

When God created the world, he created something especially for humans: duty. There are certain things that we simply must do. To not carry out our duties is to fall short of the purpose and responsibility God gave each one of us.

We are not talking about duties that other people have foisted onto us. These tend to be burdensome and annoying, and we often bristle under those loads. No, we are talking about duties that God himself has placed on us. These are things that ultimately lead to our good – like a child’s duty to his or her parents (Exodus 20:12), or the duty of a husband and wife to one another (Ephesians 5:22, 25), or everyone’s duty to God (Deuteronomy 6:13).

“If a man vows a vow to the Lord … he shall not break his word.” Our vows to God have great significance. By them, we proclaim what we believe about God. We acknowledge God’s love and care for us. “I must perform my vows to you, O God; I will render thank offerings to you. For you have delivered my soul from death, yes, my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of life” (Psalm 56:12-13).

We gain a laser-like focus on obedience when we make vows to God and then follow through on them. This is good. But we must not make vows in order to shirk our God-given duties. A vow does not cancel out our pre-existing responsibilities. 

If I were to vow to do such-and-such a thing for God, that would not negate my duty to my parents or to my wife or to my children (Matthew 15:3-9). The ancient Israelite child in Numbers 30 still had a duty to her parents, and the ancient Israelite wife still had a duty to her husband – regardless of what additional vows might have been made. 

Some things simply exist in the creation order. They are immutable realities set in place by God. But God did not establish these things – these duties – in order to burden humanity (Mark 2:27). God never wanted evil for his people, but only a future and a hope (Jeremiah 29:11). 

As you examine the duties God has given to you – duties toward your husband or wife, or your parents, or your children, or your church, or your employer, or your neighbor – can you see the blessing bound up in those duties? Or have you only made those duties into a burden?

Chris

Dear church,

If you are going to follow Jesus, be prepared to give more than you ever thought you would give. And if your heart is locked firmly on your Savior and his life, you’ll probably be surprised by just how much you end up giving – and giving willingly. 

The people of Israel spent seven days each year giving of their wealth to God. It was quite extravagant – “and you shall keep a feast to the Lord seven days.” Thirteen bulls were sacrificed on the first day. Twelve on the second. Eleven on the third. And so on. 

More and more. The priests surely were busy. The smell from the sacrifices would have spread through the camp. Everyone could sell this “pleasing aroma to the Lord.”

Christians should get to know this idea, “for we are the aroma of Christ to God” (2 Corinthians 2:15). This is the aroma of victory, first and foremost. But it also is the aroma of sacrifice, of men and women giving over their lives – taking up their crosses – to follow Christ. It is the aroma of people who gave more than they, perhaps, thought they ever would. 

Too many Christians stop short of this kind of giving. They like to do other things with their time and their money and their energy. They have places to go and people to see and trails to hike and rivers to fish. There is no feast of booths in their year. 

We also stop short when we find God calling us to do that “one thing,” whatever it may be, that we really would rather not do – like forgive someone, or tell the truth, or right the wrong. And we rationalize our actions and seek to justify ourselves to ourselves, why we didn’t keep the feast to which God has called us. 

Our actions can serve as sacred offerings, without blemish, to God. Even actions that are painful to us, and maybe especially those kinds of actions, can be offerings to God. The point is that we give him more and more of ourselves, holding nothing back. 

We do this in gratitude, because God even now is bringing us into his promised rest.

Chris

Dear church,

One of the defining marks of the God of the universe is his promise-making. We do not worship a silent God, or a God who remains aloof and uninterested in the affairs of the world. That’s not the God of Israel at all. 

No, God makes promises. And he keeps them. Even in our own sinfulness and struggles and doubts and worries and failures and mistakes and moments that we wish we could have back, God’s promises remain. We don’t nullify the promises by our actions. We might think that we do, and God may discipline us as his children at times (Hebrews 12:6). But the promises are true.

At the edge of the Promised Land, the people must have been jubilant with the realization the promise was very near its fulfillment. I suppose they could taste the victory already, and God whetted their appetite by telling them how they would worship him once they were in the land. 

The numbers spoke for themselves: Every year, the people would sacrifice 113 bulls, 32 rams, and 1,086 rams. They would give to God more than one ton of flour and thousands of bottles of oil and wine.^[1] These were commands by God, but they also were reminders to the people that they would be a rich agricultural community. The land indeed was good, and the people would be blessed. 

Perhaps the people’s eyes grew wide as they learned about the vast and constant sacrifices they would make to God in the Promised Land. The sacrifices meant there would be an abundance. 

Our promised rest is near. Jesus said it was close at hand (Mark 1:15). We must recognize any lack of physical things we have in this world is only temporary. There will be a remedy to it. “To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment” (Revelation 21:6).

And we can be jubilant. Every worry can wash away. And we can look forward with hopeful expectation. 

Chris

^[1] Gordan J. Wenham, Numbers (TOTC) (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP, 1981), 220.

Dear church,

Be on the lookout for those whose faith stands out among the rest. These are people who don’t need to see the work of God with their own eyes to know God is capable of fulfilling every promise he makes (John 20:29). They believe what God says even when the smartest and most accomplished among us start running the numbers and telling them they ought to stop (Matthew 18:3).

This is the kind of faith that is willing to give up the things of this world – “stuff” – in order to give honor to Jesus Christ. We are to remember those who exhibit this kind of faith (Matthew 26:13). These are those from whom we can learn.

And we may find them in the most unusual of places – like the daughters of Zelophehad. Their father was a man who, most likely, believed the 10 weak-willed and faithless spies. His body was among those that littered the wilderness. His daughters, however, walked their own path. They believed in God’s promises even before those promises came to be. They knew the land would fall into the hands of the Israelites. They were so certain that they wanted to be prepared, and they took their cause before Moses and Eleazar.

And so they were remembered. Their names were written down. 

Search out and get to know people with this kind of faith. Ask them questions. Learn their habits. These are the people who know the truth behind the promises. “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).

Chris

Dear church, 

We are called by God to live lives of continuous faith. We are not to be tossed back and forth like a boat on an ocean, rocking between faith and unbelief (James 1:6). This kind of “faith” – a waffling, swayable faith – turns out to be no faith at all. 

This was the plight of the Israelites who came out of Egypt during the Exodus. They were an unbelieving generation, doubting God’s power and promises. They heard the good report of the 12 spies who went into the Promised Land, and they saw the huge clusters of grapes. Yet they doubted. They didn’t believe God would bring them into the Promised Land. They suffered a life of wandering and then death in the wilderness (Numbers 14:20-23). 

That generation never saw the Promised Land because they did not believe. True, continuous faith is faith that holds on even in moments of questioning and despair. It is believing even when your mind cannot get itself into a believing framework. 

Perhaps it is better said like this: True faith is the wanting to believe, even when nothing else matches up. This makes it an act of our will, even as it remains a gift from God. A desperate father once cried out to Jesus, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24). Jesus honored that faith. 

“For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end” (Hebrews 3:14). The census of God’s people found in Numbers 26 is the second census recorded in the book. The first took place at Sinai, and all (but two) of those people died in the wilderness, not having entered into the Promised Land because of their unbelief. 

Those wilderness graves are a reminder to us to keep our faith right down to the “end.” This requires an act of the will – an almost desperate desire to believe – and it requires help. We must help each other. 

“Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (Hebrews 3:12). When the writer says “every day,” we assume he means it. Our words of encouragement to one another ought to come quite often. 

And we must be good listeners. Caleb and Joshua were the only two of the old generation to enter the Promised Land. They lived lives of continuous faith.

Chris

Dear church,

We never should see another person’s sin and think we are any better than they are. To do so would be to disregard the old stories like the one we find in Numbers 25. If these were written down as examples for us, we surely are not any better (1 Corinthians 10:6-11).

We never should be satisfied we have completely overcome any particular sin. While our lives should not be marked by a super-vigilance and fear that completely takes us out of the world, it also should not be marked by a supreme confidence and pride that says, “I could never fall into that sin.”

“Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did” (1 Corinthians 10:6). Desiring evil is nothing more than living as if God does not exist and does not exercise authority over our lives. We fall into evil when we pursue our own interests at the expense of God’s. As fallen creatures, humans are naturally inclined to desire evil. It is the Holy Spirit that makes things different for the Christian (John 16:7-8). 

The Christian life is marked by self-awareness and humility. We read story after story of God’s expressions of grace and blessing on his people, followed by their immediate descent into the most vulgar of sins. Temptation comes at any time. “They have harassed you with their wiles … they beguiled you.” 

The old Christian saying, “There but for the grace of God go I,” is one we ought to keep upon our lips. The apostle Paul said we should take heed lest we fall (1 Corinthians 10:12). The writer of Hebrews tells us to look to Jesus (Hebrews 12:1-2).

The spear of Phinehas brought the plague to an end for God’s people. Sinners were pierced by a man passionate about the will and way of God. Here, we see the cross, where a man bearing the sins of the world was pierced – willfully. In a sense, he both carried the spear, and he received its point. And he did this for us. 

Again, this calls for humility. We are sinners, too.

Chris