Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Year 4, Day 148: Numbers 33

Theological Commentary: Click Here 


Discipleship Focus: Obedience

  • Obedience: Genuine and satisfying obedience comes out of our identity.  Our true identity comes only from Father.

Obedience is a funny word.  It is easy to say.  It is even easy – at least with God – to acknowledge why obedience is important and worthwhile.  However, when we’re in the moment obedience is nowhere near as easy as it first sounds.  Obedience conflicts with our human free will far more than I’d care to admit.

I think about these Hebrew people told to take the land.  God tells them to drive everyone out of the land.  In giving the Hebrew people that authority, He no doubt also gives them the power to do so.  But we know what happens.  They can’t.  They don’t.  The people that they don’t drive out slowly turn them away from God.  This results in the rebellion of the Hebrew people and their captivity to Assyria and Babylon.

Obedience.  The Hebrew people were not obedient.  They tried, but in spite of God’s authority and power they could not be obedient.  It is a reality that haunts them for the next 500 years.

I wonder what Christ’s church has been haunted by in the last 500 years because of a lack of obedience by the people who lived back then.  I wonder what will haunt people 500 years from now because of our lack of obedience today.


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