MaxLucado.com: Crazy Idea?
My family consisted of me, two sisters and a brother. We were siblings because we came from the same family. I’m sure there have been times when they did not want to call me their brother, but they didn’t have that choice. Nor do we. When I see someone calling God Father and Jesus Savior, I meet a brother or a sister—regardless of the name of their church or denomination.
What would happen—I know this is a crazy thought—but what would happen if all the churches agreed, on a given day, to change their names to simply “church?” What if reference to any denomination were removed and we were all just Christians? Then we Christians wouldn’t be known for what divides us; instead we’d be known for what unites us—our common Father.
Crazy idea? Perhaps. But I think God would like it. It was his to begin with.
“Christ accepted you, so you should accept each other, which will bring glory to God.” (Rom. 15:7)
From A Gentle Thunder
Numbers 15
Laws concerning Offerings
Then the Lord told Moses, 2 “Give the following instructions to the people of Israel.
“When you finally settle in the land I am giving you, 3 you will offer special gifts as a pleasing aroma to the Lord. These gifts may take the form of a burnt offering, a sacrifice to fulfill a vow, a voluntary offering, or an offering at any of your annual festivals, and they may be taken from your herds of cattle or your flocks of sheep and goats. 4 When you present these offerings, you must also give the Lord a grain offering of two quarts[a] of choice flour mixed with one quart[b] of olive oil. 5 For each lamb offered as a burnt offering or a special sacrifice, you must also present one quart of wine as a liquid offering.
6 “If the sacrifice is a ram, give a grain offering of four quarts[c] of choice flour mixed with a third of a gallon[d] of olive oil, 7 and give a third of a gallon of wine as a liquid offering. This will be a pleasing aroma to the Lord.
8 “When you present a young bull as a burnt offering or as a sacrifice to fulfill a vow or as a peace offering to the Lord, 9 you must also give a grain offering of six quarts[e] of choice flour mixed with two quarts[f] of olive oil, 10 and give two quarts of wine as a liquid offering. This will be a special gift, a pleasing aroma to the Lord.
11 “Each sacrifice of a bull, ram, lamb, or young goat should be prepared in this way. 12 Follow these instructions with each offering you present. 13 All of you native-born Israelites must follow these instructions when you offer a special gift as a pleasing aroma to the Lord. 14 And if any foreigners visit you or live among you and want to present a special gift as a pleasing aroma to the Lord, they must follow these same procedures. 15 Native-born Israelites and foreigners are equal before the Lord and are subject to the same decrees. This is a permanent law for you, to be observed from generation to generation. 16 The same instructions and regulations will apply both to you and to the foreigners living among you.”
17 Then the Lord said to Moses, 18 “Give the following instructions to the people of Israel.
“When you arrive in the land where I am taking you, 19 and you eat the crops that grow there, you must set some aside as a sacred offering to the Lord. 20 Present a cake from the first of the flour you grind, and set it aside as a sacred offering, as you do with the first grain from the threshing floor. 21 Throughout the generations to come, you are to present a sacred offering to the Lord each year from the first of your ground flour.
22 “But suppose you unintentionally fail to carry out all these commands that the Lord has given you through Moses. 23 And suppose your descendants in the future fail to do everything the Lord has commanded through Moses. 24 If the mistake was made unintentionally, and the community was unaware of it, the whole community must present a young bull for a burnt offering as a pleasing aroma to the Lord. It must be offered along with its prescribed grain offering and liquid offering and with one male goat for a sin offering. 25 With it the priest will purify the whole community of Israel, making them right with the Lord,[g] and they will be forgiven. For it was an unintentional sin, and they have corrected it with their offerings to the Lord—the special gift and the sin offering. 26 The whole community of Israel will be forgiven, including the foreigners living among you, for all the people were involved in the sin.
27 “If one individual commits an unintentional sin, the guilty person must bring a one-year-old female goat for a sin offering. 28 The priest will sacrifice it to purify[h] the guilty person before the Lord, and that person will be forgiven. 29 These same instructions apply both to native-born Israelites and to the foreigners living among you.
30 “But those who brazenly violate the Lord’s will, whether native-born Israelites or foreigners, have blasphemed the Lord, and they must be cut off from the community. 31 Since they have treated the Lord’s word with contempt and deliberately disobeyed his command, they must be completely cut off and suffer the punishment for their guilt.”
Penalty for Breaking the Sabbath
32 One day while the people of Israel were in the wilderness, they discovered a man gathering wood on the Sabbath day. 33 The people who found him doing this took him before Moses, Aaron, and the rest of the community. 34 They held him in custody because they did not know what to do with him. 35 Then the Lord said to Moses, “The man must be put to death! The whole community must stone him outside the camp.” 36 So the whole community took the man outside the camp and stoned him to death, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.
Tassels on Clothing
37 Then the Lord said to Moses, 38 “Give the following instructions to the people of Israel: Throughout the generations to come you must make tassels for the hems of your clothing and attach them with a blue cord. 39 When you see the tassels, you will remember and obey all the commands of the Lord instead of following your own desires and defiling yourselves, as you are prone to do. 40 The tassels will help you remember that you must obey all my commands and be holy to your God. 41 I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt that I might be your God. I am the Lord your God!”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, November 16, 2014
Read: Joshua 1:1-9
The Lord’s Charge to Joshua
After the death of Moses the Lord’s servant, the Lord spoke to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ assistant. He said, 2 “Moses my servant is dead. Therefore, the time has come for you to lead these people, the Israelites, across the Jordan River into the land I am giving them. 3 I promise you what I promised Moses: ‘Wherever you set foot, you will be on land I have given you— 4 from the Negev wilderness in the south to the Lebanon mountains in the north, from the Euphrates River in the east to the Mediterranean Sea[a] in the west, including all the land of the Hittites.’ 5 No one will be able to stand against you as long as you live. For I will be with you as I was with Moses. I will not fail you or abandon you.
6 “Be strong and courageous, for you are the one who will lead these people to possess all the land I swore to their ancestors I would give them. 7 Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the instructions Moses gave you. Do not deviate from them, turning either to the right or to the left. Then you will be successful in everything you do. 8 Study this Book of Instruction continually. Meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it. Only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do. 9 This is my command—be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
Footnotes:
1:4 Hebrew the Great Sea.
Insight
Moses dishonored God (Num. 20:1-13) and was not allowed to enter the Promised Land (Deut. 3:23-29). Yet God permitted him to see it from afar (34:1-4). Moses was succeeded by Joshua, a man who was “full of the spirit of wisdom” (v.9). In Joshua 1:1-9, God assured Joshua of His presence, power, providence, provision, and protection—just as God had assured Moses and been with him.
Amazing Guide
By Poh Fang Chia
Not a word failed of any good thing which the Lord had spoken. —Joshua 21:45
When actors and actresses make a movie, it’s the director who sees the “big picture” and the overall direction. Actress Marion Cotillard admits she didn’t understand everything the director was doing in one of her recent films. She said, “I found it very interesting to allow myself to be lost, because I knew that I had this amazing guide. . . . You abandon yourself for a story and a director that will make it all work.”
I think Joshua could have said something similar about the director of his life. In today’s Scripture passage, the newly commissioned leader of Israel is standing at the threshold of the Promised Land. More than 2 million Israelites are looking to him to lead them. How would he do it? God didn’t give him a detailed script, but He gave him the assurance that He would go with him.
God said, “I will be with you. I will not leave you” (Josh. 1:5). He commanded Joshua to study and practice everything written in His Word (vv.7-8), and He promised to be with Joshua wherever he went. Joshua responded with complete devotion and surrender to his amazing Guide, and “not a word failed of any good thing which the Lord had spoken” (21:45).
We too can abandon ourselves to our Director and rest in His faithfulness.
He leadeth me! O blessed thought!
O words with heavenly comfort fraught!
Whate’er I do, where’er I be,
Still ’tis God’s hand that leadeth me. —Gilmore
Faith never knows where it is being led; it knows and loves the One who is leading. —Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, November 16, 2014
Still Human!
…whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. —1 Corinthians 10:31
In the Scriptures, the great miracle of the incarnation slips into the ordinary life of a child; the great miracle of the transfiguration fades into the demon-possessed valley below; the glory of the resurrection descends into a breakfast on the seashore. This is not an anticlimax, but a great revelation of God.
We have a tendency to look for wonder in our experience, and we mistake heroic actions for real heroes. It’s one thing to go through a crisis grandly, yet quite another to go through every day glorifying God when there is no witness, no limelight, and no one paying even the remotest attention to us. If we are not looking for halos, we at least want something that will make people say, “What a wonderful man of prayer he is!” or, “What a great woman of devotion she is!” If you are properly devoted to the Lord Jesus, you have reached the lofty height where no one would ever notice you personally. All that is noticed is the power of God coming through you all the time.
We want to be able to say, “Oh, I have had a wonderful call from God!” But to do even the most humbling tasks to the glory of God takes the Almighty God Incarnate working in us. To be utterly unnoticeable requires God’s Spirit in us making us absolutely humanly His. The true test of a saint’s life is not successfulness but faithfulness on the human level of life. We tend to set up success in Christian work as our purpose, but our purpose should be to display the glory of God in human life, to live a life “hidden with Christ in God” in our everyday human conditions (Colossians 3:3). Our human relationships are the very conditions in which the ideal life of God should be exhibited.
