Numbers 3 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: You Need a Little Christmas - December 28, 2021

We live in anxious times. Terrorism is living up to its name—terror. Violence hangs over our planet like a dark cloud. Think about the images on the news: the senseless attacks, the bloodshed, the random acts of cruelty. And there is the fear of another recession. We seem to teeter on the edge of the financial world going down. And there’s more…the tumor you can’t diagnose, the marriage you can’t fix, the boss you can’t please.

Are you scared? May I suggest that you need a little Christmas? You see, Christmas is about Christ. And Christ-mas is not Christ-mas unless—or until—you receive the message of Bethlehem. In the hurry and scurry of the season, have you taken time to receive the promise of the season? God gets us, God saves us, and God is always near us.

Numbers 3

The Levites

 This is the family tree of Aaron and Moses at the time God spoke with Moses on Mount Sinai.

2-4 The names of the sons of Aaron: Nadab the firstborn, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar—anointed priests ordained to serve as priests. But Nadab and Abihu fell dead in the presence of God when they offered unauthorized sacrifice to him in the Wilderness of Sinai. They left no sons, and so only Eleazar and Ithamar served as priests during the lifetime of their father, Aaron.

5-10 God spoke to Moses. He said, “Bring forward the tribe of Levi and present them to Aaron so they can help him. They shall work for him and the whole congregation at the Tent of Meeting by doing the work of The Dwelling. Their job is to be responsible for all the furnishings of The Dwelling, ministering to the affairs of The Dwelling as the People of Israel come to perform their duties. Turn the Levites over to Aaron and his sons; they are the ones assigned to work full time for him. Appoint Aaron and his sons to minister as priests; anyone else who tries to elbow his way in will be put to death.”

11-13 God spoke to Moses: “I have taken the Levites from among the People of Israel as a stand-in for every Israelite mother’s firstborn son. The Levites belong to me. All the firstborn are mine—when I killed all the firstborn in Egypt, I consecrated for my own use every firstborn in Israel, whether human or animal. They belong to me. I am God.”

14-16 God spoke to Moses in the Wilderness of Sinai: “Count the Levites by their ancestral families and clans. Count every male a month old and older.” Moses counted them just as he was instructed by the mouth of God.

17 These are the names of the sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.

18 These are the names of the Gershonite clans: Libni and Shimei.

19 The sons of Kohath by clan: Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel.

20 The sons of Merari by clan: Mahli and Mushi.

These are the clans of Levi, family by family.

21-26 Gershon was ancestor to the clans of the Libnites and Shimeites, known as the Gershonite clans. All the males who were one month and older numbered 7,500. The Gershonite clans camped on the west, behind The Dwelling, led by Eliasaph son of Lael. At the Tent of Meeting the Gershonites were in charge of maintaining The Dwelling and its tent, its coverings, the screen at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting, the hangings of the Courtyard, the screen at the entrance to the Courtyard that surrounded The Dwelling and Altar, and the cords—in short, everything having to do with these things.

27-32 Kohath was ancestor to the clans of the Amramites, Izharites, Hebronites, and Uzzielites. These were known as the Kohathite clans. All the males who were one month and older numbered 8,600. The Kohathites were in charge of the Sanctuary. The Kohathite clans camped on the south side of The Dwelling, led by Elizaphan son of Uzziel. They were in charge of caring for the Chest, the Table, the Lampstand, the Altars, the articles of the Sanctuary used in worship, and the screen—everything having to do with these things. Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, supervised the leaders of the Levites and those in charge of the Sanctuary.

33-37 Merari was ancestor to the clans of the Mahlites and the Mushites, known as the Merarite clans. The males who were one month and older numbered 6,200. They were led by Zuriel son of Abihail and camped on the north side of The Dwelling. The Merarites were in charge of the frames of The Dwelling, its crossbars, posts, bases, and all its equipment—everything having to do with these things, as well as the posts of the surrounding Courtyard with their bases, tent pegs, and cords.

38 Moses and Aaron and his sons camped to the east of The Dwelling, toward the rising sun, in front of the Tent of Meeting. They were in charge of maintaining the Sanctuary for the People of Israel and the rituals of worship. Anyone else who tried to perform these duties was to be put to death.

39 The sum total of Levites counted at God’s command by Moses and Aaron, clan by clan, all the males one month and older, numbered 22,000.

40-41 God spoke to Moses: “Count all the firstborn males of the People of Israel who are one month and older. List their names. Then set apart for me the Levites—remember, I am God—in place of all the firstborn among the People of Israel, also the livestock of the Levites in place of their livestock. I am God.”

42-43 So, just as God commanded him, Moses counted all the firstborn of the People of Israel. The total of firstborn males one month and older, listed by name, numbered 22,273.

44-48 Again God spoke to Moses. He said, “Take the Levites in place of all the firstborn of Israel and the livestock of the Levites in place of their livestock. The Levites are mine, I am God. Redeem the 273 firstborn Israelites who exceed the number of Levites by collecting five shekels for each one, using the Sanctuary shekel (the shekel weighing twenty gerahs). Give that money to Aaron and his sons for the redemption of the excess number of Israelites.”

49-51 So Moses collected the redemption money from those who exceeded the number redeemed by the Levites. From the 273 firstborn Israelites he collected silver weighing 1,365 shekels according to the Sanctuary shekel. Moses turned over the redemption money to Aaron and his sons, as he was commanded by the word of God.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion   
Tuesday, December 28, 2021
Today's Scripture
Jude 1:17–23
(NIV)

A Call to Persevere

17 But, dear friends, remember what the apostlest of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold.u 18 They said to you, “In the last timesv there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.”w 19 These are the people who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit.x

20 But you, dear friends, by building yourselves upy in your most holy faithz and praying in the Holy Spirit,a 21 keep yourselves in God’s love as you waitb for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.c

22 Be merciful to those who doubt; 23 save others by snatching them from the fire;d to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.

Insight

Written by Jude, the half-brother of Jesus, the book of Jude opens and closes with a charge or calling for believers to stand firmly in their faith (“contend for the faith,” v. 3). They are to build themselves up in “most holy faith” (v. 20). The context of Jude’s concern is false teachers whose primary failure is an ungodly way of life. The false teachers are unapologetic about their immoral choices, using the truth of God’s grace as “a license for immorality” (v. 4). Speaking to an audience presumably familiar with Jewish Scriptures, Jude recounts cautionary tales of the consequences of an immoral lifestyle, drawing from both Hebrew Scriptures and the book of 1 Enoch (vv. 14–15). First Enoch, while not part of our scriptural canon, would have been held in high regard by a Jewish audience. By: Monica La Ro

Great Wisdom

Be merciful to those who doubt; save others by snatching them from the fire; to others show mercy, mixed with fear.
Jude 1:22–23

“The shepherd needs great wisdom and a thousand eyes,” wrote the beloved church father John Chrysostom, “to examine the soul’s condition from every angle.” Chrysostom wrote these words as part of a discussion on the complexity of caring well for others spiritually. Since it’s impossible to force anyone to heal, he emphasized, reaching others’ hearts requires great empathy and compassion.

But that doesn’t mean never causing pain, Chrysostom cautioned, because “if you behave too leniently to one who needs deep surgery, and do not make a deep incision in one who requires it, you mutilate yet miss the cancer. But if you make the needed incision without mercy, often the patient, in despair at his sufferings, throws all aside . . . and promptly throws himself over a cliff.”

There’s a similar complexity in how Jude describes responding to those led astray by false teachers, whose behavior he describes starkly (1:12–13, 18–19). Yet when Jude turns to how to respond to such grave threats, he doesn’t suggest reacting with harsh anger.

Instead, he taught that believers should respond to threats by rooting themselves even more deeply in God’s love (vv. 20–21). For it’s only when we’re deeply anchored in God’s unchanging love that we can find the wisdom to help others with appropriate urgency, humility, and compassion (vv. 22–23)—the way most likely to help them find healing and rest in God’s boundless love. By:  Monica La Rose

Reflect & Pray

Why is it crucial to “[build yourself] up . . . in the Holy Spirit” (v. 20) before you respond to perceived threats? What examples have you seen of great wisdom and compassion used in helping someone in great pain?

God of love, when I’m faced with evil and hate, help me not to respond in kind but anchor myself in Your love.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, December 28, 2021
Continuous Conversion

…unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. —Matthew 18:3

These words of our Lord refer to our initial conversion, but we should continue to turn to God as children, being continuously converted every day of our lives. If we trust in our own abilities, instead of God’s, we produce consequences for which God will hold us responsible. When God through His sovereignty brings us into new situations, we should immediately make sure that our natural life submits to the spiritual, obeying the orders of the Spirit of God. Just because we have responded properly in the past is no guarantee that we will do so again. The response of the natural to the spiritual should be continuous conversion, but this is where we so often refuse to be obedient. No matter what our situation is, the Spirit of God remains unchanged and His salvation unaltered. But we must “put on the new man…” (Ephesians 4:24). God holds us accountable every time we refuse to convert ourselves, and He sees our refusal as willful disobedience. Our natural life must not rule— God must rule in us.

To refuse to be continuously converted puts a stumbling block in the growth of our spiritual life. There are areas of self-will in our lives where our pride pours contempt on the throne of God and says, “I won’t submit.” We deify our independence and self-will and call them by the wrong name. What God sees as stubborn weakness, we call strength. There are whole areas of our lives that have not yet been brought into submission, and this can only be done by this continuous conversion. Slowly but surely we can claim the whole territory for the Spirit of God.

Wisdom From Oswald Chambers

We can understand the attributes of God in other ways, but we can only understand the Father’s heart in the Cross of Christ.  The Highest Good—Thy Great Redemption, 558 L

Bible in a Year: Zechariah 5-8; Revelation 19

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, December 28, 2021

Two Broken Men, One Big Difference - #9122

Whenever we passed a park, when I was a kid, I shifted into nagging mode to get my dad to stop, because I loved the swings. Didn't do that spinning carousel thing. No, never did enjoy throwing up. Then, the seesaw. That was fun. Yeah.

Of course, there was little Ronnie and big Daddy, it didn't work too well. I kept ending up somehow with my end of the seesaw suspended in the air as my dad thought it was funny just to sit there with his end on the ground for a while. Yeah, he thought that was fun. Now here's what was really not fun - having no one on the other end. You just sit there with your end of that thing on the ground and nothing on the other end to lift you up. That's what happened to my dad the night of the greatest loss of his life.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Two Broken Men, One Big Difference."

Whenever you lose someone or something important to you, it triggers one of the most intense, potentially most destructive emotions there is. Grief. I was overwhelmed with it on the day in May when that became the worst day of my life. That's the day my Karen, the love of my life since I was 19, was suddenly gone. How could I have known the night before when I told her I loved her as I left for a trip, that I'd never be able to tell her that again?

For my dad, it was that night when I was four, when he and my mom left our little apartment in a panic to get my baby brother to the hospital. I never saw him again. The doctors couldn't do anything for little Steven. Six months old - he was gone.

I saw my dad totally crushed and devastated. Unable to recover. Crying all the time. Today I'd say he was inconsolable.

In my dad's unspeakable loss - and years later in mine - we were both broken men. Both with many tears. But as I compare my grief to what I saw in my dad, there's one massive difference. Hope. Because in my darkest hour, I had my relationship with Jesus. My dad had nowhere to turn.

He was "on the ground" with nothing on the other side to lift him up. But, praise God, the day I lost the love of my life, Jesus was there with His unloseable love enveloping my wounded heart.

That's the difference in knowing Jesus, spelled out in 1 Thessalonians 4:13. It's our word for today from the Word of God. Where Paul says to some grieving people who belong to Jesus: "You do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope." He goes on to say "for we believe that Jesus died and rose again."

Eventually, in his grief, my dad started dropping me off to go to Sunday School at a nearby church. That's where I learned how much Jesus loved me. So much that He died on an awful cross to pay for every bad thing I've ever done or that you've ever done. And then three days later He crushed death as He walked out of His grave! One Sunday I came running out to the car and I gushed, "Daddy, today I asked Jesus in my heart." I know he didn't understand. But a few months later he did, and he came with all his sin and his brokenness to the only One who could forgive and heal - Jesus.

Here's the difference between someone who's listening right now who's begun a relationship with Jesus and someone who hasn't. With Jesus, yes, you grieve. But there's something on the other side of the scale - hope. Jesus. With His love, with His heaven, without Jesus, it's just the agony of grief with nothing on the other side to lift you up. Hurt with hope or hurt without hope.

If you're doing life; if you're doing heartbreak and death without Jesus in your heart, I pray today will be the day you reach out to Him and say, "Jesus, I'm Yours." I would love to help you get that settled. Just go and check out our website with this life-giving information there. Go to ANewStory.com.

So much loss. So much hurt. But, oh, there's hope. And hope has a name. His name is Jesus.