Doubting God's Word (Num. 13:1-25)

12/29/2008 8:26 PM

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                                        Focus:  Doubting God Word

Bible Reading & Meditation                        Reference:  Numbers 13:1-25

            Message of the verses:  I will not copy and paste the verses in today’s SD because of the length of them.

            From reading the first three verses in this section one would think that it was the Lord who wanted to send out the twelve spies into the Promised Land to spy it out before the children of Israel went in to conquer it; however it was the children of Israel who wanted to send out the spies.  “Then all of you approached me and said, ‘Let us send men before us, that they may search out the land for us, and bring back to us word of the way by which we should go up and the cities which we shall enter,” (Deu. 1:22).  The problem with the children of Israel was that they lacked faith in what God had told them, for He had told Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses that they were to go into the Promised Land to conquer it, and to live there.  This generation of Israelites had tested the Lord on many occasions and was about to do it again, however this time would be the last time for after they tested the Lord this time He would tell them that none of them who were over the age of twenty would enter the Promised Land with the exception of Joshua and Caleb, who were the two spies who believed the Lord and what He had said concerning the Promised Land.

            There is much said about this section of Scripture in the rest of the Bible and the writer to the book of Hebrews even talks about this subject to those he is writing to and tells them not to miss out on entering the rest of God like the generation who did so by not trusting the Lord to bring them into the Promised Land.  When the next generation sends out a couple of spies into the land they are told that all of those who were living in Jericho were very frightened when they though that Israel was going to enter into their land some forty years earlier.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I must trust the Lord and the Word that He has had written for just as the phrase “The just shall live by faith,” is seen four times in the Scriptures to give encouragement to God’s children I must listen to that promise.  Jesus Christ has promised that He will come again to earth, and even before He comes back to set up His kingdom He will come to the air above the earth to call His bride, the Church, to Him in order to take them to heaven.  I am part of the Church and I am trusting the Lord to do exactly what He has said He will do and that is part of living by faith, faith in the Word of God and the God of the Word.

My Steps of Faith for Today:

1.    Trust that the Lord will do all that He says that He will do including coming again to take me to be with Him. 

Memory verses for the week:                                  Romans 6:16-18

16.      Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or obedience resulting in righteousness?

17.      But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed,

18.      and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.

12/29/2008 9:07 PM