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Num. 14
When the Israelites realized that they had sinned by not trusting God and following Him, they did what humans do. They tried to fix it. God doesn’t want or need our ‘fix’. He wants our repentance. ‘Fixing’ is not repentance; it is an attempt to escape judgment. Sure, the people acknowledged their sin. Rather than turning from it, however, they continued in it. They still did their own thing in direct disobedience to God.
This is such a graphic example of the human story – a story that is repeated many times throughout God’s word. God offers us His presence. We, however, reject His offer and try to enter His presence on our own terms. The result of our efforts will always be as disastrous as the Israelites attempt in this passage. We cannot come to God unless we care enough about coming to God to set ourselves aside and do it His way. It’s not because God is a tyrant. It’s because we can’t fix ourselves.
Ps. 50
In this Psalm, God describes His Godly ones as, “those who have made a covenant with Me by sacrifice” (Ps. 50:5b). He then says, however, that He won’t take their animals because the world and everything in it are His. In other words, we aren’t the ones who make the covenant or the sacrifice. Both are His, that He makes with and for us. The only thing He needs from us, then, is our thankfulness and faithfulness.
Is. 3-4
I had a semi-unrelated thought when reading this passage this morning. It came from the plea of the women. “…only let us be called by your name; take away our reproach!” (Is. 4:1c). I figure women of that day must have had a good, real-world understanding, whether they knew it or not, of what it means to belong to God through Christ. I say this because, when we are called by His name, He takes away our reproach. Women in that day were nobody without a husband. In the same way, we are nobody without Christ.
The first part of their statement also tells me that, under normal circumstance, when a woman belonged to a man, she ate his bread and wore his clothing. Again, Jesus does this for us. In fact, it is essential that we accept what He provides – that we eat the bread of His body, sacrificed for us, and put on the clothing of His righteousness – in order to take His name.