Tag Archive | women living well

Numbers 33 – Destroy it or be Consumed by it…

Dec10

Good evening y’all. Today we are studying Numbers 33. Be blessed 🙂

In this chapter we see Moses recount the journey of the isrealites from Egypt to the place where they are camped now. They are about to enter the promised land. God gives them a few instructions on what to do to the canannites when they get to the land and tells them the consequence if they dont obey him.

My focus today is on verses 51 – 56.

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“Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘When you have crossed the Jordan into the land of Canaan, then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, destroy all their engraved stones, destroy all their molded images, and demolish all their high places;  you shall dispossess the inhabitants of the land and dwell in it, for I have given you the land to possess. And you shall divide the land by lot as an inheritance among your families; to the larger you shall give a larger inheritance, and to the smaller you shall give a smaller inheritance; there everyone’s inheritance shall be whatever falls to him by lot. You shall inherit according to the tribes of your fathers. But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then it shall be that those whom you let remain shall be irritants in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall harass you in the land where you dwell. Moreover it shall be that I will do to you as I thought to do to them.’” (51 – 56 NKJV)

God told the Israelites to drive out the inhabitants of the land of canaan and destroy all their idols and evil practices. God didn’t want them to get contaminated by this people and their evil practices. He knows the children of Israel are easily led astray, so he gave the command for them to make sure they get rid of all the inhabitants of the land and their idols before they completely settle into the land. This is the only way they can enjoy living in the promised land.

There are times when God tells us to let go of certain things or habits, but we refuse. Perhaps it’s because of the temporal pleasure we get from those things. In the end those things destroy us if we don’t get rid of them. That’s why Paul says “…let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us” (Heb 12: 1 NLT).

God has given us the land. It’s ours but we have a part to play as well.  We need to rid ourselves of anything that’s not of God. In the Israelites case, that meant dispossessing the inhabitants of the land, destroying their lands and idols. If they do not drive out the inhabitants completely, they will become a thorn in their life.

Sin is like that. If we do not deal with the things we ought to deal with now, they later become hindrances that come back to bite us. Needless to say the Israelites suffered this consequence.

Anything you don’t deal with completely, will only destroy you. You might think you can cope with it. It’s not a big sin…. but I tell you a little sin is enough to destroy ones future. 1 Cor 5: 6 says “...Don’t you realize that this sin is like a little yeast that spreads through the whole batch of dough?”

Sin will take you where you didn’t plan to go. It will keep you longer than you planned to stay. And it will cost you more than you intended to pay

Some of us cannot fully enjoy our promised land because there are things in our past that we should have dealt with, that we haven’t done. You know God wants you to let go of that habit or break off that relationship but because of the pleasure from it, you choose to hold on and that’s the reason why you can’t progress.  Those things have now became a thorn in your life that control and dictate what you do thereby making sure you don’t have full victory.

Lets ask God today to search us. Perhaps there are still sins that we haven’t dealt with or Instructions from God that we haven’t obeyed, lets ask for mercy and grace to do the right thing.

Psalm 19:13 and 139:23 says

“Keep your servant from deliberate sins!
         Don’t let them control me.
   Then I will be free of guilt
   and innocent of great sin” . (Psalms 19: 13 NLT)

“Search me, O God, and know my heart;
    test me and know my anxious thoughts.
Point out anything in me that offends you,
    and lead me along the path of everlasting life” (Ps 139: 23 NLT)

Let this be our heart cry today to God.

I pray Sin will not have dominion over our lives and with the help of the Holy Spirit, we will get rid of the wieights and idols that stop us from possessing our promised land. In Jesus’s Name. Amen

Thanks for joining today. I’m blogging through the bible with good morning girls. Check us out at www.goodmorninggirls.org.

We will be going on break from the 14th Dec to be back on the 4th Jan with the book of Job. I’ll post more details in tomorrow’s blog.

Have a blessed evening 🙂

***With God all things are possible***

Numbers 32- Contagious Complacency

Dec8

Good evening y’all. Happy Tuesday 🙂

Today we are studying Numbers 32. Be blessed 🙂

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The children of Gad and Reuben were content to stay where they were instead of going to the promised land. The pleasures of now seemed more enticing to them than going into promised land.

“The children of Gad and the children of Reuben came and spoke to Moses, to Eleazar the priest, and to the leaders of the congregation, saying, 3 “Ataroth, Dibon, Jazer, Nimrah, Heshbon, Elealeh, Shebam, Nebo, and Beon,  the country which the Lord defeated before the congregation of Israel, is a land for livestock, and your servants have livestock.”  Therefore they said, “If we have found favor in your sight, let this land be given to your servants as a possession. Do not take us over the Jordan.” (v 2-5 NKJV)

Moses was taken aback by their response and he feared they will make the others decide not to go ahead and possess the promised land. He also rebuked them for exhibiting a similar behaviour to that of their fore fathers, which caused God to lash out on them.

“And Moses said to the children of Gad and to the children of Reuben: “Shall your brethren go to war while you sit here? Now why will you discourage the heart of the children of Israel from going over into the land which the Lord has given them?  Thus your fathers did when I sent them away from Kadesh Barnea to see the land”.( v6-8 NKJV)

“And look! You have risen in your fathers’ place, a brood of sinful men, to increase still more the fierce anger of the Lord against Israel. For if you turn away from following Him, He will once again leave them in the wilderness, and you will destroy all these people.”(v14-15 NKJV)

David Guzik commentary on the bible had this to say about the attitude of the children of Gad and Reuben and Moses’ response to them :-

– Why will you discourage the heart of the children of Israel from going over into the land which the Lord has given them? Moses feared that the attitude of the tribes of Reuben and Gad would keep the other tribes from going into the Promised Land. Their attitude said, Weve fought enough and suffered enough already. Lets just settle down where were at. Moses fear had a foundation. If you want to press on with the things of the Lord and go deeper and further with Him, there is a sure way to discourage that desire – start hanging around believers who are content with where they are, and who dont want to press on with the Lord. Complacency is contagious.

– Shall your brethren go to war while you sit here? Moses wanted them to know that there was a battle to fight and that they were all in it together. Just because these tribes were content with where they were at did not relieve them of the responsibility to keep the battle going.

– They discouraged the heart of the children of Israel: Moses reminded the leaders of the tribe of Reuben and Gad why Israel failed to enter the Promised Land some 38 years before. It is a terrible thing to be used of the devil to discourage other believers to walking deeper and further with the Lord. We should ask God to guard us from ever discouraging the heart of another child of God.

–  If you turn away from following Him, He will once again leave them in the wilderness: Perhaps this generation figured they had a free ticket to the Promised Land, no matter what, because the dues had already been paid by the generation of unbelief. No way! They can perish just like the previous generation if they walk in the same unbelief!

– You will destroy all these people: It was as if Moses said, Your discouragement of the nation would mean that you have destroyed them, just as the ten unfaithful spies destroyed the previous generation. Moses perhaps felt that the tribes of Reuben or Gad made a bad choice for themselves; that is, they hurt themselves by settling on the lands east of the Jordan River. But Moses did not confront them with that issue. If a child of God is content to settle for less in their Christian life, there is little or nothing one can do. But when their complacency begins to affect their brothers and sisters, it must be confronted. This was the basis of Moses confrontation.

Lets check oursleves: are we content with staying in medicority even though it looks or are we ready to go for the best that God has for us?  Complacency is contagious!. Lets also make sure we are not the ones discouraging others from doing what God has called them to do.

Thanks for joining today. Pls feel free to leave your thoughts on the chapter.

Have a blessed evening 🙂

Jumbug ……xxx

***With God all things are possible***