THERE BE CONDITIONS
Tuesday, June 04, 2013
Romans [MKJV] 6:23 … the gift of God is eternal life
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Eternal
salvation, God’s everlasting redemption, costs us nothing. Jesus completely
paid the full cost to His Father’s conditions. Salvation is not however
automatically realized. Upon discovery of desperate need, to receive His
marvelous gift requires individual trusting in Lord Jesus Christ. Some make
this complicated as we are ingrained with idea that any gain on our part
requires our work, our contribution.
God declares by
His Word, this is absolutely not so: “… you were dead in the trespasses and
sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following
the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons
of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh,
carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children
of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of
the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our
trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and
raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ
Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his
grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved
through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a
result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should
walk in them.“ (ESV Eph.2:1-10; also note Rom.6:23)
Working to
improve ourselves and please God as His John 1:12 children is quite different. Though
eternal redemption is the Lord’s workmanship, living as His redeemed is our
work. (Phil.2:12; 2Tim.2:15)
We are not
however left without tools, talent, or intelligence to work. God never does as
some of us experience in industry or office; give assignments without authority
and/or equipping. (2Tim.3:16-17)
Consider Exodus
16 record of physical nourishment God provided to His people in the barren
wilderness: We marvel at God’s providing manna, but with a bit of 2Timothy 2:15
labor we find it was not served up like fast food. It was “like coriander seed”
(Ex.16:31). With a bit more work we find this seed is 1/8 to 1/5 inches in
diameter. Their work involved must-get-up-in-the-morning-or-go-hungry. Once out
of the sack they had to stoop or bend over every day to pick up off the ground 6.7
pints of manna for every individual, doing so 5 days with double work on the
6th, doing so every week for 40 years. And God said it was to test their
character! (Ex.16:4; also note Book of Job and James 1:3-4)
After this
morning’s digging I’m left with several other discovery and thoughts; “manna”
likely is from Egyptian “menu”; a per diem daily ration was 1.3 pints short of a
gallon; families were large; serving God, faithfully meeting His testing, can
be and often is commonly apart from spectacular; laziness results in hunger and
its resultant effects; and imagining the question “Grandpa, what did you do all
day while growing up in the wilderness?”
EBB4
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IN THE MIDST
Wednesday, June 05, 2013
“Jehovah spoke to
Moses saying, ‘Send men so that they may search the land of Canaan, which I
give to the sons of Israel. You shall send a man from every tribe of their
fathers, everyone a ruler among them.’
And Moses by the command of Jehovah sent them from the
wilderness of Paran. All those men were heads of the sons of Israel.” (Numbers
chapter 13)
As we read the
history of the Hebrews we see Jehovah increasing their level of responsibility.
Yesterday I wrote of His simple labor test; God providing manna, they having to
work daily at gathering it. (Ex.16:4) Today we see them camped at the border with
Jehovah adding responsibility to begin the work of occupying their promised
homeland.
After completing
their 40 day assigned reconnoiter, the bulk of the spies gave a terrifying
report, picturing the Canaan people as mighty giants against themselves as puny
Jewish grasshoppers. Upon hearing the discouraging report, they discounted
Caleb’s contrary words, and the whole congregation again whined “Oh that we had
died in the land of Egypt! Oh that we had died in the wilderness!” (13:31-33; 14:1-2)
God’s penalty for
their failure to trust Him was a tremendous onus; they not only were not
allowed to occupy their promised homeland then; those 20 years of age and older
that murmured had to wander as tenting nomads in the adjacent area for 40 years
until their last complaining carcass fell in the wilderness (14:29-34)
(Note that though
the congregation repeatedly considered themselves murmuring against human
leadership, it was not so. 14:27)
Above I’ve given
a brief review of events most of you are familiar with. I did so to get to what
I awoke thinking about: As with any family, congregation, culture, or nation .
. . when population fails to trust God, take true responsibility, and do things
His way . . . Calebs endure as ministers in the dusty midst.
EBB4
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