Numbers and Titus

Our most recent assignment was to write a three page, double-spaced paper comparing Numbers to the verses we’ve been memorizing in Titus.  Specifically, to Titus 2:11-3:9.  Yesterday (Saturday) I made some rough preliminary notes.  Looking at them, I wondered if I’d be able to fill the required three pages.

I did.


In fact, I only got through Titus 2:14 when I ran out of space.  Just looking at how God worked in saving Israel and how He works in saving us was amazing.  I did touch briefly on 3:5 in my final paragraph but that was because I just couldn’t leave that out.  I didn’t have space to keep going straight through the passage so I jumped to a favorite part.

Some of the verses I didn’t use, particularly Titus 3:1-3, seem to compare to Israel in Numbers as a “Don’t do what they did” type of thing.  “Remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to obey, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing all humility to all men,” state verses one and two.  I thought then of the rebellions led by Miriam and Aaron and by Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.  Those didn’t turn out to well for the rebels.  Verse three says “For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another” and I think of Israel at Marah, Kibroth Hattaavah (where God sent manna and quail), Kadesh, and Peor.  If ever a people was given everything and still wanted more, it was Israel.

And me.

I’ve been given everything in Christ.  God has “blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3) and yet I still wander around complaining because not everything is like I want it to be.  I act like a foolish, petulant child refusing to do the work set out by my loving Father.  I refuse to bend my proud will to any other.  I am lazy, not ready to do good works.  I complain and argue when things don’t go my way.  And I seek after that which does not last.

It is as hopeless for me as it was for Israel.  Many times God told Moses to step aside and let Him blast this disobedient people to oblivion and start all over with Moses.  Each time, Moses reminded God of the promises He’d made to undeserving Israel.  And God set aside His wrath for a time, punishing those who rebelled and then turning right around and speaking to those who remained as if His promises were already fulfilled.  I’m thinking mostly of when Israel refused to go into the land and God essentially said “Fine.  You won’t go in.  But your children who you think are going to be killed, they will.  And now kids, when you enter the land…”  (Look at Numbers 14 and 15:1)

So it was that the “the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”

How’s that for amazing!

More than I ever dreamed possible this semester, I have seen the glory of God.  And I have seen the blackness of my sin.  Some of my sin has seemed like a great crushing load on my shoulders.  Another sin felt like a sinister shadow wrapping itself around my very being.  Yet another, which I only recently became aware of, makes me feel like I’ve been dipped in sticky black goo that clings to me and just feels disgusting.  Before this semester, when I bothered to look at me, I didn’t see much to worry about.  O!  How that has changed.  I don’t like looking at myself because it isn’t a pretty sight.

So let me look elsewhere, to the Light of the World who burns away the shadow.  To the Almighty God who can lift the heaviest burden.  To the Lamb of God whose blood can make the foulest clean.  O friends!  If we could but see the wonder of what God has done for us!  If I could but grasp the smallest fraction of what He has saved me from and saved me for!  Not for mindless drudgery in servitude to a heartless god who does not care for the minions he chose.  No, for joyous service in honor of the God who gave everything so that I might have fellowship with Him.

I hardly know how to express what I feel when I glimpse what God has done.  It’s like the crescendo of a great symphony that you can feel in your very bones.  It’s like the moment when the sun first reaches over the horizon and its rays shoot across the land.  It’s like seeing the myriads of stars filling the dark vault of the heavens.  It’s like being wrapped in a tight embrace from one you love.  It’s like curling up on the couch with a blanket and a book and family all around.  And all this knowing how very unworthy you are for such richness.

I want this to change the way I live.  I want to live fully and freely for God’s glory.  I don’t know yet how it works but I know that He is working in me “both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:13)  Pray that I will yield to His leadings and not be prideful and think I know best.

God be with you all!

(I’ll post my Numbers paper tomorrow for your viewing.  I was going to add it to this but the post got rather longer than I originally anticipated.)