Set Apart

Splinters & Thorns

Today’s devotional is a quick one. While the desire of Reuben and Gad to settle OUTSIDE of the Promised Land is a curious one, what stood out to me the most from today’s reading is the final two verses. Numbers 33:55-56:

55 But if you fail to drive out the people who live in the land, those who remain will be like splinters in your eyes and thorns in your sides. They will harass you in the land where you live. 56 And I will do to you what I had planned to do to them.”

God is warning the Israelites that if they do not do what they are told, to totally set themselves apart the influences of the surrounding culture will contaminate them. The Canaanites will be like splinters and thorns. Irritants that will prevent you from ever feeling comfortable and settled. They will cause peace to elude you.

I wonder if maybe we need to hear this today. Jesus called us to be in the world, but not of the world1. How much influence do we allow the world to have on us? We are called into the mission field of our nations, our cities, our neighbourhoods, our workplaces/schools, maybe even our homes. But in which direction is the influence flowing?

It may not seem like it, but this is a life-or-death question. Because if we do not set ourselves apart for God, but rather allow the influences of this world to rule us, change us, and conform us… then the judgement of God out of which we were asked to lead others will be visited upon us. When our hearts grow cold and far from God, He will have no choice but to turn us over to the fate we have chosen through our rejection of Him.

Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

1 Corinthians 15:58
Numbers 32-33 | 069/365
  1. John 17:14-16 ↩︎

God’s Hatred of Yeast

Ever since the Passover we have been reading about unleavened bread. Yeast is not allowed! If you’re like me, you have likely been wondering why God has such an irrational abhorrence toward leaven.

Well, if you Google that you are likely to end up with several folks telling you that it is because of Paul’s teaching in Galations 5:9 that, “a little leaven, leavens the whole lump.” But in the words of Kevin McAllister… I don’t think so. I find it extremely unlikely that God was pointing to leaven as a metaphor for sin without ever explaining that metaphor for hundreds of years… long after these people who started the practice were dead.

Another — better — explanation you will get is that the Egyptians chased them out so quickly that the Israelites didn’t have time to leaven their bread and so the practice points back to the Passover in that way. (cf. Exodus 12:31) And this sounds reasonable, until you realize that just a few verses earlier God told the Israelites that they would need to observe the coming passover with unleavened bread before the Egyptians ever chased them off. So this always seemed unlikely to me.

I was stumped

But as I was talking with my wife about this, she casually suggested that God probably just wanted the bread to be a special symbol. Talk about a lightbulb moment! The bread was set apart!

Think about it. You know that Passover is coming, so you are going to make a special, unleavened loaf. A loaf that was, from its inception, always meant for a sacred purpose. You were not going to grab a loaf off the shelf that was already made for something else and repurpose it! This bread would be set aside for God.

God doesn’t deserve our “sloppy seconds”. He deserves forethought and intentionality. Ponder that thought as you consider what you offer to God in terms of your time, talent, and resources.

Levitius 9-11 | 050/365