via TJC
Before we start this week’ bible journey into Numbers, we stop to pray over Tyre Nichols family and the citizens of Memphis. From released police body cams and media reports, it is clear that Tyre was killed through the brutal beating and disobedience of five Memphis officers. We will learn more as the investigation proceeds, but TJC takes this time to call out the systemized lack of obedience of these officers that reflects American culture, administration at all levels, our institutions, and our own hearts. America must return to a culture of obedience for us to reflect Christ as our Lord and savior.
“Dear Father, we humbly come before you, just like the Israelites in Numbers who directly disobeyed your commands, and insurrection ruled their culture and hearts. We lift up Tyre’s family, especially in their example of calling for peaceful protest and examination.
We press into the wilderness of our own hearts and pray that you expose our own areas of disobedience, and we act with the Holy Spirit” to eliminate them from our lives. We ask for this in the name of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit.
Amen”
Attention to orders.
“Take a census of the whole Israelite community by their clans and families, listing every man by name, one by one.”
Numbers 1:2 NIV
Every day our news is flooded with stories about our southern border and the thousands of “refugees”, “asylum seekers” and “migrants”, who are on the move, who have left their countries and have crossed borders to come to a promised land. The vast majority of those seekers are nameless to us and not counted; as they seek new identities.
The Israelites in Numbers should be marching back into their homeland, the promised land, after 400 years as slaves, but are sentenced to wait another 40 years.
That entire generation (that had been numbered) dies off. They die off because God punishes sin; the Israelites failed to trust and obey God.
This week we will tie into key elements of that 40-year process and the same DECISIONS - Who you choose to obey, what do you focus on, and will you be numbered as one God patiently seeks to see redeemed?
Daily Battle Order; Put aside the politics and think about the individuals seeking to be counted as Americans legally. We expect them to be focused, obedient, to be counted worthy, and redeemed as Americans.
Already counted as a citizen, do you make the right decisions that you expect of others entering the promised land?
I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession, and thanksgiving be made for all people— for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. The Israelites are great models for us to consider. In the book of Numbers, Joshua and Caleb are shown to be men who obeyed God's and Moses's authority. Even though Joshua and Caleb obeyed the Lord and the charge was given to them through Moses, they too had to live amid the rebellious in that 40-year wandering. Those who have never bent a knee to another god, such as Daniel, King David, and Jesus Himself, still had to live in the middle of …