March 17--How You Can Be Sure that God Is Always There for You

My slip-ups and outright failures tempt me to think God's too disappointed in me to support me.  Just today, I lost my temper and yelled at someone I love, and it was after writing and recording this episode--wouldn't you know?  What I learned in these passages helped put me back together afterwards:  Numbers 26, Luke 3:1-22, Psalm 61, Proverbs 11:16.  

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Eve reads her Bible journal aloud on this episode.

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Transcript

Numbers 26

Luke 3:1-22

Psalm 61, Prayer, Proverbs 11:16

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March 17. How you can be sure that God is always there for you. I won't be reading the scripture references for those. Please check the written post. When my mother died, my brothers and I cleaned out her house and divided up all her stuff. There was also money in a life insurance policy that we divided and more that we shared when we sold her house. We got it all, everything she'd been saving. Some of what we inherited was incomprehensible, like the box of A and P aluminum foil tucked neatly in a kitchen drawer beside the wax paper and ziplocks. She hated using aluminum foil because of the waste of resources she thought it was, so she rarely used it. We figured she'd had that box for forty eight years as she'd stop shopping at A and P when she moved from Alabama in nineteen seventy. Talk about thrifty. Her obsession with saving money influenced everything she did. In the kitchen she'd carefully scrape out every smidge of batter from the bowl when baking, run her finger along the inside of an eggshell for scrambling. We drank powdered skin milk for goodness sake, and didn't know the difference. She delighted in making the find, scoring the deal, stretching the dollar. I've still got the down pillows she made from the sofa cushions she found when trash pile picking, a regular hobby when she wasn't improving things or other people. She'd order less fabric for a dress she was sewing or a sofa she was upholstering than what was called for because she delighted to beat the system as she called it, and save herself the two bucks. She also dropped her life to come every time we called her for child care, for counseling, for curtain making, for chain sewing, another story for another day. She once climbed up and down a ladder all day at age seventy two to sponge paint our new bedroom. At ninety she reupholstered an antique rocker using a manual stapler. Mama's desire to pour herself out for us made us richer, and I don't mean in dollars. Her care in so many big and little things makes it easy to trust the God who's got my back, who's thought of everything I need, who's always available to me, because if my mother cared like this, surely God cares even more. Today's passages show me just how much. The Old Testament chapter is Numbers twenty six. They've got to be wired and wondering how things will go down this time because it's taken such a long time to get back here. They've had to wait for everybody of the previous generation to die off except for Moses, Joshua, and Caleb. And now it's the children who have grown up and are awaiting further instructions on the plains of Moab across from Jericho, just outside the promised land. When their parents were here the first time, they refused to trust God about taking over from the locals. Moses, Joshua, and Caleb were ready to fight, but because of the failure of the rest of them to step up, no one did. And their children have been growing up and waiting for their parents to kick the bucket while wandering around in the desert. It's tragic really. Most of this chapter includes a census of how many fighting men they've currently got tribe by tribe. It makes sense that God would tell Moses to count his soldiers since they're just outside the promised land, ready to take over. They've had some rebellion on their way to where they're camping, and three plagues of judgment have wiped out thousands. God's been clear. Each tribe will get a piece of the land he's been promising all these many years, but they'll have to fight to take it from its current inhabitants. So Moses counts them by their tribal family heads, and it's a little dull to be honest, unless you're a fan of reading long genealogies of unusual names like Zalopahad and Hogla. God says to count every male twenty years old and up who's able to serve in the military, but it's not so they'll draw confidence from the size of their army. God's actually said the exact opposite, not to rely on the size of their army, because he wants them to rely on him. He's the Lord God who quote, will fight for you, end quote. So why does God want them to number the fighters? The answer comes later in the book of Numbers. When it's time to divide up the land, the larger tribes will get larger chunks of land, and the smaller tribes will get smaller ones. The inheritance God has for them is based on the census population recorded in this chapter because God wants to make sure there's plenty of room for everyone. We'll get back to this point. The thing I want to focus on is at the end of this chapter where it says, quote, not one of them, end quote, who rebelled and refused to go in the first time is alive to go in at present. That whole generation is rotting in the wilderness just as God said they would. Evidently, God's a stickler about keeping his word because he didn't let Moses or Aaron go in either, which was just what he told them to. God treated them the same way he treated the whiny complainers from forty years before, and it was because Moses and Aaron didn't do what God said when it came to providing drinking water. Both these men died before Israel entered Canaan, and I'm guessing God hated their consequences as much as they did. God honors his word, even when nobody else does, and this is an important thing to push pause on in this day of do your own thing and live your own truth as long as it's authentic, because this is not the way God says to live. It's the exact opposite. God says to do his thing and to live in the light of his truth in order to honor him and find the best life for yourself, and he's been saying it since Mount Sinai, more than three thousand years earlier. God doesn't force us to do what he says or receive what he gives. He also doesn't mitigate the consequences for our bad choices either. He's a both and God, both loving and judging, full of grace and hard knocks, just like any good father is. He keeps his word to his people, even when they fail to keep their word to him, and even when they fail to believe him, and just in case they're tempted to think that God's standards are impossible, they have the tabernacle to remind them. The tabernacle was set up to teach them how to repent and be forgiven for sin, not how to try harder to do better to pay for it. Every feature of the worship tent and its ceremonies pointed to the Messiah who would one day die to settle every sin account for good because try as they might, they just couldn't do it. God's expectation wasn't perfection. The tabernacle made that clear, but he also didn't coddle openly rebellious folks, the one who didn't want to have anything to do with him. These he let go, whether by opening the earth and swallowing, starting fires around their campsites, letting poisonous snakes bite them, or bringing in plagues that take them out. Cruel? Nah. These people rejected him. Make no mistake, saving his people was God's project. Those who didn't want to be saved didn't have to be, hence the wide mouthed earth and all the rest of the marked exits. The god who was careful enough to count and record names so that everybody got an equal inheritance was kind, not cruel. He was meticulous, making sure that no one was left out who wanted to be in. In fact, anybody who wanted to be counted among God's people got to be part of them. Even the Egyptians and other foreigners who joined up with them inherited land too. God was all inclusive before it was a thing. We can be confident that the careful counting God who created us also keeps his word to us. He doesn't change, and neither does what he says, quote, God is not human that he should lie, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill? He's got an inheritance in heaven waiting for us. He's promised he'll never walk off and leave us. If we want to leave him, he lets us, but he never makes the first move. He's way too invested. Consequences for poor choices will come, like they did for Moses, Aaron, and Israel, but God never rejects those who turn to him, no matter how many times they have to do it. The God who knows your name, address, and everything about you, who keeps track of your tears and fears, your successes and failures, and even your hairs says to you forever without fail, come. His promise of our twenty four seven access to him is signed with Jesus' blood and is sealed by a spirit who moves in to guide us. The inheritance that costs us nothing cost him everything, and he was willing to pay it because we matter this much to him. God being God for you doesn't depend on you, it depends on him and his word that never fails to come true. You can be sure that God is always available because of what Jesus has done. He's the inheritance you can never lose. The word made flesh, God will never unsay. The New Testament passage is Luke three, one to twenty two. John the Baptist urges his listeners to take an honest look. If you have real life in you, it's obvious you're generous, you're honest, you're kind, you're content. It's not what you say that matters, it's how you live. Is your life green and flourishing? Have your crooked roads been made straight? Is there evidence of God's life in you? These are the sorts of things John said to his followers to get them ready for the Savior who was hot on his heels. John's job was to tell them that the change they need they can't make for themselves. They need the one who's about to burst on the scene and break out the good news. These are the sorts of things John says to us too. Is there real evidence of thriving and growing and changing in you? If there isn't, the invitation to faith in the Savior is still and always wide open to you. No one who wants new life in Jesus is turned away, but no one who thinks he doesn't need him gets him either. You can be sure God is always available because this good news is always breaking through. The Savior you need came and paid your way to him just for believing from Psalm sixty one. Have you longed to have time away from it all? Maybe a lifetime pass to the beachside vacay of your dreams, where you can come and go as you please, and the cost is always free? This is what David finds God's high rock mountain retreat to be like. He goes there in prayer every chance he gets, even, quote, when I'm far from anywhere, down to my last gasp, end quote. He's always welcome as God's invited guest, along with others, quote, who know and love you, end quote. Time with God can be enjoyed one on one or with your family of believers because there's plenty of breathing room and freedom with him. You can be sure that God is always available because his high rock mountain door is always open, his light is always on, and you are always wanted and welcome, no matter where you've been or what you've done. Prayer. God, your open-armed welcome in Jesus never stops melting me. Thank you for my 24-7 past to your hideaway. In Jesus' name, so be it. From Proverbs 11:16. Kind heartedness gives a woman respect, while miserliness gives a man only money. Passages in Numbers, Luke, Psalms, and Proverbs are selected for today in the yearly Bible. This is Eve to Bartlebank Robo.