Today's Reading: Numbers 26:35-65

 

Is God Fair?

Apportionment is the process of dividing limited resources into a fair distribution.  When my kids were young and had a resource to share (say, a piece of chocolate cake), we would always let one child divide the resource in half and the other child decide who gets which half.  The child dividing...

the resource (cake) would be extremely careful to cut it exactly in half so she wouldn’t receive less when the other child “apportioned” it.

Here, in Numbers 26, we read of the apportionment of the land.  God told Moses to take a census of the people.  About forty years previously Moses had taken a census of those available for military service.  This time he takes a census for the purpose of apportioning the land. God was making arrangements for fair and equitable division of the land.  The area of land to be given to each tribe was to be in proportion to the population of the tribe.  The bigger tribe would get a bigger proportion.  The smaller tribes would receive smaller.

Our God is fair. He is unbiased, honest, and just. He doesn’t play favorites.  A synonym for fair is “just,” and the Bible is unequivocal that God is just: “He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he.” (Deuteronomy 32:4)

Those of us whom God has chosen are recipients of His love and grace.  He has apportioned His love and grace to all of us equally.  We each receive our share of His love, grace, peace, kindness, forgiveness, and protection.  By “His divine power He has granted [“apportioned”] to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them we [“each of us”] may become partakers of the divine nature.” (2 Peter 1:3-4)

The LORD is fair, and no one can ever be equal to His fairness. He is gracious, loving, merciful, and fair in everything and to everyone. God loves us and instead of letting us pay for our sins, He sent His only Son to save us. Equally.  Fairly.