Today's Reading: Numbers 33

Barbs in Your Eyes

The travels of Israel from bondage in Egypt to freedom in Canaan often symbolize the journey of the follower of Christ.  We too were once trapped in bondage.  Bondage to sin and a life of spiritual scarcity and emptiness.    When we received Christ into our lives, we were miraculously delivered from that life and set on...

a journey to the “promised land,” a land filled with victory, abundance, and spiritual fulfillment.  

Along the way, we meet with troubles and enemies and challenges.  All the while, God is growing us, refining us, and bringing us as “settlers into the new land.”  Jesus referred to this promised land as a life of abundance, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.’ (John 10:10)

During our journey, the Lord is working deeply in our hearts to root out sin, selfishness, and pride.  Just as Israel faced many enemies during their travels, so we too must conquer our enemies if we are to move forward in our walk with Jesus.

In today’s passage, the Lord gives Israel a strong warning about compromising with their enemies.  He tells them that if they fail to drive out the people who live in the land, those who remain will be like splinters in their eyes and thorns in their sides.  In the same way, the Lord gives us the same warning.  When Jesus leads us to the land of spiritual abundance, we must be very careful to drive out any and all sin that remains.  We cannot let sin reside un-challenged.  We must fight our enemies and drive them out of the land.

Are you harboring any areas of “small” or “insignificant” sin in your heart?  Are you letting your enemy “remain in the land?” Have you let “anger” remain in your heart?  Or impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, hostility, jealousy, selfish ambition, division, pride, or envy? Let me tell you again God’s warning… if you do not drive them out, then those which you let remain shall be as barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall trouble you in the land where you dwell.