Authority and Responsibility

“Take the rod; and you and your brother Aaron assemble the congregation and speak to the rock before their eyes, that it may yield its water.”  Then Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod; and water came forth abundantly, and the congregation and their beasts drank. (Numbers 20: 8a, 11 NASB)

Moses viewing the Promised Land

Moses and Aaron directly disobeyed God’s instructions.  Instead of speaking to the rock, Moses struck it twice.  We can learn from this section is that the best among us have their failings.  Another takeaway is that greater authority always requires greater responsibility.

In response to Moses’ disobedience, the Lord said to Moses, “Because you have not believed Me, to treat Me as holy in the sight of the sons of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them” (Numbers 20:12 NASB).  Moses and Aaron would not be permitted to take Israel into the Promised Land.  To the casual observer, the punishment may not seem to fit the crime.  Yet, in God’s eyes, it did.  Moses modeled before Israel unbelief and disobedience.  Unbelief and pride will always lead us to believe that our way of doing it is better than God’s.  The result isl disobedience. Sin is sin.  In a sense, the transgressions of one with authority are no greater than one with little authority, yet the consequences for them are because of the number of people they affect.  For a leader, there is no such thing as a private sin.

In spite of what I have written, judgment is often accompanied by mercy.  Even though Moses did it the wrong way, God still gave him water.  Also, God did not abruptly take him out of leadership but allowed him to affect an orderly transfer of power to Joshua.  In addition, though, he was not permitted to go into the Promised Land, God let Moses go up on the mountain to view by the land that Israel would soon take.  God understands that we are but dust and he has pity on us.  God is just and kind at the same time.

The greater the authority you have, the greater your responsibility and the more severe is your judgment.  It is just part of the territory.  By the way that Moses responded to his consequence, it showed he understood God’s expectations of one who has been given authority.

Image used with permission by Microsoft.

Ken Barnes the author of “The Chicken Farm and Other Sacred Places”  YWAM Publishing
Email:  kenbarnes737@gmail.com
website:https://sites.google.com/site/kenbarnesbooksite/

Blogs: http://kensblog757.blogspot.com

            http://gleanings757.blogspot.com

Spiritual Jealousy

But Moses replied, “Are you jealous for my sake? I wish that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put his Spirit upon them all!”. (Numbers 11:29 NLT)

Joshua jealous for Moses' sake

I don’t know if you have noticed, but we can often get offended by how God does things and who God uses to do them.  Spiritual jealous is the worst of all kinds of jealousy.

The circumstance here is that Moses is directed to choose seventy elders to help him lead Israel.  The elders were to come to the Tabernacle, and God would place the Spirit that rested upon Moses on them (vs. 24-25).  Eldad and Medad were two of the seventy.  For some reason, they did not come out to Tabernacle like the other sixty-eight, yet the same Spirit that Moses had put on the others at the Tabernacle rested on Eldad and Medad in the camp. 

There two implications from this story.  First, the special grace for ministry came from God and not Moses. It is very easy for followers to put their trust in their leaders who they can see, rather than God who they cannot see.  God was giving the elders an object lesson that their calling and sufficiency came from him.  The second implication is that God often uses people and methods that we might consider improper.  When Joshua heard that these two were prophesizing in the camp he said, “Moses, my master, make then stop” (v.28)!  Moses’ response in (v.29) was “Are you jealous for my sake?” 

Have you ever labeled people rebels who were just exercising their freedom and spiritual initiative?  If you have, you may have unwittingly been resisting God’s purposes.  Have you been offended that God has used people from a church that may have been critical of your theology? At the bottom of your offense may have been some spiritual jealousy.

Image used with permission by Microsoft.

Ken Barnes, the author of “The Chicken Farm and Other Sacred Places”  YWAM Publishing
Email:  kenbarnes737@gmail.com
website:https://sites.google.com/site/kenbarnesbooksite/

Blogs: http://kensblog757.blogspot.com

            http://gleanings757.blogspot.com

America Bless God

What joy for the nation whose God is the Lord, whose people he has chosen as his inheritance. (Psalms 33:12 NLT)

 

God bless America has become an American refrain.  Politicians voice it, vocalists sing it, ordinary people pray it, yet, a more appropriate arrangement of the words might be, America bless God.

After the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001, America was praying.  From the great to small America was seeking God’s protection and blessing.  When the threat subsided, so did the prayers. 

A friend of mine, who we called Cowboy Bob, who is now with the Lord, suggested to us that it should be America bless God, instead of God bless America.  Human nature tends to seek God when we have a need, and forget about him we everything is going well.  It gives God a utilitarian role.  When we need him we are all onboard, yet,

when there are no great upheavals, we relegate God to a secondary role, or forget about him altogether.  It is as if God, the creator, exists just to meet our needs, rather us, the creatures, loving and serving him. We have tried to switch roles where man becomes the center of the universe. 

Don’t get me wrong, we desperately need God’s blessing, but the blessing should be sought to honor God and bless others, not just for ourselves.  Having a good family, God’s provision and protection are good things, but they should not be the focus of our faith, but a by-product of putting God first and loving him.  Parts of the church in America have started to preach a man-centered Gospel, which always puts the cart before the horse or the creature before the creator.  Cowboy Boy, my friend, you were right, it should be, America Bless God! 

Image used with permission by Microsoft.

Ken Barnes the author of “The Chicken Farm and Other Sacred Places”  YWAM Publishing
Email:  kenbarnes737@gmail.com
website:https://sites.google.com/site/kenbarnesbooksite/

Blogs: http://kensblog757.blogspot.com

            http://gleanings757.blogspot.com

Servant Leadership

 

But Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them.  But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, 

 (Matthew 20:25-26 NLT)

Jesus taught his disciples that leadership in the Kingdom of God had a whole new set of requirements. There are two types of leaders. One who does it for him or herself, the other who leads to serve others.

Before the Disciples met Christ, the only model they had for leadership were the Pharisees. The Pharisees loved the best seating at the banquets and the front seats at the synagogues (Matthew 23:6).  They quite liked the respectful greetings bestowed upon them in the marketplace (Luke 11:43).  The Disciples had just been jockeying for leadership positions.  They must have been thinking about the day when their movement would gain acceptance, and they would have prestige like the Pharisees.  Jesus burst their bubble.  Jesus was trying to communicate to them that being a leader was not about what they could get, but what they could give.

Leaders often stand before us, and we think that it would be great to be like him or her.  What we do not understand is that for every hour leaders spend publically teaching, directing, or leading, they spend untold hours privately dealing with other peoples’ concerns or problems.  Servant leadership is actually a very unselfish task.  The needs of those who lead often become subservient to those who serve under them.  Sheep are pretty needy animals.  Servant leaders seek to give and not just get from their people.  In the Kingdom of God, the last will be first and the first last.

 Image used with permission by Microsoft.

Ken Barnes the author of “The Chicken Farm and Other Sacred Places”  YWAM Publishing
Email:  kenbarnes737@gmail.com
website:https://sites.google.com/site/kenbarnesbooksite/

Blogs: http://kensblog757.blogspot.com

            http://gleanings757.blogspot.com

Spiritual Inertia

And since God gave these Gentiles the same gift he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to stand in God’s way?” (Acts 11:17 NLT)

Good is always the worse enemy of God’s best.  How God has led us to do things in the past is not always the way he will lead us in the future.  When God is directing us to accomplish tasks differently, spiritual inertia will forever be present.

The definition of inertia is a tendency to do nothing or remained unchanged.  It is a property of matter by which it continues in its existing state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line unless that state is acted upon by an external force. 

Every new move of God has always been resisted by the previous one.  Truth never changes, but how God chooses to make it known does.  In the Church in the latter part of the last century, we experienced what was known as the charismatic movement or neo-Pentecostalism.  With a few differences, the theology of charismatics and Pentecostals were virtually the same, yet the push-back for the charismatics came through classical Pentecostals.  Our scriptural reference is an example of the first-century church dealing with spiritual inertia.

In the church, what is the external force that acts upon spiritual inertia?  It is the work of the Holy Spirit. When God starts to move, he often uses methods and people who seem foreign to us.  If God speaks to you about a new initiative, there will be resistance from both inside and outside the church.   The church often becomes the prisoner of a positive past, and we cannot get past good to get to the best. Are you trying to do God’s work today with yesterday’s methods?

Image used with permission by Microsoft.

Ken Barnes the author of “The Chicken Farm and Other Sacred Places”  YWAM Publishing
Email:  kenbarnes737@gmail.com
website: https://sites.google.com/site/kenbarnesbooksite/

Blogs: http://kensblog757.blogspot.com

            http://gleanings757.blogspot.com

A Broken-hearted God

 

For how shall I go up to my father if the lad is not with me—for fear that I see the evil that would overtake my father?”  (Genesis 44:34 NASB)

 

It is the most grievous of all things to break the heart of a father.  Judah experienced the fear of piercing his father’s heart.  Sin breaks the heart of our heavenly Father, but not like it breaks our hearts.

Joseph has just told Judah and his brothers that they could not come back to Egypt for help unless they brought with them their youngest son Benjamin.  Joseph has been separated from his father, Jacob, and now if he loses his youngest son, he will go down to death in sorrow.  In a desire to protect his father, Judah commits to giving his life in exchange for Benjamin’s.  John 15:13 says, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.”

The analogy between an earthly father and our Heavenly Father breaks down at some point, as all comparisons between the temporal and divine do.  Human beings are often sad about our sin because we lose. We lose our freedom, relationships, reputation, etc.  God is sad about our sin but not because he loses. He is totally complete and self-sufficient.  Our Lord has no needs.  He is sad because he knows we lose and this is what breaks his heart. God’s love is always others’ oriented.

We love Him because He first loved us (1 John 4:19 NKJV).  Do we obey God just to escape the consequences for our sin, or to avoid bringing grief to a kind and merciful God?  The former way causes us to follow him out of compulsion, the latter out of love.

Ken Barnes the author of “The Chicken Farm and Other Sacred Places”  YWAM Publishing
Email:  kenbarnes737@gmail.com
website:https://sites.google.com/site/kenbarnesbooksite/

Blogs: http://kensblog757.blogspot.com

            http://gleanings757.blogspot.com