God’s Story... For My Life
Depend on it
Read Numbers 26:5-11
But the earth opened up its mouth and swallowed them with Korah, and fire devoured 250 of their followers. This served as a warning to the entire nation of Israel.
(Numbers 26:10)
Reflect
Numbers 26:10 reminds readers about the events ten chapters earlier in Numbers 16, when “fire blazed forth from the Lord and burned up the 250 men who were offering incense” (Numbers 16:35).
That blazing fire wasn’t the first time this sort of judgment had happened. Leviticus 10 records how Nadab and Abihu committed the same sort of sin as Korah’s followers. They “put coals of fire in their incense burners” and “disobeyed the Lord by burning before him the wrong kind of fire” (Leviticus 10:1). For their disobedience, “fire blazed forth from the Lord’s presence and burned them up, and they died there before the Lord” (Leviticus 10:2).
God does not punish sinners in arbitrary ways. He doesn’t judge them on a whim or in an erratic fashion. God responds to disobedience with consistency and judges justly, matching the punishment to the offense. God’s judgment is firm, reliable, and even predictable.
While God’s judgment may be fierce and scary to us, God’s dependability is something that can also reassure us. God’s love and grace and justice are equally reliable. He doesn’t love us at his whim or show us grace in an erratic fashion. God is consistent and reliable. He has proven that his promises deserve our trust.
Respond
Does life with God seem uncertain and shaky? Are you looking for something you can depend on in good times and bad? God wants you to feel confident and assured as you face the future. His love for you in unchanging and firm. He invites you to trust him through difficulties so that he can show you his love. Will you accept his invitation?