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children, christianity, faith, family, inspiration, Isreal, Joshua, life, peace, Promised Land, religion, theology, truth
God is methodical. From the beginning of time, He has had all knowledge of what was to come. After liberating the children of Israel from captivity in Egypt, He brought them together in the desert, He gave them the law and prepared them to be a nation. Now 2 years after their release from captivity, it was time to ready them to take the land. The book of Numbers is not an accounting guide. It is the story of God aligning the people of Israel to be a nation of free people.
Ironically, the first thing God requires in the book, is for Moses to take a census. He is to number the people of Israel, He is also to number the fighting men. God appoints leaders from each of the tribes named for Jacob’s sons and the two half tribes named for Joseph’s sons. God was ready to have these people organized and prepared to enter the promised land.
In our lives, God is equally prepared. He begins a work in us that He promises to carry on until we join Him. It is methodical, just like the preparation of Israel. We have to trust that even though we cannot see the end; God has and does. We have to trust and simply follow Him there. There is no promise that the journey will be easy–it took God two (2) years to get this group organized and prepared to be a nation! While we trust God to lead us, He will work in our lives to make us ready for what He has planned. It has been, is and will always be a matter of trusting God to take the lead and then humbly following Him to victory! Welcome to the book of Numbers!
God Bless You
The Lord spoke to Moses in the tent of meeting in the Desert of Sinai on the first day of the second month of the second year after the Israelites came out of Egypt. He said: 2 “Take a census of the whole Israelite community by their clans and families, listing every man by name, one by one. 3 You and Aaron are to count according to their divisions all the men in Israel who are twenty years old or more and able to serve in the army. 4 One man from each tribe, each of them the head of his family, is to help you. 5 These are the names of the men who are to assist you:
from Reuben, Elizur son of Shedeur;
6 from Simeon, Shelumiel son of Zurishaddai;
7 from Judah, Nahshon son of Amminadab;
8 from Issachar, Nethanel son of Zuar;
9 from Zebulun, Eliab son of Helon;
10 from the sons of Joseph:
from Ephraim, Elishama son of Ammihud;
from Manasseh, Gamaliel son of Pedahzur;
11 from Benjamin, Abidan son of Gideoni;
12 from Dan, Ahiezer son of Ammishaddai;
13 from Asher, Pagiel son of Okran;
14 from Gad, Eliasaph son of Deuel;
15 from Naphtali, Ahira son of Enan.”
16 These were the men appointed from the community, the leaders of their ancestral tribes. They were the heads of the clans of Israel.
