March - Day 9

Numbers 21-22 - The Israelites defeated the Canaanites because God gave them victory.  While this should have bolstered their faith and given them confidence in God, they instead complained again about how long the journey was taking.  They were ungrateful for the way God had provided and protected them.  As a result, God sent poisonous snakes to their camp for their sin, but still gave them a way to be healed.  God told Moses to make a replica of the snake and lift it up on a pole so that if anyone was bitten by the snakes, they could look up at the pole and they would be healed.  This is a shadow of what Jesus would come to do.   We were bitten by the poison of sin, and Jesus was raised up on a cross so that anyone who would look to him for salvation and believe in him would be saved.  
- In Ch. 22 - Balaam was God's messenger and the king wanted to use God's messenger for his own agenda and promised to reward him well financially.  People still do this today when they try to use religion for political or personal purposes.  Balaam refused to go at first, but continued to entertain the idea until God told him to go.  It may have been because of greed that Balaam entertained the idea.  On his way, God tried to stop Balaam 3 times, but he didn't see the Angel of God that his donkey saw which caused his donkey to stop or veer off the path.  Balaam's greed pushed him to want to work with the king and blinded him to what God was trying to do.  God finally God Balaam's attention when he caused his donkey to talk.  When he got his attention, he told him to only say what God told him to say. We must be careful that we don't try to use the things of God for personal gain.  Our calling is to please God, not people. 

Psalm 56 - When I am afraid, I will trust in God.  Why should I be afraid? What can mere mortals do to me? In other words, the worst thing that could happen is they kill me physically, but that would only mean I got to be present with Jesus.

Matthew 24:1-14 - Jesus tells us that in the end times, there will be war, famines and earthquakes.  He says this is only the beginning - the birth pains of what is to come.  In other words, it will get worse before it gets better.  You will be arrested, persecuted, killed, and hated for your faith.  Sin will be rampant and there will be evil people who claim to have a word from God.  Those who endure will only endure because their faith is genuine.  Fragile faith will fail. 

Romans 6:15-23 - God's grace has set us free from he power of sin, but often we remain slaves because we are slaves of whatever we choose to obey.  He tells us to give ourselves to righteous living instead of to what our sinful flesh wants us to do do.  Righteous living will lead to real life, but sin will destroy us.