I know you just can’t do without my neck of the woods report, so here it is:  light blue skies, clear, we can see both Mt. Hood and Mt. Adams today in all their snow covered glory.  It is 48 degrees at noon and climbing.

Snow has melted off the trees, but it will be quite a while before it melts off the ground.  But it does lift the spirit a bit and lets us know that spring isn’t that far away.

It is very pretty out there.

Carla looked out there this morning and said, “looks like it is going to be May before we can plow the garden.”  We both hope not.

However, it will be a while before I can actually help her out there.  My arm, while much improved, is still sore and I am limited on how much lifting I can do – the bruise finally came to the surface, it’s about the size of a large cantaloupe. 

If I am careful I can do mundane tasks, just have to be careful and not overextend it, sets me back a bit when I do.   

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Numbers 20:7-12  And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,

⁸ Take the rod, and gather thou the assembly together, thou, and Aaron thy brother, and speak ye unto the rock before their eyes; and it shall give forth his water, and thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock: so thou shalt give the congregation and their beasts drink.

⁹ And Moses took the rod from before the Lord, as he commanded him.

¹⁰ And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock, and he said unto them, Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock?

¹¹ And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock twice: and the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their beasts also.

¹² And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron, Because ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them.  KJV

And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron, Because ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them.

Moses was not a perfect person.  He was human and subject to temptations like any other man.

When we read the journey of the Hebrews in the wilderness we find a very ungrateful and complaining group.

Moses was often the recipient of their ire.  He had reached the end of his rope.  He was angry with them and just plain fed up with their constant griping.

God told him that he would give them water when Moses struck the rock twice.  He did that and water gushed out. 

Okay he did add a bit to what God told him to do Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock?

That is such a little thing, right?  I mean, sure he made a mistake, we all make mistakes, this wasn’t that great of a sin was it?  I mean after all, he had a right to be frustrated; he had been dealing with these whiners forever it seemed.

Couldn’t God understand how he felt?  To stop him from leading His people into the Promised Land, isn’t that way too harsh?

As Americans we would say, “Hey that punishment doesn’t begin to fit the crime.”

Why didn’t God use ‘progressive’ discipline, why didn’t He just warn Him or give him a day or two without some privilege or something?

Take away his joy and privilege, not to mention the honor, of leading the people into the Promised Land?  That is way too harsh.

Because ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel,

Moses, temporarily, put himself on the same plain as God.  He failed to remind the people WHO was providing the water and in his anger blurted out his frustration and anger towards them.

God deemed that omission as a great sin, one that had to be punished; and not just with a slap of the wrist.

We get to careless about our relationship with God.  We treat Him as God, but we also tend to think He is a great friend and forget that He does demand devotion and truth.

Too often we treat Him with disrespect or we take what He says without being serious about it. 

He tells us to do something, or He performs miracles through us and we forget it is for HIS glory, not ours.

We know through Jesus we will be forgiven, so we sometimes do things that we know are wrong – but we know God forgives so we don’t take the potential punishment seriously.

Because ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel,

Moses stood between God and the Hebrews many times asking God to reduce His anger, reduce His punishment.  He loved God, He knew who and what God was, yet the one time he slipped God severely punished him.

AND not only did He punish Moses, but He also punished Aaron who could have cautioned Moses in his speech – especially since we know Aaron was Moses’ speaker.

Because ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel,

Moses wrote the book of Numbers.  We might ask, why did Moses write these words?  He could have kept them out and no one would have been the wiser.

Why did do that?  It was an embarrassment to him, yet, he wrote it for everyone to read.

God’s word tells us that the Bible was written by men as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

Could he have tried to exclude it from God’s Word?  Yes, but he didn’t and if he had, God would have brought it out in another manner.

A few things stand out to me as I read these passages.

First, Moses sinned.  He was punished, even though it would be in the future, he knew that God was serious and that he would not be allowed to lead the people into the Promised Land.

Second, Moses didn’t get upset and try to reason with God about it being too harsh of a punishment AND he did not relinquish his responsibility to the people and go off and feel sorry for himself.

Third, it is written so that we understand the seriousness of disobeying God. 

This is a lesson, there are penalties, some we may not see immediately, but eventually we will suffer the consequences.

Fourth, and probably the most important lesson for us is that God continued to use Moses.  Moses was ‘tainted’; Moses let God down and his example was a dangerous one – it would allow people to think that man can be equal with God.

Undoubtedly God did understand Moses’ frustration and anger, but it not excuse his behavior. 

God knew Moses’ heart and knew that even after doing this Moses loved Him and wanted to serve Him to the best of his abilities.  That, too, is the lesson to be conveyed to us.

I have made many errors in my walk with God.  Because of some of them I don’t think I ever did, nor will I completely reach my potential that I had when I accepted Christ.

However, He has found other ways to use me.  He has led me in many directions that on my own I could not have taken and been successful.

We make mistakes; we sin before God and man; yet, He will forgive us when we honestly come to Him and ask forgiveness.

He may not use us as we first thought because of those actions, but that doesn’t mean He won’t use us for HIS glory if we let Him.

Later, Art (-: