The Grace of God's Guidance

I'd like to do a one-question survey to see how people would respond to what is likely a little-read passage in the Old Testament book of Numbers. I'd ask, What's your first impression when you hear the phrases "at the command of the Lord" and "kept the charge of the Lord" and "according to the command of the Lord" repeated nine times in six brief Bible verses?

Christians sometimes tend to view commandments in the Old Testament with a bit of a sideways squint as though we're nervous of getting caught up in legalism. We don't like defining our spiritual lives with do's and don'ts. We like to focus on grace and on freedom in the Spirit. Too many repetitions of "at the command of the Lord" can feel like Old Testament living according to old covenant laws.

But why does there need to be a distinction between "the command of the Lord" and the grace of God? Could God's commands actually be an expression of His grace? 

When I most recently read Numbers 9:18-23 where the phrases above are repeated nine times, I was struck at how the great grace of God shone forth! Go ahead and look it up and see how those six verses impact you. Or check out how it feels to read all nine phrases quickly in succession...

v.18 - "at the command of the Lord"
v.18 - "at the command of the Lord"
v.19 - "kept the charge of the Lord"
v.20 - "according to the command of the Lord"
v.20 - "according to the command of the Lord"
v. 23 - "at the command of the Lord"
v. 23 - "at the command of the Lord"
v.23 - "kept the charge of the Lord"
v.23 - "at the command of the Lord"

As I was pummeled by these phrases one after the other, I thought, isn't it great that God directs and leads His people in such clear ways! How wonderful that He condescends to give His people such clear instructions so that they'll know how to remain close to Him!

Jesus understood this. He saw God's commandments as a confirmation of our relationship with Him and a means of assuring ourselves that He loves us. Jesus said, "If you love Me, keep My commandments" (John 15:15) and "If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love." (John 16:10). 

To obey God's commands indicates that we value His guidance and trust Him as our Leader, and our obedience to His commands is an indication that we want to stay close to Him. That's why the repetition of all those phrases in Numbers 9 should lift our spirits! Every instance of those phrases is a reminder that God wants to reveal Himself and what His will is, and wants us to walk with Him and Him with us!

This should take the heaviness out of God's commandments because it means that God is not interested in obedience for obedience's sake, but for relationship's sake. He never intended for His commandments to be a burden. "For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome." (1 John 5:3). John went on to write that God's commands are not heavy because He has given us victory over the world's resistance to God's will through faith in the One who walks so closely with us in this world (1 John 5:4-5).

So what does all this mean? It means that the way to draw near to God is to walk in His will and His ways, and that requires moment by moment attentiveness to Him.

We may find this quite natural when facing big decisions, but it can also be appropriate when approaching smaller everyday decisions like whether or not to see a certain movie or to make a sudden purchase or to address a certain issue with someone. Why not seek God's counsel? His answers may sometimes be both immediate and obvious, but sometimes He may surprise us, as I think we are sometimes too quick in assuming we know God's thoughts – or don't need God's thoughts – regarding some decisions we face. The point is, we want to obey God, and sometimes we take for granted that we know what His will may be.

So when you're wondering what to do in a particular situation, or you're facing a decision for which you want to know God's will – that is, His command, if He is Lord of your life – have TALKS with the Lord...

T - Thank God that He cares about you and the details of your life, and the details you're bringing to Him.
A - Ask God for direction when facing big decisions (eg- Lord, do you want to me take that job offer?), as well as for some of the fairly ordinary decisions you face (eg- Lord, do You want me to buy this new coat?). 
L - Listen carefully as you wait for God to answer. He may answer through Scripture, a circumstance, another person, an impression you have, or in various other ways. For big decisions, it's always wise to seek confirmation from someone you respect.
K - Keep God's command! Once you hear from the Lord, it's important to obey Him if you want to maintain a close walk with God. 
S - Seek God's Strength. Ask the Lord to help you so that you can obey His commands according to His grace rather than trying to obey Him by your own efforts. Because when you rely on God for strength, your walk with Him becomes even closer and He is even more glorified in your life.

© 2016 by Ken Peters

Every Command is a Promise (church bulletin cover)

There’s great hope when God tells us to do what’s impossible to do. He knows we can’t do it, and He really doesn’t want us trying to do it as if we thought we could do it ourselves.

For example, we know that God strictly commanded Israel to “drive out all the inhabitants of the land” (Numbers 33:52), and we know that it was actually God who was “driving out before you nations greater and mightier than yourselves” (Deuteronomy 4:38). In fact, God promised that it would be “the Lord your God who fights for you” as the children of Israel took the land (Deut. 3:22). So in light of all that, it makes sense for Moses to say, “...that you may go in and take possession of the good land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers by thrusting out all your enemies from before you, as the Lord has promised” (Deut. 6:18-19).

Notice it doesn’t say, “...as the Lord has commanded.” This is because God promised to do the very same thing that He had commanded His people to do. And this is why we never need to fret when God asks us to do what seems impossible. Because as we take a step of obedience to do what God has commanded, God steps in to help us accomplish what’s in His heart for us to do. We have a part – He has a part. We can’t do our part without Him, and He doesn’t want to do his part without us. So we do our part in faith-filled dependence on Him, and He does His part out of grace-filled love for us. What a wonderful arrangement!

It seems to me that this means that when God’s grace is involved, every command God gives us contains a promise that it’s by His strength that it’ll happen. That’s why I don’t want to get stressed out when God tells me to do what seems impossible — because as a child of God, we can be sure that whatever God commands is also a promise!

© 2011 by Ken Peters

Keeping God in the Picture (church bulletin cover)

There are times when personal issues come up in our lives that seem intimidatingly strong.  Impregnable.  Impossible to overcome.  They can leave us feeling like a little soldier who's standing all alone and staring way, way up at a great stone wall that's vastly higher than us, and so thick that it may as well be a mountain that we're banging on. It can be a hopeless feeling.

But look at what the Lord God did for the children of Israel: "And we took all his cities at that time... Sixty cities... All these were cities fortified with high walls, gates and bars" (Deuteronomy 3:4-5).  These were the same sort of cities that the ten spies had described when they discouraged the children of Israel from entering the Promised Land forty years earlier -- cities that were "fortified and very large" (Numbers 13:28).  It's not that the spies hadn't described those cities accurately.  It's just that their descriptions led the people to the wrong conclusions. Those cities were strong.  "Greater and mightier than yourselves" (Deut. 9:1).  Too big and strong for Israel to handle.  But if that's all we see, we're living like a people with no God.  Where is God in it all?

Deuteronomy 3:22 says, "You shall not fear them, for it is the Lord your God who fights for you."  God completes the picture, for He is always with us.  So as we stare up at the cold stone walls of the most challenging personal issues we're facing -- whether they be fears or finances, illness or estrangement -- we must not allow ourselves to be intimidated.  "Be strong and courageous." was what God told Joshua, "for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go" (Joshua 1:9).  There is Someone standing with us who dwarfs the granite walls that dwarf us, and He can crush them with a word from His mouth.  But God invites us to be a part of the battle, for God wants us to grow in faith as we learn to fight the fight of faith.  Just as when Israel later defeated five Amorite kings in a single battle, Joshua said to the children of Israel, "Do not be afraid or dismayed!  Be strong and courageous, for thus the Lord will do to all your enemies against whom you fight" (Joshua 10:25).

So like the children of Israel, we will wage these battles together, encouraged that the Lord is fighting for us!  And we will see many walls come tumbling down.

© 2010 by Ken Peters

How God knows what's in my heart (church bulletin cover)

What would God do if He wanted to know what was in my heart? Stories in the Bible indicate that He'd likely test me by sending a few challenges my way. Deuteronomy 8:2 days that God led His children for 40 years in a wilderness in order to humble them, "testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not."

That doesn't always look very nice. Deuteronomy 8:3 says that God let His people hunger. In other words, these tests weren't mild experiences. Sometimes I've come down a little hard on the Israelites for their bad attitudes and harsh words toward Moses when they wanted food or water. But would I have handled it any better?

Take Numbers 20:2-10 for example. It starts by saying, "Now there was no water for the congregation." What if God used me as a leader to lead you (along with 2-3 million other people) to where the ground was parched and you couldn't find any water for your children or yourselves (not to mention the many livestock the Israelites had)? Would you take kindly to that? The Israelites "assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron" and they quarreled with them. They wished themselves dead (20:3) and called the place they'd been led to an "evil place" compared to Egypt (20:5). This wasn't because they had no ice in their iced tea, or because they had to wear mitts and toques for an extra couple weeks of winter. It looks as though it was because their situation must have felt truly desperate.

And yet Moses called them "rebels" (20:10). Rebels because they didn't believe God no matter what the circumstances. Rebels because they complained about their hardships rather than praying for help. And rebels because they thought their old captivity was better than God's way out. So now we know what was in the hearts of the children of Israel. Does that leave me any closer to knowing what's in mine?

I have to wonder how much God tests me in similar ways, and how much God actually allows challenges in my life to become truly extreme simply to see what's in my heart, and whether I'll keep His commandments or not. If we look back at Deuteronomy 8, we can see where this is all meant to lead: It was the Lord who "led you through the great and terrifying wilderness... where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, who fed you in the wilderness with manna... that He might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end" (8:15-16).

What are you going through? Is it a test? May I suggest that all of life is meant to test what's in our hearts, and that amidst both the everyday challenges and the experiences of God's faithfulness, God's desire is to do us good! And the good that He does for us will include a growing humility in our hearts as we look to Him and give Him glory in all that we go through and for all that we receive from His hand.

© 2009 by Ken Peters

A Journey I Don't Expect (church bulletin cover)

It’s become popular to say that the journey is as important as the destination. Maybe somebody should’ve told that to the Israelites in the wilderness. Yet whatever the Israelites might have thought about God’s route for them to the Promised Land, there’s a phrase repeated throughout their story that is worth remembering: “just as the Lord commanded Moses.” Then as the people of Israel neared the end of their long journey, it is summed up as “their journeys by the command of the Lord” (Numbers 33:2).

I’d sure like that to be the way my life can be described – a journey by the command of the Lord. I want to be led by God, to walk according to His Word, to follow His initiative. Yet I can see that the Israelites’ “journey by the command of the Lord” didn’t always look like what I might expect a journey directed by a wise and loving God to look like. The command of the Lord led His people to places that appeared to have no water and where it looked like He’d abandoned them (Num. 33:14), to places that appeared threatening through a person’s natural eyes (Num. 32:7-8), and to places where warfare was necessary to pass through. In fact, the journey by the command of the Lord began with the feeling that they were trapped between a murderous army and the Red Sea!

The point is that God’s commands do not just lead us into sunshine and meadows. He leads us in ways that teach us dependence, that test us in areas of obedience, that discipline us for unbelief, that strengthen our arms for fighting the good fight, and most importantly, that show us His glory! Will I stay the course and continue to do “just as the Lord commands” me when God’s leading takes me into hard places? I must, because any other route on my journey in this life would be for my own self-interest rather than for God’s glory being displayed as I put my hope and trust in Him.

© 2008 by Ken Peters

Be Prepared! It’s a Test! (church bulletin cover)

It’s exam season for a great many students out there. My 12-year old daughter is facing them for the first time. And as I watch her stress about it, I’m tempted to think that I’m glad I’ve gotten that over with. But that’s not entirely true.

Remember when the LORD tells Moses to send twelve spies into the Promised Land to spy it out (Numbers 13:1)? Have you ever wondered, “What was the point of that?” I mean, what did they need to check out if God already knew exactly what was in there and fully intended to give His people the land? What use were the spies if God planned on leading and directing His people every step of the way? Moses instructed the spies to check out whether the people of the land were strong or weak, many or few; whether the land was good or bad and whether the cities were well-fortified or not (Numbers 13:17-20). Why? Of course it’s good — it’s the Promised Land! And who cares how weak or strong the people or the cities are if the living God is your commander? Moses knew all that. And God knew all that. And that’s the point! The spies weren’t sent to reveal what was in the Land, but to reveal what was in their hearts! It was a test! And that makes me wonder how many of the paths God sends me down are also tests of the same kind — the kind that reveal what’s really in my heart. Faith or fear? Gratitude or grumbling? Worship or whining?

My heart is that my daughter does well on her exams, and as her father, I’m prepared to help and encourage her so that she can do well. God also desires that His children pass the tests He sends our way, and He too wants to help us to do so. And just as my daughter’s exams are meant to help her grow stronger in math or science or English, the tests God provides are so that we can grow stronger in character. To prepare for such tests, the Bible is our textbook and God is an accessible teacher. So instead of getting stressed about life’s tests, God invites us spend abundant time with Him so that we can be better prepared to approach tests confidently, fully persuaded of God’s truth whatever the circumstances!

© 2008 by Ken Peters