Good morning, today we have one of our shorter reading assignments. Numbers chapters 5 & 6 only contain 57 verses. The next chapter is very long, so I didn’t include it in today’s schedule.
Remaining pure
The theme today is purity, or as it may be, impurity, and faithfulness.
God is always faithful. It is a characteristic of holiness. We are to be holy as He is holy, therefore; we are to be faithful. Faithful to Him, faithful to each other.
He can not be around sin. He created heaven for us to dwell with Him, but then had a problem. We are all filthy and defiled by sin.
This is like being around a smoker or someone who owns cats. You don’t need to see them smoke, you can smell it on them.
The person with cats always has fur on them, and there is that ammonia smell that just permeates everything in their home.
The price of purity
God had a way to resolve this. He sent His One and Only Son, Jesus, to pay the price for our sin. This cost Him everything. But it removes from the believer all traces of sin. We can then dwell with Him in His paradise.
For the people with Moses, He sat the precedent. Any defilement required their removal from the camp until they were clean again.
They applied this to anyone who sinned against God, if the sin did not require death. It also applied to those who sinned against each other.
When we wrong each other, we are unfaithful to the Lord. He demands we love each other and respect each other.
Affirmation of marriage
This applies to marriage. A woman must remain faithful to her husband. Faithfulness doesn’t just imply the lack of adultery, but the consistency of how she conducts herself. She should love her husband in such a way that he would have no reason for jealousy.
When we withhold our affections toward one another, we give our spouses reason for doubts. Doubts about themselves as well as the relationship. Therefore, Ephesians 5:22-33 gives such explicit details on the relationship between husbands and wives.
We must respect and cherish each other. We are to love the Lord first, then our spouse, then our children, and everyone else after that.
The modern family places a higher value on loving our children, and even ourselves, above our spouses and often even more than God. This is not scriptural.
Our spouses become jealous when we don’t affirm that love. This puts a burden upon us to drink the bitter water. In the Bible, it is only the wife who goes through this test, but I think the lesson applies to both partners.
By not being faithful in loving our spouse as God intended, making them confident in our feelings toward them, we bring upon ourselves unhappiness.
The bread
Though there is much to contemplate about the Nazirite, the next thing that captured my attention was the idea of thick unleavened bread.
I picture flatbread or Matzah crackers when I think of unleavened bread. There are, however, dense loaves of thick bread made without yeast or sodium bicarbonate that form thick heavy loaves.
Dipped in olive oil, I am sure they are very delicious.
The problem in America is it is hard to get undefiled flour. Our government requires all flour to be enriched. This means they have added Folic Acid, which is why American have so many complications of obesity and dietary diseases.
In Europe, they eat much more grain than we do. It is in their pasta, their breads, and many of their beverages. But, they don’t enrich their grains.
Without the Folic Acid, their bodies digest them and they don’t gain weight.
Therefore, if you are to make unleavened bread, thick or thin, be sure to get non-enriched whole grain flour.
Be sure to let your spouse know you love them more than anyone other than God as we draw into this week of Valentine’s Day. Let them know it isn’t flowers or chocolates that make Valentine’s Day special, but the person you spend it with.
The final thought from today’s verses, join Aaron as he blesses Israel by praying “the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:26, NIV)
