March 22

Numbers 33:40-35:34, Luke 5:12-28, Psalms 65:1-13, Proverbs 11:23

Pray: Today, lift to the Lord your praise and adoration for who He is. It's easy to ask God for things, but we rarely utilize our prayer time to give God the glory that He is worthy of. In our busy world, we live in a “get down to business” mindset, but God wants to hear that we appreciate Him and are thankful for the reality that He is a gracious and forgiving God. Today let your prayers be about glorifying Him first. This should be the beginning of all of our prayers. God first…us later.

Read: We read in Numbers today of the Israelites preparing to move in and take possession of the Promised Land. In doing so, the Israelites were instructed to wipe out the existing inhabitants completely. Here we see God being one who is set on ridding the land of those who had inhabited it for generations. God warns that to not completely rid the land of these wicked inhabitants would create a situation of great irritation in the future. We are called to do the same thing in our own lives… throwing the old way of life away and moving ahead into our new life of obedience. Like the Israelites, we must decide for ourselves whether to stamp out our former ways or allow them to claim residence beside the new way of life. To settle for the latter is to not truly embrace the new way of life… it is straddling the fence of life, with one foot in the past and one in the future. Where are you today?

Edify: Luke records two miracles of Jesus in today's reading… one where Jesus healed a man with leprosy and the other a paralyzed man. In both cases, the faith of the men played a major role in their healing, but in the case of the paralyzed man, it was not only the man who was faithful. The men who carried their paralyzed friend to Jesus and even went so far as to open a hole in the roof of the house where Jesus was and lowered their friend down in front of Jesus also demonstrated great faith. I am always amazed in this verse at Jesus' response to the Pharisees during this exchange. Jesus never got upset or angry with the Pharisees challenging Him for forgiving the man’s sins, He simply asked them which would be easier… forgiving him or healing him. So Jesus being who He was… did both. 

Practice: Psalms 65 says, “What mighty praise, O God, belongs to you in Zion. We will fulfill our vows to you for you answer prayers, and to you all people will come. Though our hearts are filled with sins, you forgive them all.” Just as Christ forgave the sins of the paralyzed man, we can have our sins forgiven by the very same Christ. All we have to do is trust in Him and ask for the forgiveness. Ask for God’s forgiveness today and, like the Israelites, push out the wickedness within your heart so that you can begin a new life in Christ today.