The Leading of God (Numbers 9:15–23)
The cloud of the glory of God came on the tabernacle to lead it. When it settled, the Israelites camped; when it lifted, they broke camp and followed it. God guides his people!
Taken from NIV Fast Facts Bible
Glorify God in Your Body
You were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. (1 Corinthians 6:20)
“Worship” is the term we use to cover all the acts of the heart and mind and body that intentionally express the infinite worth of God. This is what we were created for.
Don’t think worship services when you think worship. That is a huge limitation which is not in the Bible. All of life is supposed to be worship.
Take breakfast, for example, or midmorning snacks. 1 Corinthians 10:31 says, “Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” Now eating and drinking are about as basic as you get. What could be more real and human?
Or take sex, for example. Paul says the alternative to fornication is worship.
Flee fornication. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body. (1 Corinthians 6:18-20)
Or take death for a final example. This we will do in our body. In fact, it will be the last act of the body on this earth. The body bids farewell. How shall we worship in that last act of the body? We see the answer in Philippians 1:20-21. Paul says that his hope is that Christ would be exalted in his body by death. Then he adds, “For to me to die is gain.” We express the infinite worth of Christ in dying by counting death as gain.
You have a body. But it is not yours. “You have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.”
You are always in a temple. Always worship.
Elihu continues to rebuke Job, implying that Job’s words amount to accusing God of sin.
Insufficient Explanations
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“Listen to me, you who have understanding. Everyone knows that God doesn’t sin! The Almighty can do no wrong. He repays people according to their deeds. He treats people as they deserve. Truly, God will not do wrong. The Almighty will not twist justice. Did someone else put the world in his care? Who set the whole world in place? If God were to take back his spirit and withdraw his breath, all life would cease, and humanity would turn again to dust.”
(Job 34:10-15)
Reflect
God doesn’t sin and is never unjust, Elihu argued. Throughout this book, Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, and Elihu all have elements of truth in their speeches. In fact, it’s hard to find things to disagree with in what they say. Yet, later God rebukes Job’s friends in anger: “You have not spoken accurately about me” (Job 42:7).
This should cause us to stop and reflect.
Although we might have a wealth of Bible knowledge and life experiences, we cannot always rightly understand the whole situation. We cannot understand everything about God. We can’t even fully explain the complexities in our own world.
But we do not need to despair. “God has given us everything we need for living a godly life” (2 Peter 1:3). By his Word and his Spirit, we are fully equipped to do the good work God has given for us to do (2 Timothy 3:17).
Respond
It’s important to correct and encourage fellow believers toward greater faithfulness, but we must constantly temper our knowledge with love (1 Corinthians 8:1-3)
Streams in the Desert – June 9
Trust in the Lord and do what is right! Settle in the land and maintain your integrity! (Ps 37:3)
I once met a poor colored woman, who earned a precarious living by hard daily labor; but who was a joyous triumphant Christian. “Ah, Nancy,” said a gloomy Christian lady to her one day, “it is well enough to be happy now; but I should think the thoughts of your future would sober you.
“Only suppose, for instance, you should have a spell of sickness, and be unable to work; or suppose your present employers should move away, and no one else should give you anything to do; or suppose—”
“Stop!” cried Nancy, “I never supposes. De Lord is my Shepherd, and I knows I shall not want. And, Honey,” she added, to her gloomy friend, “it’s all dem supposes as is makin’ you so mis’able. You’d better give dem all up, and just trust de Lord.”
There is one text that will take all the “supposes” out of a believer’s life, if it be received and acted on in childlike faith; it is Hebrews 13:5, 6: “Be content with such things as ye have: for He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.”
—H. W. S.
“There’s a stream of trouble across my path;
It is black and deep and wide.
Bitter the hour the future hath
When I cross its swelling tide.
But I smile and sing and say:
’I will hope and trust alway;
I’ll bear the sorrow that comes tomorrow,
But I’ll borrow none today.’
“Tomorrow’s bridge is a dangerous thing;
I dare not cross it now.
I can see its timbers sway and swing,
And its arches reel and bow.
O heart, you must hope alway;
You must sing and trust and say:
’I’ll bear the sorrow that comes tomorrow,
But I’ll borrow none today.”’
The eagle that soars in the upper air does not worry itself as to how it is to cross rivers.
—Selected