The Israelites I love to hate

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That night all the members of the community raised their voices and wept aloud.  All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole assembly said to them, “If only we had died in Egypt! Or in this wilderness!  Why is the LORD bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword?  Our wives and children will be taken as plunder.  Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?  And they said to each other, “We should choose a leader and go back to Egypt.”  Numbers 14:1-4 KJV

Oh, those Israelites.  Here they go again.  Will they ever get it?  What did God have to do for them to believe Him?  Why does it seem like it keeps coming up in the Bible.  I get it.  They didn’t believe.  They never learned.  What they said they believed and their actions clearly didn’t line up.  I am so glad that I read the Bible, and believe what I read.  Or do I?  I love it when God takes me from my high horse and places me back right where I belong.  It is so easy to read about the Israelites and be glad I am not them.  Fortunately for me I live on this side of grace otherwise, I may have found myself dead in the wilderness.  I realized this morning that I have more in common with the Israelites than what I previously thought.  I am guessing you may as well.

Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. Hebrews 3:12 KJV  

The bible also tells us our heart is deceitful above all else.  When I think about the truth I think about the apostle John.  He writes of a perspective of absolute truth.  If there is darkness there can be no light.  If we claim fellowship with Jesus we cannot walk in darkness.  We either obey or disobey.  We love or hate.  This led me to see we believe or we don’t believe.  None of these things can exist in a heart together.   It can be one or the other, not both.   

What if I believe in my heart but I doubt or waiver?  Jesus' brother James will tell you.

But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.  That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.  Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do. James 1:6-8 NIV 

Ouch!  Nothing?  What if I believe and don’t doubt but my actions say something altogether different?  James also has something to say about that.

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves.  Do what it says.  Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.  But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it-not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it-they will be blessed in what they do. James 1:22-25  

Here I am looking into the perfect law, the law of liberty with freedom and am a slave.  I stand an Israelite plagued by the sin of unbelief.  How?  Why?  If I believe and doubt then I do not believe.  If I believe and don’t doubt but don’t do then I do not believe.  My inaction does not leave me unscathed.  It puts me smack dab in the middle of the encampment in the wilderness crying, “Why did you bring me out here to let me and my family starve?”  I am faced with it every time I read about those Israelites I love to hate.  When in reality I hate myself and do nothing about it.

Ponder that thought and we discuss this topic further