Saved by Grace ~ Walking by Faith

Take the step

“By this you shall know that the living God is among you.” Joshua 3v10 NKJV

Israel stood at the edge of the Jordan with a promise on the other side and an obstacle standing between them and where God had called them to go. The river was overflowing its banks, yet God had already said, “Arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people” (Joshua 1:2 NKJV). Here’s what makes the story powerful. God didn’t stop the water before they stepped toward it. The priests carrying the ark had to put their feet into the Jordan first. Scripture says that when “the feet of the priests who bore the ark dipped in the edge of the water,” the waters stopped flowing (Joshua 3v15-16 NKJV). Sometimes God gives you the miracle before the step. Sometimes the miracle is waiting on the step.

We often want God to part the water first. We want confirmation before commitment, provision before obedience, certainty before movement. But faith says, “God, if You said go, I’m going.” The step may seem small, but when that step is taken in obedience to God, it can become the doorway to something greater than you imagined. And God told Israel exactly why He was doing it: “By this you shall know that the living God is among you” (Joshua 3v10 NKJV). The miracle wasn’t merely about getting them across a river. God was teaching them something about Himself. The Jordan was evidence that the God who brought them out of Egypt was still with them, still leading them, and still able to make a way where there appeared to be no way.

We have an even greater reason for confidence. When we wonder whether God is faithful, we can look back at the cross. “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” (Romans 8v32 NKJV). Calvary settled the question of how far God was willing to go for us.

"No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life."

John 3:13-15 ESV

The Bronze Serpent

From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way. And the people spoke against God and against Moses, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food." Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. And the people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us." So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live." So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.

Numbers 21:4-9 ESV

We are like the Israelites in the wilderness with Moses. We become so focused on our present troubles that we believe God has led us into the wilderness to die or to destroy us, forgetting that he hasn't let us die yet and has always provided for us when we needed it. Even if it looked as if we had no resources or food or any safety net to rescue us.

We sin against God like this, complaining against him and wishing to return to our old sinful lifestyles; to Egypt. However our sins, our crimes committed against God, cannot go unpunished. For us today the wages of our sins is death, and for the Israelites in the wilderness it was venomous snakes biting and killing them.

Fortunately, God in his grace provided a way out of death for the Israelites, and a way out of eternal spiritual death for us today. God commanded Moses to build a bronze serpent and to set it up on a pole so that all who looked at it would be healed.

But it wasn't the serpent itself that saved the people. It was merely an object made out of human hands, and would later become a snare and idol to the people of Israel as mentioned in 2 Kings 18:4. It was the people's belief that looking at the bronze serpent would heal them, which it did. In the same way those who look to Jesus Christ and believe in him as Lord and Savior will be saved from eternal death today, being pardoned from the just punishment of our sins.

Bless my mum and my family with peace as she goes through this procedure.

No other do I ask to see.

There shall I find my hiding place

Till, Jesus, I resemble Thee.

— A poem by St. Thérèse of Lisieux