Matthew 20:1-16; Numbers 11
The people of Israel are like people today. They had such a blessing before them—manna appeared every morning—and yet they wanted to trade that back in for the food they had in captivity. Sin is like the food of the Egyptians: people will trade the good things they have (family, career, faith) for some momentary pleasure. God was providing each and every day for their needs and they stopped seeing it as a blessing and saw it as a curse instead. On top of they, they lack faith in what God is capable of doing. It seems so ridiculous considering all the amazing things they had seen—but even today, after Jesus has performed his amazing miracles, I still doubt what God can do sometimes. No matter what we need to trust The Lord will fulfill his purpose in our life.
The other thing that is interesting about this situation, is the authority given to the 70 leaders. They began to speak like prophets, but only that one time. Those moments of being touched by the Holy Spirit are powerful and many people have talked about the extreme responses of people. However, the Bible says it only happened that one time. Those spiritual highs are not a constant occurrence. I shouldn’t be expecting huge moments every time I go to church, and neither should the rest of the faith community. Just like Moses had to come down the mountain to face reality, spiritual moments don’t happen all the time, but when God chooses. That is one thing Austin and I have always been cautious about: not encouraging false spiritual highs. That's not where most of our lives exist and we can't necessarily depend on them to get us through. However, I don’t want to be self-righteous about that either, so if I am wrong, I pray that God would reveal that truth to me.
And finally, Moses’ reply about them being worried what it would do to him is interesting. Just because someone else has an amazing spiritual gift, does not mean that I am no longer worthwhile or necessary for the kingdom. God uses all of us.
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