Numbers 35-36

Daily Reading

Numbers 35-36

Daily Thought

No sin unpunished, but each and all shall be atoned for in proportion to the sin.  In Numbers 36, this means the blood of the murderer is required for the blood of murder.  To leave a sin unaccounted stains the land.  "You shall not defile the land in which you live, in the midst of which I dwell, for I the Lord dwell in the midst of the people of Israel" (Numbers 35:34).  "You shall be holy, for I am holy," says God (1Peter 1:16).  

You could attempt to not sin.  Benjamin Franklin tried. "It was about this time I conceiv'd the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection. As I knew, or thought I knew, what was right and wrong, I did not see why I might not always do the one and avoid the other."  He made a chart of virtues and kept a record of success.  "I was supris'd to find myself so much fuller of faults than I had imagined."  In the words of the apostle Paul, Ben discovered, "I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing" (Romans 7:19).  

Our sin is not only personal or interpersonal, but eternal.  It is always an affront to the one who created us to be holy.  How do you atone for a sin against the eternal?  Eternal separation from what is holy, from God.  Death.  Paul cries, "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" (Romans 7:24).  Good question.  "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Romans 7:25).  Good answer.  

The blood of Jesus, God's Son cleanses us from all sin. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1John 1:7, 9).  We have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all (Hebrews 10:10).

"You shall be holy, for I am holy."

~1Peter 1:16

Daily Prayer

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. We worship You, adore You, praise You. But how, then, do we approach You? For we are not holy. Far from it.

By the blood of Jesus Christ, who bore our sins, we are made righteous with his righteousness. We may approach You, O God, with confidence, through a holiness not of our own, but through our Savior, our Lord, our God, Jesus Christ.

Amen