For those of you who have never heard it, my pastor (Jordan Seng) has come up with something called the Power Equation to explain how we get power to do miracles.
Quick lesson: Gifting + Faith + Unction + Annointing = Power for Miracles
Gifting refers to your God-given spiritual gifts, Faith is a collective faith of those around when you are trying to work the miracle, Unction is basically dying to flesh so the Spirit can move freely through your spirit and Annointing, well, it is Annointing, but it is pretty much a result of our obedience to God.
If you would like to know more about this teaching, I would encourage you to go back to my website and listen to Jordan's teaching "Introduction to the Supernatural." (If that is not the title of the teaching it is close.)
As I was reading in Numbers Saturday, I was bothered by some of the things I read. The moments in the Old Testament where God seems to waiver back and forth as if He doesn't know what He is about to do bother me. Why would an all-powerful, all-knowing God waiver?
Well, this weekend, I read Numbers 14 in light of the Power Equation and saw things in a whole new light. If the power equation was true in Jesus day and is still true in our day, then it was probably true back in Moses's day. For reasons that can be debated later, God has chosen to work through the above-mentioned things to work miracles. Granted, there may be exceptions when God simply steps in and does things on His own without any of the other things, but generally with humans he tends to work that way.
Reading through the Exodus story, we find it full of miracles. God's presence is with them in a very visual way. They miraculously have food provided for them each day, seas part for them, water comes out of rocks for them, poisonous snake bites are cured, etc. I imagine that the Isrealites needed to possess some type of the Power Equation for things to work the way God planned. Especially when it came time to enter and take the promised land.
So, let's look at Numbers 14.
The Isrealites have been whining and complaining for much of the time they have been traveling in the desert, but here we hit an award winning lack of faith. Moses has sent 12 spies into Canaan to check things out. 10 out of the 12 come back with nothing but tales of future gloom and doom if they try to enter this land. Unfortunately the Isrealites believe the gloom and doom instead of Joshua and Caleb's words of hope and faith. They go into mourning and plot to go back to Egypt. Again.
So, let's inventory their faith equation. Let's rate each item on a scale of 1-10.
Gifting - 10 I am giving them a full score here because the Holy Spirit hadn't fallen like in New Testament times and I figure since the gifting is completely from God anyway, He can provide all he needs for the Isrealites to perform miracles.
Faith - 0 I am afraid I can not give points for Caleb and Joshua when the rest of the Isrealite camp is so faithless.
Unction - 0 These people are quite consumed with things of the flesh. Again, Caleb and Joshua are exceptions, but I don't see any dying to the flesh happening in the rest of the camp.
Authority - 0 The nation is going directly against what God told them to do. I give them a 0 in Authority.
They did not score very well.
Now, you may still think I am a bit crazy for going down this road, but stay with me just a little longer and watch what God does.
In verse 11, God says to Moses, "How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me in spite of all the miraculous signs I have performed among them?" Then God tells Moses that He will strike them all down and give him new people to lead into the promised land.
Do you see what God commented on? What got him to the point of finding new people to use? It was lack of faith. God is basically saying, "Why do you still not believe?! I have done everything to show you my presence and offer you hope. Why do you stilln not believe?"
Moses goes on to plead with God using the arguement that the Egyptians will just think that God was not able to bring His people into the land He promised so he slaughtered them.
Contrary to what some may say, I don't think that arguement did much to change God's mind on anything. I doubt He cared how much power the Egyptians thought He had. (I don't think that He would want to be known as a God who slaughtered His people, but that is another story.)
God doesn't interrupt at this point, so Moses goes on, "The LORD is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion." He goes on for a few more sentances, ending with a plea for God to forgive the people.
The first thing God resonds with is, "I have forgiven them as you asked." Notice that God did not say, "I will forgive them as you asked." Moses's arguement was not what caused God to forgive. Rather it is almost like God is taking that fear off the table. "Don't worry about forgiveness. That has already been done." God's forgiving - or not forgiving them - did not seem to be the problem. God seems to address that first off and then shove it to the side. "They are forgiven, no worries. Now let's get to the real problem."
This is where God tells Moses that none of the people over 20 will live to enter the promised land except for Joshua and Caleb. I find it interesting to see that God refers to Caleb in this way, "My servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly." Unction and Annointing, anyone?
Toward the end of this part of the story, the original 10 spies who were messengers of gloom and doom, the ones who caused everyone else's faith to plumet, had to be killed. I don't see this as an outpouring of God's wrath, but rather a type of insurance that they will no longer be able to kill the faith of this people. In fact, the death of the men in and of itself appears to sire faith in the people.
Maybe, just maybe, God is working to stack the deck for more miracles in their midst. I am anxious to read through the rest of the Exodus story with this in the back of my mind.
And just a side note - I don't think God did change His mind. He didn't strike down the entire nation with a plague, but He did strike down the instigators - AND he did raise up a new nation, at least from one perspective. He literally raised them up from childhood. And as I stated before. I don't think God forgave the people because of Moses's petition. I think God had already forgiven them. I do believe that Moses's petition showed faith in who the LORD is and in His character. A nice "faith statement" for God to latch onto.
So, those are my thoughts. Yours?
No comments:
Post a Comment