– Spending Time And Money For Personal Discipleship
BRD REFLECTIONS:
Numbers 35, 36 and Psalm 116 (NIV)
(David Mok, Church Analytics Ministry Chairperson)
READ:
Numbers 35: 1-3 (NIV)
OBSERVE:
In this passage, Moses assigned land to the Israelites as instructed by the Lord. However, there was no “state” or “province” within Israel assigned to the tribe of Levi. Instead, God instructed Moses to tell each tribe to give some cities within their territories to the Levites. In this way, the Levites would be sprinkled throughout the whole nation, with each Israelite territory having a presence of the priesthood of the LORD.
APPLY:
In God’s perfect plan for humanity, there is a need for God alone to be completely sovereign. Humanity cannot function adequately and optimally in this fallen world by relying on our human understanding of natural laws and our self-contrived moral laws. Without our God, life will lack the complete peace, joy, and hope that we are meant to have.
Each of us has limited time and resources. We all tend to assign our resources according to our priorities. Looking back to my formative years, I spent all five days of the week learning about math, science, language, and arts subjects. However, for God’s Word, I only spent half of Saturday at youth fellowship. It was worse when I was in university. By then, time spent nourishing my soul with the Word had been reduced to only two hours on Sunday mornings. The rest of the week was filled with every other subject but the Lord’s Word.
Fast forward to today. As I write this devotion, I am planning to attend a basic course on Python Programming in the latter half of the week. I notice that I am very willing to spend time and money on this course for my personal and professional development. The question for myself is: am I also willing to spend adequate time and money on my discipleship in Christ, who is supposed to be my sovereign king?
In reading the passage of how God instructed Moses to tell each Israelite tribe to set aside land for the Levites, God has impressed upon me that I too need to allocate adequate resources for my discipleship. It is for my own good that I better understand my sovereign King while navigating the ups and downs of life. Only in God will I find the complete peace, joy, and hope that we are meant to have.
DO:
I will intentionally apportion time and money to my discipleship growth in Christ. Each year, I will commit to participating in at least one discipleship programme that my church or any external Christian organisation offers. I will follow the holistic approach of CORDS(1) as recommended by our church. CORDS reminds us to not limit discipleship growth to just Bible study classes such as Precepts or DISCIPLE, our core series program, but also to engage in experiential programmes such as the Strangely Warmed retreat.
PRAY:
Heavenly Father, forgive me for the times that I have put my worldly training first and ignored the training in your Scriptures. In your mercy, grant me the fortitude to include spiritual training in addition to my work training in my annual scheduling. Let me not forget that without you, life in this world will be dimmer.
In Jesus’ name I pray.
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(1) C (Significant Circumstances), O (Spiritual Obedience), R (Spiritual Relationships), D (Spiritual Disciplines), S (Sacrificial Service)
