Wisdom International Devotionals

by Seth Davey

  Eulogies for the Living Numbers 20:1 And the people of Israel, the whole congregation, came into the wilderness of Zin in the first month, and the people stayed in Kadesh. And Miriam died there and was buried there.   We’ve all been to the graveside of a friend or loved one who we didn’t really got along with in life and discovered how death brings out both the best in them and the best in us, right? In them, because we remember those redeeming qualities and memories we tended to overlook; and in us, because we finally give the gratitude and grace we found so difficult to extend.                                                                    ...

  Sin is Oh So Draining Numbers 19:20 “If the man who is unclean does not cleanse himself, that person shall be cut off from the midst of the assembly, since he has defiled the sanctuary of the LORD.”   The mercy of our LORD is a well with no bottom, and the more our sin immerses us into it, the deeper and wider and more expansive it becomes. Just when we think our feet have struck the floor, just when the devil convinces us that this time we’ve come to the end of God’s amnesty, we dive afresh into deeper waters, realizing that our feet had only been dancing on the surface of the shallowest end before, that each momentary, baptismal dip of regeneration is an everlasting plunge.   Now, while there is no amendment to that wondrous reality of our security in the well of Christ’s mercy, friend, there is an addendum to it. There’s another corresponding well in our life of faith that, when drained, is not so easily replenished. It’s the well of our impact on the world around us...

  In Christ Alone Numbers 18:20 And the LORD said to Aaron, “You shall have no inheritance in their land, neither shall you have any portion among them. I am your portion and your inheritance among the people of Israel.”   Why is it of utmost importance that a priest who represents God to the people, who seeks to judge between disputes with discernment, who treats all members of the commonwealth with the same severity in justice and humility in mercy, who wears the crown and breastplate of a monarch while carrying the towel and wash basin of a servant, finds his portion alone in the Father’s favor? Why can’t the priest own a dairy farm in Canaan or a cabin by the rippling brook or a hundred acres in the valley as a just reward for his faithful service? Why should a priest be in the commonwealth, but not of it; chief among the tribes of his kin but with no inheritance to show for it? Why must he roam the earth as a phantom, with no real place to call home, a stranger among his ...

  Guardians of the Gift Numbers 18:6-7a “And behold, I have taken your brothers the Levites from among the people of Israel. They are a gift to you, given to the LORD, to do the service of the tent of meeting. And you and your sons with you shall guard your priesthood for all that concerns the altar and that is within the veil; and you shall serve. I give your priesthood as a gift …”   Why did the framers of our Constitution write as the second most important amendment, “You shall have the right to possess and bear arms”? Simple: so that every man, without the aid of police forces and sheriff deputies and armed guards, could protect themselves and their families from harm. It’s the same reason we lock our front doors at night and keep our expensive treasures in a safe and carry mace or pepper spray or a handgun with us in our vehicles. Ultimately, we’d never need firearms or self-defense training or security passcodes if there weren’t malevolent forces in the world all round u...

  Sabbath Psalm (From E. W. Blandy’s hymn, ‘Take the World but Give Me Jesus’)   Take the world, but give me Jesus—all its joys are but a name; His the love that stays forever, through eternal years the same.   Take the world, but give me Jesus—sweetest comfort of my soul; With my Savior watching o’er me, I can sing though billows roll.   Take the world, but give me Jesus—let me view His constant smile; Then throughout my pilgrim journey, light will cheer me all the while.   Take the world, but give me Jesus—in His cross my trust will be; Till, with clearer, brighter vision, face to face my Lord I see.   O the height and depth of Mercy! O the length and breadth of Love! O the fullness of Redemption! Christ—our endless Life above!

  A Sappy Symbol Numbers 17:2, 5, 8 “Speak to the people of Israel, and get from them staffs, one for each father’s house, from all their chiefs according to their fathers’ house, twelves staffs. … And the staff of the man whom I choose shall sprout. Thus I will make to cease from me the grumblings of the people of Israel …” On the next day Moses went into the tent of the testimony, and behold, the staff of Aaron … had sprouted and put forth buds and produced blossoms, and it bore ripe almonds.   This sign, remarkable though it is, only has the potential to end the people’s grumbling if they see the deeper principle signified by it. If they only receive from these budding flowers the fact that God has set Aaron apart, then they may recognize Aaron’s God-given authority for a week, or a month, or a year, but the sheen of that deference will eventually wear off. Further, if the sight of blossoming petals and almonds only causes them to reminisce on the Red Sea parting and on tha...

  Rhetorical Righteousness Numbers 16:8-11 And Moses said to Korah, “Hear now, you sons of Levi: is it too small a thing for you that the God of Israel has separated you from the congregation of Israel, to bring you near to himself? … And would you seek the priesthood also? Therefore it is against the LORD that you and all your company have gathered together. What is Aaron that you grumble against him?   ‘Is God’s will too small a thing for you?’, Moses begins, cutting to the heart of their covetousness. ‘Will Aaron’s role satisfy your desire?’, he adds, exposing their false motives. ‘Has Aaron done you harm—is that why you’re here?’, he concludes, rebuking their vain ambition. Note just how potent rhetorical questions can be in the mouth of the righteous.   God’s Word is full of questions like these. “Where are you, Adam and Eve?”, our LORD asked in Eden, knowing full well where they were. “Where is your brother, Abel?”, He questioned Cain while the blood was still dripp...

  A Powerful Posture Numbers 16:1, 3-4 Now Korah … Dathan … Abiram … and On … assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron and said to them, “You have gone too far! For all in the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the LORD is among them. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the LORD?” When Moses heard it, he fell on his face.   Because Numbers 16:4 in our English Bibles stops mid-sentence, without telling us what Moses does next after falling to the floor, let’s play a game of multiple choice to see how you think he’ll respond:   (A)     Will Moses repent to these Levites of his ungodly pride? (B)     Will he roll around on the ground in uncontrollable laughter because of the ridiculousness of their accusation?  (C)     Will he rebuke them for their lawlessness and cry out to the LORD on their behalf?    If the past is prologue as some have said, then we know it can’...

  Making Memories Numbers 15:38-39 “Speak to the people of Israel, and tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to put a cord of blue on the tassel of each corner. And it shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the LORD, to do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to whore after.”   Hasn’t it ever bothered you that the precious words and promises God has given us in our Bibles can so easily get exploited and merchandized for profit? How many times have you walked into a boutique downtown, or a Big Box retailer, and seen some cheap, bland, artless, black or white cardboard paper with the words of Jeremiah 29:11 or John 3:16 or Psalm 23:1 etched across the canvas? Was the retailer really trying to remind us of something or just  sell  us something? How many times have you seen an ad for a clothing line pop up on your computer screen, with a...

  Tribes and Tongues, pt. 2 Numbers 15:15-16 “You and the sojourner shall be alike before the LORD. One law and one rule shall be for you and for the stranger who sojourns with you.”   Why do we find it so difficult to simply accept the fact that, in part, due to our obstinate pride, and, in part, due to our human nature, we think our own tribes and clans have the best music and literature and food, the most cutting edge tools and technologies, the wisest poets and theologians, the most interesting histories and mythologies, and the most delicious recipes and holidays known to man? If we could just begin a discussion on Numbers 15:16 by admitting our inherent self-importance to ourselves, we’d recognize the solution a whole lot sooner.     Words in Constitutions aren’t the cure for the condition. Neither are Civil Rights movements. Neither are open discussions and unitarian principles and DEI corporate initiatives. Because our problem isn’t racism or classism or...

  Sabbath Psalm  (Adapted from Philip P. Bliss’s hymn, ‘Let the Lower Lights be Burning’)   Brightly beams our Father’s mercy from His lighthouse evermore, But to us He gives the keeping of the lights along the shore.   Let the lower lights be burning! Send a gleam across the wave! Some poor fainting, wayward sailor, you may rescue from the grave!    Dark the night of sin has settled, loud the angry billows roar; Eager eyes are watching, longing, for the lights along the shore.   Let the lower lights be burning! Send a gleam across the wave! Some poor fainting, wayward sailor you may rescue from the grave!    Trim your feeble lamp, my brother! Some poor sailor tempest-tossed, Trying now to reach the harbor, in the storm will soon be lost.    Let the lower lights be burning! Send a gleam across the wave! Some poor fainting, wayward sailor you may rescue from the grave! 

  Tribes and Tongues, pt. 1 Numbers 15:15-16 “You and the sojourner shall be alike before the LORD. One law and one rule shall be for you and for the stranger who sojourns with you.”   Have you ever considered that words such as ‘racism’ and ‘classism’ and ‘misandry’ and ‘misogyny’ and ‘xenophobia’ and every other similar term are just symptoms of  tribalism , which, at best, is the effect of our innate connection to that which bears  our likeness , and, at worst, is our sinful aversion to that which doesn’t? Tribalism is just  differentism  in all its multivalent forms: some malevolent, some harmless, but all divisive.    If you grow up speaking Spanish as your first language, filtering concepts through Spanish words and phrases, understanding the world through the scope of Spanish culture, you’ll struggle to become fluent in English or German or Greek later in life. Even if you do become fluent, you’ll never quite  think  like an Engli...

  Stop the Rot! Numbers 14:36-37 And the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, who returned and made all the congregation grumble against him by bringing up a bad report about the land—the men who brought up a bad report of the land—died by plague before the LORD.   My wife and I recently put up a nice 10x16 shed on our rural mountain property that we’ve been slowly renovating into a tiny retreat cabin, and we were up there last week with the kids doing fun projects in the woods. Micah hacked away at trees with my hatchet, Skye helped remove dead twigs from fallen limbs, and my wife kept a fire going in the firepit, while I guided the tree removal experts I’d hired to fell a large, old oak tree that stood uncomfortably close to our shed and leaned over it. Cutting it down was difficult and costly, but we needed the sunlight on our wooded lot, and we needed to alleviate the fears of it eventually crashing down on our heads, so it had to go. Thankfully, as soon as the tree fe...

  Jesus Love the Little Children Numbers 14:20, 22-23, 31 Then the LORD said, “… none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have put me to the test these ten times and have not obeyed my voice, shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers. … But your little ones, who you said would become a prey, I will bring in, and they shall know the land that you have rejected.”   It’s impossible to quantify how much harm gets done to children by seemingly well-intentioned adults who follow their own impulses rather than God’s revealed truth.   Let’s give these faithless Israelites the benefit of the doubt and assume that they really are fearful for their children’s lives. They may not care all that much for God, but I bet they  do  care for their families—at least they  mean  to. In fact, you and I know plenty of unbelieving, worldly people who care nothing for the things of God but who put th...

  Beating Hearts Numbers 14:10 a Then all the congregation of Israel said to stone them with stones.   These are truly heartbreaking lines. We can’t even read them without being bruised and bloodied ourselves. How must Joshua and Caleb be feeling at this moment? If the mere weight of a pessimistic outlook in the assembly overwhelmed their joy, if the crushing blow of others’ faithlessness thrust them to their knees, if the infernal groan of a commonwealth on the brink of blasphemy pelted their hearts only moments ago, how must  this  blood-curdling curse, this back-stabbing verdict, this penetrating shriek of betrayal strike them as it flies from the mouths of their comrades like a flurry of demonic darts? “STONE THEM! STONE THEM! STONE THEM!”    The earth quakes at the sound. It bleeds too. Gravity tries to keep the stones down, but it can’t. The rocks strain as they hurl forward, try to pull back in midflight, try to tear away from their fixed trajectory,...

  One-Sided Numbers 14:6-9 And Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who were among those who spied out the land, tore their clothes and said to all the congregation of … Israel, “The land … is an exceedingly good land. If the LORD delights in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey. Only do not rebel against the LORD. And do not fear the people of the land, for they are bread for us. … The LORD is with us; do not fear them.”   There’s a wonderful account recorded in 2 Kings 6 where the prophet Elisha and his servant, Gehazi, are surrounded by a Syrian army in the city of Dothan. The scene culminates in Gahazi rushing frantically into Elisha’s chamber, crying out in exasperation, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?” But, unmoved, Elisha responds with masterful insight: “Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” The words aren’t enough to brighten Gahazi’s expression, ...

  Sabbath Psalm (Adapted from Joseph Scriven’s hymn, ‘What a Friend We Have in Jesus’)   What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear! What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer. O what peace we often forfeit; O what needless pain we bear; All because we do not carry all our grief to God in prayer!   Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere? We should never be discouraged: take it to the Lord in prayer. Can we find a friend so faithful Who will all our sorrows share? Jesus knows our ev’ry weakness—take it to the Lord in prayer.   Are we weak and heavy-laden, cumbered with a load of care? Precious Savior, still our refuge—take it to the Lord in prayer. Do your friends despise, forsake you? Take it to the Lord in prayer; In His arms He’ll hold and shield you—you will find a solace there.

  The Beginning of Wisdom Numbers 14:2-4 And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. … “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! … Why is the LORD bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?” And they said to one another, “Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt.”   When we remove the Logos from our logic, we make utter fools of ourselves and a mess of the world God has given us to steward.   The reasoning behind the statement, “Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt,” is as ludicrous as the reasoning behind statements like “boys can be girls” and “unborn babies are just a clump of cells” and “abortion is a woman’s right!” Because the conclusion that statements like these intend to draw is made impossible by the premises. Consider the logic of these Israelite cynics in a nutshell: (a) ‘our enemies are powerful’; (b) ‘our wives and kids...

  The Grasshopper Principle Numbers 13:25, 27-28, 33 b At the end of forty days they returned from spying out the land. … And they told him, “…It flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. However, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. And besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there … and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”   If Moses had been more cynical in his writing, he could’ve just combined these five Books of Law into a single chronicle called  The Fall of Man . Ever since Eve ate that forbidden fruit, it’s just been one betrayal, one upheaval, one demonic-inspired outrage against the Almighty after another. “Vanity of vanities!” cries the preacher, the philosopher, the realist, the honest man in the face of this tide of corruption that ebbs and flows through every volume of man’s storied existence. Just when you think the sea has parted, just when you think the enemy is ...

  Do You See What I See? Numbers 13:1-2 a  & 17-19 The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the people of Israel.” … Moses … said to then, “Go up into the Negeb and go up into the hill country, and see what the land is, and whether the people who dwell in it are strong or weak, whether they are few or many, and whether the land that they dwell in is good or bad, and whether the cities that they dwell in are camps or strongholds.”   Numbers 13 is a critical juncture in Israel’s advancement to their long-awaited resting place and one where God effectively charts a new spiritual course for them to follow. That is, He adds something novel to their collaborative mission: a striking new test that will reveal where their hearts really are in relation to Him. When He says, “Send men to spy out the land,” He’s effectively saying, “Send men  ahead of Me .” What a seismic shift in proceedings! God never told Abraham to p...

  Time Out Numbers 12:10 a , 11, 13-14 When the cloud removed from over the tent, behold, Miriam was leprous, like snow. … And Aaron said to Moses, “Oh, my lord, do not punish us because we have done foolishly and have sinned.” … And Moses cried to the LORD, “O God, please heal her—please.” But the LORD said to Moses, “… Let her be shut outside the camp seven days, and after that she may be brought in again.”   On average, I wonder how many words parents speak to their kids per day and what percentage of those words come in the form of some disciplinary threat. I hope a pollster doesn’t show up at my house to begin the data analysis! The fact is children don’t grow in virtue without formal discipline, because that’s what discipline does: it  forms  us into better people.   I’ve discovered after only eight years of parenting that the days when I heave idle threats to Micah and Skye like, “You won’t get a treat tonight if you don’t stop fighting!” or “You won’t wa...

  A Reconciling Rebuke Numbers 12:5-8 a And the LORD came down in a pillar of cloud and stood at the entrance of the tent and called Aaron and Miriam, and they both came forward. And he said, “Hear my words: if there is a prophet among you, I the LORD make myself known to him in a vision; I speak with him in a dream. Not so with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my house. With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in riddles, and he beholds the form of the LORD.”   A crucial quality of the LORD’s discipline is that He doesn’t demean the good while admonishing the bad.    Far too often, we see a fellow believer fall into vice and decide that he never truly was a child of God; or we hear news of a Christian celebrity preaching a questionable message and immediately call him a heretic; or we feel aggrieved by a pastor who doesn’t reach out in our time of need and we call him a bad shepherd. How many times have you said to your spouse or your parent or your ...

  Sabbath Psalm (From Fanny Crosby’s beloved hymn, ‘Near the Cross’)   Jesus, keep me near the cross— There a precious fountain; Free to all, a healing stream,  Flows from Calv’ry’s Mountain.   Near the cross, a trembling soul,  Love and Mercy found me;  There the Bright and Morning Star Sheds its beams around me.   Near the cross! O Lamb of God, Bring its scenes before me; Help me walk from day to day With its shadows o’er me.   Near the cross I’ll watch and wait, Hoping, trusting ever; Till I reach the golden strand  Just beyond the river.   In the cross, in the cross, be my glory ever, Till my raptured soul shall find rest beyond the river.

  Unrighteous Rhetoric Numbers 12:1-2 Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married, for he had married a Cushite woman. And they said, ‘Has the LORD indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?” And the LORD heard it.   Some biblical scholars interpret from Numbers 12:1-2 that Moses has married a second wife along the way, but I see this as a vague reference to Zipporah, who Moses married back in Exodus 2. Regardless, it’s clear from the phrase, “for he married a  Cushite  woman,” that Miriam’s ire has nothing to do with polygamy and everything to do with ethnic pride. To her, the fact that the God of Israel would use a Gentile-marrying brother to lead His people is clearly a bone of contention.    You get the sense that Miriam has been brooding over this for years, flashing judgmental glances toward Zipporah across the dinner table—the sort that Sarah would make at Hagar in the olden days—try...

  A Story Shared Numbers 11:26 a  & 28-29 Now two men remained in the camp, one named Eldad, and the other named Medad, and the Spirit rested on them … and so they prophesied in the camp. … And Joshua the son of Nun, the assistant of Moses from his youth, said, “My lord Moses, stop them.” But Moses said to him, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the LORD’s people were prophets, that the LORD would put his Spirit on them!”   There’s a simple litmus test for examining whether you’re actively seeking the face of God, and it’s this: that you’re yearning to share the vision with others.    It’s astonishing really that Moses hasn’t grown puffed up after so many years of Theophanous witness. Those occasions when God met him on Sinai’s Mount, lavishing his eyes with ineffable glory, filling the atmosphere of his faith with Shekinah light, didn’t get to his head. He never covered his face as a means of concealing the vision from others either, the way certa...