MARCH 2015

Only Your Eyes Have Seen It . . . BUT – Your Code of Blessings . . .

Michael O. Afolayan

Springfield, Illinois, USA

Reading: Numbers 20: 1-12; Deuteronomy 34: 1-6

Growing up, one common expression we all dreaded as children was when one of our fellow kids in the village would hold a piece of meat in his or her hand and flaunt it in our faces at a distance and say something like, “Only your eyes have seen it; your lips shall not have a taste of it!”  Showing off the meat would tantalize the other child’s appetite but the unfortunate part of it was that the other child was helpless. A child would do this to other kids to tease or taunt them. Sometimes it was for a revenge for what the other child had done to the owner of the piece of meat or just a way to play on their emotion for the fun of it. Regardless of the reason or reasons, it was always fun for the child with the meat and lots of pain or irritation to the one without the meat.  This is a different scenario in the story of Moses, and in God’s verdict on the termination of his assignment to lead His people to the Promised Land. Moses had a special relationship with God. He was the only man who saw God face-to-face and lived to talk about it. He had spent quality time alone with God on the Holy Mountain. Therefore he knew the mind of God more than anyone else. About him one could say, “he should know better.” Yet, this man of God allowed the stress of leadership to take a toll on him and so acted irrationally at the simple command of God. He was to speak to the rock so as to provide water for the children of Israel; instead, he hit the rock in anger two times and by so doing, angered God. As his punishment, God took him to the peak of Mount Pisgah and showed him the Promised Land, but he and Aaron would not lead the people there! He would die in the wilderness. What he had been prepared for and worked for these past 120 years would elude him. What a big pain!

We all know we serve a just God and no matter our relationship with Him, He demands absolute obedience in carrying out His mandates. God is love and He is jealously protective and loving, but He hates disobedience. He is holy and cannot stand sin. The Bible says disobedience is like the sin of witchcraft. We must always remember that when we are dealing with Him, we have to take His commands very seriously and execute them very meticulously. God is no respecter of persons. He demands full obedience to His directives at all times. Remember, judgment will start in the house of faith. To whom much is given, much is also expected. We must be ready at all times to do His bidding as He commands and directs. As we start the new month, may we live in absolute, unequivocal and transparently explicit obedience to Him! That way, the mansion He has prepared for us, which we read so much about in John 14 may be ours when we see Him face-to-face, not just something for us to see at a distance, and become a matter of “Your eyes have seen it, but your lips will not have a taste of it!” May this be your Code of Blessings in the new month!