Count your cost.

We have already talked about how the nation of Israel was to be set apart, and that many of the laws God gave them to follow were to make them distinct from the nations around them. As we start our reading today, we see that the ceremony that further distinguished the Levites from the rest of Israel. God said,

"They are the Israelites who are to be given wholly to me. I have taken them as my own in place of the firstborn, the first male offspring from every Israelite woman. Every firstborn male in Israel, whether man or animal, is mine. When I struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, I set them apart for myself. And I have taken the Levites in place of all the firstborn sons in Israel."

This isn't something I've heard mentioned before about the Levites, but it made me think about something. And I'm going to try and be very careful how I word this because I don't want to preach salvation by works in any way- because there is absolutely NOTHING we can do to earn our way into the presence of God. Nothing we have to bring is good enough or perfect enough to cover that cost. Our salvation, paid for by Christ on the cross, is something we receive as a gift of grace, by faith. It is not by any means something we have earned or can ever pay back.

BUT- and here is where I'm praying really hard about the wording- just because the gift was free, doesn't mean God doesn't expect something from us. The verses I quoted earlier made it clear that God was telling the Israelites that because he spared their firstborn in Israel and took the Egyptian's, He had earned the "rights" so to speak, to have their firstborn sons dedicated specifically to His service. In His graciousness, God didn't actually take the firstborn sons from each family to be set apart as a priest, alienated from their family the rest of their lives. Instead, he set an entire tribe apart, to serve WITH their family.

How does this relate to us? Well, God sent His only firstborn son to die on the cross to pay the cost for our sins, so that we could live in fellowship with Him now, and in eternity. He gave up what He never even asked the Israelites to give up, for them and for us. From that perspective, God has the right to ask an awful lot of me. When God sent Christ to die on the cross he set us apart for himself- meaning our lives are no longer our own. And that means a whole lot of other things...things we'll keep learning about as we keep reading.

Next we see God reinforcing the specifics of how they are to celebrate the passover- and how important it was that they celebrate it. God makes it clear that there was no excuse for not celebrating the passover- even if they had to celebrate it at a later date to maintain the standard of holiness. We also see that God had the same requirements for the "alien and native born." It's important for us to realize that God's standards do not, have not, and will not change. We live in a time where, for the majority of our culture, "culture" or "political climate" or "financial situations" set the standard. Not so with God or for us. We are called to live by HIS standard- no matter how strange it may seem to others.

It must have seemed very strange to other nations for the Israelites to follow a cloud and fire all over the desert. It was probably strange to the Israelites as well. I lived the first 18 years of my life in the same house. I didn't move until I went to college. The next 8 years of my life I moved 6 times. It wasn't an easy adjustment. Some of those moves were closer together than others.

"Whether the cloud stayed over the tabernacle for two days or a month or a year, the Israelites would remain in camp and not set out; but when it lifted, they would set out. At the Lord's command they encamped and at the Lord's command they set out."

I can imagine the frustration of packing up and moving (especially for the Levites moving the Tabernacle) after just two days. And I can imagine that sometimes, depending on where they were, after a few months they were restless to get moving again. The bottom line was that they weren't in control of their own lives anymore. God was in charge of where they went and how long they stayed. In my moves, sometimes staying put was the harder option. I don't have a "pillar of fire" or "cloud" to guide me, but the Holy Spirit has always let us know when we needed to stay and when we needed to move on. Sometimes it was before we wanted to go, and sometimes it was long after we were ready to be going...but we knew that to follow God was part of the deal we made when we accepted His free gift of grace. There is comfort though, in following a God who is so generous and loving with His gifts. We, following our own selfish desires, are not nearly as wise or good. God used each of our moves to teach us, refine us and help us grow closer to Him. It is an absolute pleasure to be in the service of and following such a great God. The cost seems high at times, but the return on your investment far greater than you would have ever expected.