Key Verse: Numbers 32:23
But if you do not do so, then take note, you have sinned against the Lord; and be sure your sins will find you out.

Two messages grip my mind as I read this chapter. The first has to do with a statement my Mother drummed into me when I was a boy. She died when I was 12, and her warnings were reinforced as I would think about her. Many times she said, “David, be sure your sins will find you out.” She never gave a Bible reference, but I was afraid to sin, and I never could cover it up when I did sin (click here for the stolen apple story from an earlier blog). Our key verse is her Scripture source (Numbers 32:23b). The other message is from Genesis 4:9b, where Cain asks God, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The tribes who wanted to settle on the east side of the Jordan promised Moses that they would be their brothers’ keepers. Our elder Brother, the Lord Jesus Christ, has promised to be our Keeper (Psalm 121:4 & Jude 1:24).

PRAYER FOR TODAY:
Dear Lord God, please keep using Your Word to keep me living right. Thank You for parents who implant Scripture so deeply into their children that Your Word will never be extracted from their innermost being. Help me in my commitment to help keep my brothers and sisters from harm, from sin, and from Satan’s lies. In Jesus’ Name I pray. Amen!

100 PERSONAL WORDS:
I witnessed the truth of Mother’s words about sin finding me out after my Father returned from overseas, where he spent six years during the Second World War. He had a “razor strap.” For the younger generation, that was not a razor, it was the leather belt on which he would run his straight razor back and forth until it was sharp. He would lather up his face with soap, and then proceed to move the sharpened blade back and forth across his face and neck. It was an awesome sight for an 8 year old who had been raised for 6 years by 3 women…Mother and two older sisters (Willa, 8 years older, and Elaine, 6 years older). Believe me, it wasn’t the razor which made it scary when my sin found me out; it was the leather strap. I only remember getting the strap on each of my two hands once. That was enough. I told myself, “Never again!” It was not only legal to discipline in this way, but in the government, the Department of Education supplied every teacher with a strap for this very purpose. I’m a witness to the fact that miracles in changed behavior resulted immediately!

Yours for behavior improvement in us all,

David