Look Up and Live

Wandering through your day, thirsting for evidence of God's presence, hungry for the blessings everyone else seems to enjoy...stumbling blindly in the same old drudgery. We, too, can begin to doubt whether God is really guiding us, whether he really has chosen us. And if he has, why is life so hard? And when we begin to doubt....just like the Israelites.
   They tramped through a scorching desert, their feet dusty and sore. They faced yet another day of water rations and a menu of cloud to guide them by day and that fire to follow by night. Yes, he told them he had "chosen" them. The miracles to get them out of Egypt had been amazing. Yet the way was so rough, it was easy to forget all that. Looking out at the hot desert, it was easy to assume God had left them alone there.
   Does this sound familiar as you tramp through your daily life?
   If God really loved me, I'd get that promotion at work!
   Mumble, mumble, mumble.
   Why doesn't God heal me?
   Grumble, grumble, grumble.
   I pray and pray, but God never seems to answer.
   Whine, whine, whine.
   Eventually, the Israelites' grumbling exploded into venomous blasphemy against God. In retribution, God sent a plague of poisonous snakes to stop their poisonous treason. Sometimes God's rebuke might feel like one more reason to resent him. But God's compassion drives his punishments. When his people called out for help-wailing for the cure-he provided a remedy. The afflicted needed to look up at the picture of their sinful rebellion-the bronze serpent raised high on a pole. God raised their sin on a pole, and they were healed. And millennia later, he raised up a Savior on a cross so that humankind could look to him and be saved (John 3:13-15).
   Do frustration and discouragement sometimes drive you to mumble and complain? Have you begun to detest the things of God because they just aren't quite what you expected?
   Stop. Look up to Jesus Christ. He took on your sin to heal your heart. He is the only way you can rid yourself of the venom of bitterness. Look up to him and live.
-Women's Devotional Bible

::Numbers 21:8::

Then the Lord told him, “Make a replica of a poisonous snake and attach it to a pole. All who are bitten will live if they simply look at it!”

::Psalm 121:1-2::

1 I look up to the mountains—

does my help come from there?

2 My help comes from the Lord,

who made heaven and earth!

::John 8:27-28::

27 But they still didn’t understand that he was talking about his Father.

28 So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man on the cross, then you will understand that I Am he. I do nothing on my own but say only what the Father taught me.