“You matter to us because you matter to God.”

That was the mantra of what has become known as the “Attractional” church. Or perhaps you have heard it called “The Purpose-Driven Church.” On the surface that sounds really good. And it is. But as time moved on it morphed into a mantra that began to signal some really strange practices.  Churches began to replace hymns and truly good worship songs with contemporary “secular” songs with veiled meaning. Some lyrics were changed into really bad songs. I read of one church that did “Highway to Hell” by AC/DC as an opening song for their Easter service. Seriously? I have to admit that when I read that I about spit out my Diet Dr Pepper. While many have abandoned that “all things are a go” approach, they graduated to some really bad songs with horrible doctrinal errors.

Back to my original words and off the rabbit trail… 🙂

On the surface, that statement is true. People should matter to us because they do matter to God. We could point to the cross for proof. Or, strangely enough, we could point to Numbers 1-2. “Are you kidding me Bill? Have you ever read Numbers 1-2?”  As a matter of fact, I have and did again this morning. Only this time I approached it differently. Thanks to Paul David Tripp’s devotion for today in his Everyday Gospel Devotional, he brought several ideas to the forefront.  He began by writing, “On the surface these accounts seem like unneeded historical detail, not very interesting, and easily forgotten. But the apostle Paul says that they are in your Bible for your spiritual maturation and readiness.” (p.52)  I took those words to heart as I read this morning. I underlined what Moses wrote in chapter 2 about where each tribe was to be in the order of moving from place to place. (Check out verses 9, 16, 24 and 31. Verse 17 shows us the Tabernacle was put between the second and third group).

God was orderly and efficient. The inclusion of these two chapters was not just willy nilly filler space.  I borrow again from PDT when he writes, “It reminds us of the intimate and specific care God has for His people.” And there you have that opening statement statement in a different way. God chose His people and ordered the numbering of his people (especially the warriors) for a specific reason.

If He took that much detail in numbering and giving His people specific places to be, imagine how concerned He is about you and me. Kind of makes your day doesn’t it? 🙂