“All of the men from thirty to fifty years of age who came to do the work of serving and carrying the tent of meeting numbered 8,580. At the Lord’s command through Moses, each was assigned his work and told what to carry.”
Chores are a necessary part of life. I can remember giving chores to my daughters. They did not have a choice whether or not to do them because we were teaching them to follow orders, like in the military. Some chores were not so fun, and some were fun to do, but every time the list was given, they had to be done. Teaching them to follow directions and take orders is something we all have to do.
As I read about the Levite clan preparing everything to be used and then preparing everything to be moved, all I can think about are the Levites who were thinking, “But what if I don’t want to do what the Lord told me to do through Moses?” Now we have over 600,000 men who came out of Egypt, and for the last two years and two months, they have been camped in the desert of Sinai, waiting to hear from Moses, who was hearing from God, on what to do next. They have been eating manna every day and being downloaded on everything from what to do with a skin issue to “don’t touch this, or you will surely die.” I cannot begin to imagine what a heavy load of leadership that was to even attempt.
Behind the scenes, God’s people were being taken care of every day by God supernaturally and not draining their local environment of food and resources. To those Levite men who were thinking they didn’t want to do what the Lord commanded, they had no choice but to obey the Lord because real and immediate consequences would show up.
To those of us who are like those Levites who might have questioned the role set before us, the Bible would say that obedience is better than sacrifice (1 Samuel 15:22). If we offer the sacrifice of our time to do God’s work, He would rather have our obedience. You cannot sacrifice anything in your life and hear God say, “Wow, now that was a sacrifice.” He gave His only Son as the final sacrifice. When the chores were given out to our girls, we were looking for an obedient heart, not a begrudging, sacrificial heart.
At the root of our obedience should be joy, not sacrifice. Today, ask yourself, “Is my attitude in the right spot, or do I have to change it?” Too often, we charge forward with sacrifice when the Lord is looking for obedience.
Prayer: Father, expose our attitude, and I pray that it would line up with Your Word. Let the joy of the Lord be our strength and not our agenda. I pray for an obedient heart. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Let It Go 
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