Our Inheritance

"But Moses did not give a protion to the tribe of Levi. The Lord, the God of Israel, was their inheritance, just as He had promised them." -Joshua 13:33

So I've been reading through the book of Joshua for my devotional recently and I guess it started out when Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, Jericho, Jericho, then conquered every other track of land along the Mediterranean Sea and continued until the Israelites finally possessed all of the land from the inheritance that God promised them. Reuben got this piece, Gad got this piece, Manasseh got this piece and so on, and then we see the inheritance of the Levites--no land at all. Nothing on which to farm, nothing on which to live, just a few cities designated to be safe havens for the poor, the murderers, and yes, the Levites. But perhaps the greatest possession that they inherited was God Himself.

Can you imagine being a Levite at that time? You had to have an incredible amount of faith to see the beauty in inheriting the Lord God, and yet nothing to lay your head on at night. I would like to think that I would be one of the Levites that was completely awed by that concept, although sometimes I'm sure I'd much rather have a house that I owned.

It's a beautiful image really, one that paints a wonderful bridge between Judaism and Christianity--God chose to let the people who had nothing inherit Him as their possession. The ones who lived among the poor and manslaughter convicts. He chose to give Himself to the lowest of low, not the home owning Josephites or Reubenites, but the Levites.

I wonder what it would have been like to be a Levite in those days. To know that you don't have a single thing to your name, but at the same time God was going to provide because He was yours. I wonder if they ever worried about making it, or starving, or any of the normal concerns of a person, or if inheriting God brought a sense of overwhelming peace into their lives.

The wonderful thing today is that Christians are like modern day Levites. Because Jesus died for our sins, we now have a part in God and in His kingdom. We have, in a sense, inherited God. Now I'm not too sure about how the Levites handled it, but I know for a fact that even Christians worry about what we will eat or where we will sleep. Luckily for us, we have a message from Jesus concerning that very topic to guide us day by day:

"So don't worry, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear?' For the idolaters eagerly seek all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things wil be provided for you. Therefore don't worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." -Matthew 6:31-34

Jesus tells us, basically, 'It's cool, I've got your back. I know you have to eat, sleep, drink, and unfortunately(**my thoughts, not necessarily Jesus'**) wear clothes so I will provide them for You.' Why? Because we are His and He is ours. He is our inheritance.

It's pretty awesome having our inheritance, Jesus, teaching us in every step of the journey. But just so you know, it's pretty widely accepted that Jesus was also there to help the Levites and the rest of the Israelites in the book of Joshua--that's right, the Old Testament, hundreds of years BEFORE he was even born on Earth. Where in Joshua? Sounds like a good thing to search for and find out....