Inheritance

Numbers 18:20

“Then the LORD said to Aaron: "You shall have no inheritance in their land, nor shall you have any portion among them; I am your portion and your inheritance among the children of Israel.”

In Numbers we see that God gave Israel the land of Canaan as their inheritance but to the tribe of Levi, the priestly tribe, God declared, “I am your portion and your inheritance.”  While the Land of Canaan or Land of Promise was a wonderful place of divine provision, it was physical and temporal. What God promised the priests was that He would be their provision and inheritance. While they lived as Israelites in the Promised Land, the land of abundance, their provision and inheritance were not tied to the land but were from God. Their inheritance was not physical land and natural riches but an eternal inheritance that flowed for the very character and nature of God.

Jesus said, “Do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?'  For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.  But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” (Matthew 6:31-33)  We are not like the Gentiles who receive fulfillment from earthly provision, but our focus and source of life is our inheritance of Christ’s righteousness and kingdom.

I Peter 1:9 says, we are a “royal priesthood.” Revelation 1:5-6 says, “He washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father.” As priests unto God, our eternal inheritance is the righteousness of Christ. We receive this inheritance by the grace of God through the blood of Christ. yet Jesus also admonishes us to seek His righteousness. As priests of God we have to guard this righteousness that we have been given as our inheritance, for it is out of this righteousness or right standing with God that everything else flows and God is glorified.

In Luke 15:13 we see that the prodigal son squandered his inheritance. In the day and age in which we live, the temptations of this world that are paraded before us, as they were before Christ in the wilderness, cry out to us to trade some of our inheritance for the pleasures, possessions, and positions that the world offers to us. The church often walks two steps behind the world. We give a little here and a little there to be politically correct or socially acceptable. We must guard our inheritance which was bought for us by the precious blood of Christ.

In a temporal, changing world, the Lord says to you today, “I am your portion and your inheritance.”

Andy