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Day 51 or February 20. Go this far and no further.

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Our thoughts today are from Numbers chapter 34 verse 2. Command the Israelites and say

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to them, When you enter Canaan, the land that will be allotted to you as an inheritance

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is to have these boundaries. Now the big picture surrounding this verse.

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The last few chapters of the book of Numbers reads like a legal land registry document.

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The borders of the Promised Land are clearly described in full detail. All the Israelites

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are champing at the bit, looking across the Jordan River and itching to get into the Promised

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Land, as Moses describes their inheritance in great detail.

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Inside the Promised Land there are to be several cities of refuge pinpointed. These are the

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places of refuge where the Levitical priests will live. As they look back through the account

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of God's faithfulness to the generation that escaped from Egypt, they sense the time

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is near when they will obey God and not be like their ancestors, who rejected Him.

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Now today's action step. Don't go near the edge. Don't cross this line. Keep off the

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grass. Don't swim here. In our twenty-first century world there are so many rules and

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some of them don't make a lot of sense at first reading, like the sign that was in the

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middle of a grassed area which declared, Don't throw stones at this sign. However, just imagine

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no rules and you are imagining total chaos. The Israelites needed boundaries clearly

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marked otherwise how would they know where to stop? This is as true for adults and children

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today as it was then. It seems the only rules we like are the ones that benefit us. If they

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are to someone else's advantage, surely we don't need to keep them, do we? Of course

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we do. As the children of Israel prepared to cross

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over the Jordan River, they knew God was going to be with them and they knew exactly what

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He expected of them. That is real security and freedom. It is only available in Christ.

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Day 21 explains this in a little more detail. Why not listen again?