Dead Branch or Budding Endorsement?

 

“He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither.”

—Psalm 1:3

In this season of political endorsements, I enjoyed reading the way in which God set up Aaron in front of the Israelite nation as His endorsed leader from the tribe of Levi. The story in Numbers 17 occurs just after the nation complained against Aaron and Moses as their leaders. A group of men had become insolent and had risen up to take the leadership and the priesthood away from them.

You may remember the story in which God allowed the ground to swallow these imposters as a testimony to His anger against their sinful rebellion. This didn’t end the rebellion, however, and God sent a plague that killed 14,700 to show His power. And, even though Aaron stood between God and the rest of the Israelites and stopped the plague, interceding for them, they continued to grumble about his leadership.

At this time, God told Moses to have the leaders of the twelve tribes come to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting and bring with them their staves or rods, the symbol of the authority of their governmental leadership. We read in Numbers 17:5 that God said:

“The staff belonging to the man I choose will sprout and I will rid myself of this constant grumbling.”

The next day, when Moses entered the Tent, he found Aaron’s staff not only sprouted, but budded and blossomed, producing almonds! From that day on, God asked Moses to keep that rod before the Testimony as a remembrance to His decree and endorsement of Aaron as leader!

Isaiah predicts another time, yet to come, when God will endorse His people before the world. Here’s what He promises in Isaiah 60:21:

“Then will all your people be righteous and they will possess the land forever. They are the shoot I have planted, the work of my hands, for the display of my splendor.”

I like that! Not for their own aggrandizement, but for the display of God’s splendor.

And, in our world today, how does God endorse us? We know that by ourselves, we display nothing but the image of a dry stick. However, with the life Jesus gives us through His atonement, we can bud with His sap running through our veins. I compare this to the sermon Jesus gave in John 15 about the Vine and the Branches. The only way the branches can provide fruit, is when they exist attached to the Living Vine.

We are nothing but dry branches without Him. John 15:5 makes it clear with these words of Jesus:

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”

God wants to endorse us by displaying His splendor through us, by living His life through us, and by making our lives spiritual food for others. May we know that kind of usefulness to His glory!