Tuesday

Related Verses
Num. 17:8
8 And on the next day Moses went into the Tent of the Testimony, and there was the rod of Aaron for the house of Levi: it had budded; it even put forth buds and produced blossoms and bore ripe almonds.

Matt. 19:26
26 And looking upon them, Jesus said to them, With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.

John 11:25
25 Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes into Me, even if he should die, shall live;

2 Cor. 3:5-6
5 Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to account anything as from ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God,
6 Who has also made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant, ministers not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

Phil. 1:20-21
20 According to my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I will be put to shame, but with all boldness, as always, even now Christ will be magnified in my body, whether through life or through death.
21 For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.

1 Pet. 5:5
5 In like manner, younger men, be subject to elders; and all of you gird yourselves with humility toward one another, because God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.

Related Reading
God commanded the twelve leaders to take twelve rods according to the twelve tribes of Israel and put them in the tent of meeting before the Ark. Then He said, “And the rod of the man whom I choose shall bud” (Num. 17:5). A rod is a piece of wood. It is a branch that has been stripped of its leaves and roots…It once derived its sap from the tree, being able to blossom and bear fruit, but now has become dead. All twelve rods were leafless, rootless, dry, and dead. Whichever one budded was the one that was chosen by God. Here we see that resurrection is the basis of God’s selection. It is also the basis of authority. (CWWN, vol. 47, “Authority and Submission,” p. 243)

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The twelve rods spent a night before the Ark. God caused Aaron’s rod to bud, blossom, and bear ripe almonds. Here was a dead rod, yet God put the power of life into it…What did it mean for Aaron’s rod to bud? First, a budding rod humbles the owner of the rod. Second, it shuts up the mouth of the owners of the other rods. What would our reaction be if we took a dry rod like that of Aaron’s, which was dead and had no hope of budding, and found to our surprise that it had budded, blossomed, and borne fruit the next day? We would confess to God in tears that this was His doing. It would have nothing to do with us. It would be His glory, not our glory. Spontaneously, we would be humbled before God. This is what Paul meant when he said, “We have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not out of us” (2 Cor. 4:7). Only foolish ones would try to be proud. A person who has received grace from God will surely fall down before Him, saying, “This is God’s doing. I have nothing to boast of. Everything depends on God’s mercy, not on man’s willing or running. There is nothing that I have which has not been received. Everything that I have comes from God’s selection.”

When the Lord Jesus went into Jerusalem on a colt, the people cried, “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Mark 11:9). When the colt heard the people shouting “Hosanna” and saw them spreading branches before the Lord, it could have turned around and asked the Lord, “Are they shouting to You or to me?”…Many servants of God are often this foolish. The colt was no different than other colts. The difference was the Lord who was on the colt. It was not the colt who was being praised, but the Lord who was on the colt…Only a foolish person would say that he is better than others.

The principle of every service lies in the budding rod. God returned all the eleven rods to the leaders but kept Aaron’s rod inside the Ark as an eternal memorial. This means that resurrection is an eternal principle in our service to God. A servant of the Lord is one who has died and resurrected. God testifies again and again to His people that authority to serve God lies in resurrection, not in a person himself. All services to the Lord must pass through death and resurrection before they will be acceptable to God. Resurrection means that everything is of God and not of us. It means that God alone is able and that we are not able. Resurrection means that everything is done by God, not by ourselves…All those who know resurrection have given up hope in themselves; they know that they cannot make it. As long as the natural strength remains, the power of resurrection has no ground for manifestation…What we can do belongs to the natural realm, and what is impossible for us to do belongs to the realm of resurrection. (CWWN, vol. 47, “Authority and Submission,” pp. 244-246, 248-249)

Further Reading: CWWN, vol. 47, “Authority and Submission,” ch. 15; Life-study of Exodus, msgs. 92—94