the Fourth Week after Easter
Click to donate today!
Daily Devotionals
Day by Day Devotional - Year 1 of 5
Numbers 1:22-37
Twenty years is still today in some countries the age at which young people are called up for military service. Recognised as able to bear arms, the conscript has an obligation to his country. No sooner mobilised, he renounces his personality so as to submit to community service; he learns respect for his superiors, the meaning of discipline, of duty and of honour; he is trained in combat . . . (Luke 7:8). This "call to the colours" has surely a spiritual application for every young Christian. From the day of his conversion it is clear that "a babe in Christ" is straight away "able to go forth to war". God’s family is composed of "little children", of "young men", and of "fathers" (1 John 2:13 . . .). And like every family in which there are children in various stages of growing up, God’s family, although united by the same life and by identical rights, includes various levels of capacity and responsibility. But there must be growth (cf. Luke 2:40; Luke 2:52). There comes a time when the little child ought to have become a young man in the spiritual sense, strong, with experience of overcoming the wicked one (1 John 2:14), a man of full age according to Hebrews 5:14. Have we reached this point? Or on the other hand have we made no progress since our conversion?
