Genesis 2:15-17a And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But…

Then comes the conditional constraint. As is my habit from time to time I do an examination of first use terms. In my memory I saw this conditional constraint as God’s first use of but and I was wrong.

Genesis 2:5b-6 for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.

By virtue of first use, but is not meant to be a conditional constraint but rather a provisional condition. God did not need man to see to the well-being of His creation. God is fully capable of tending to the nature of His creation without the help of man.

Here is the lesson of first use; that I looked to the issues of conditional constraint before I saw the provisional condition.

So often we look to those things which we deem are keeping us from the promises.  Our minds become preoccupied with thoughts of “if only”. Those thoughts take away the vision of what is the provisional condition; God making a way in which He does not need the help of man to care for and provide for His creation.

In the simplest of terms, “Seek first the Kingdom.”

Luke 3:5 Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth;

Provisional condition.

Number 16:7 And put fire therein, and put incense in them before the Lord to morrow: and it shall be that the man whom the Lord doth choose, he shall be holy: ye take too much upon you, ye sons of Levi.

Here is an Old Testament application that fits so well into this modern church age that those who are guilty of it will deny it violently. They will shun the truth and point to the massive responsibilities they have in their ministry. Massive responsibilities they do have because they are holding together what they have built and not what the Lord has built.

It was within the history of Israel, the Levite who did not receive an inheritance of the land. Their portion was the Lord. Hidden here within the scripture is the warning to those who serve the Lord. “You take too much.” Before you start thinking that I am talking about wealthy pastors living in multi-million dollar mansions, allow me to point out that is a symptom of the disease and not the disease itself.

Man has within his ability leadership skills and management skills. Man can build great cathedrals and give inspiring speeches and move men to follow after his example, but only God can choose who is called to be Holy.

Let me put it another way, if the Lord is my portion, how can I increase the Lord?

The increase is within the desires of flesh to have or show bigger, better, more and if I can do that, then I am proving myself worthy of my calling. Well it isn’t my calling, it’s the Lords, it is His call upon which we are asked to respond. The root of responsibility is respond.

The role of Levi is to serve God and let God be God.