"How lovely are your tents, O Jacob! Your dwellings, O Israel!" Numbers 24:5

Balak the leader of Moab brought Balaam, a well known soccer out to curse the children of Israel. As Balaam looks out over the wilderness and saw them camped in their tribal alignment he declares "What beautiful tents". It's an interesting statement because to look out at these tents made of animal skins covered in dirt had to be a sight that was anything but beautiful. But when the Spirit of the Lord came on Balaam he saw beauty in a different way. The tribes of Israel were camped around the Tabernacle in a design that formed a cross. When Balaam looked out over the wilderness he saw a picture of the cross: a cross that would one day bring redemption to the world.

The cross of Christ was an instrument of death, but it has become a symbol of beauty, for it has indeed brought redemption to all who will embrace it. A tool of death and destruction is a picture of beauty to the redeemed child of God. The cross still brings death to our old nature, but it also brings new life for the believer. The cross of Jesus Christ, an instrument of death and life, an instrument of beauty!

"For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin." Romans 6:5-6