Deuteronomy 27 -28 = Today's Thought

Deuteronomy 27 -28 = Today's Thought

 

Chapters 27 and 28 could have been termed the if you do’s and if you don’t chapters.  Moses has just finished giving the people instruction on how to conduct their lives as they enter the Promised Land and now he is giving them both and an encouragement and a warning about following these instructions.  Chapter 28 starts off saying “if you fully obey….”  It could have said if you obey… and communicated the point, but this is one of those places where the inclusion of a word really means something specific.  God isn’t asking for partial obedience.  He wants their full obedience, after all look at what he is promising them.  The first 13 verses paint an incredible blessing if the people remain faithful.  Faithfulness yields, the defeat of enemies, blessings on your barns, on your fields, on your womb, on your livestock, on your finances, etc…..  Obedience to God in this case is directly linked to the blessing that is promised.  However there is the flip side of the coin here as well.  While the first 13 verses deal with the blessings for obedience, verses 15-68 deal with the curse for disobedience. Why so much more on the curse.  My guess is because we too quickly forget about the reason for the blessing, complacency, and entitlement.  After a time the blessing for obedience may seem deserved, earned or even owed.  God is clearly communicating that with obedience comes the blessing.  His gift, his choice, his way, just as with disobedience has its own set of circumstance.  Why all the detail, maybe God just wants his people to have every opportunity to recognize their failure and have a chance to return.  While no one complains about a blessing, the curse if not identifiable isn’t so easy to overcome.  Therefore, God has said, if this is happening in your life, chances are we are out of sync, and if we are out of sync, it isn’t me that has changed. 

 

While we are under a new covenant with new relationship parameters, this is still so very true.  Those who obediently follow the will of God in their life are blessed.  Countless stories can be told, endless examples of God’s love poured out his faithful.  Obedience isn’t a get out of jail free card life will always have its hurdles and trials, but disobedience is guaranteed to distance you from God, (much worse than, jail and losing your $200.00 for passing go)  and when you are distant from God, you are the one that has to step in his direction.  He is constant and always there, but we have to make the effort to seek him and stay in his will.

 

Be obedient, be blessed,

Rob

 

Deuteronomy 23 - 26 = Today's Thought

Deuteronomy 23 - 26 = Today's Thought

 

Chapter 26 wraps up Mosses’ commands from God to the Israelites before they prepare to cross the Jordan and enter the Promised Land.  One of the things that stood out in these chapters is how very different God’s relationship is from the old covenant to the new, and how much difference Christ makes.  I am referencing where at the beginning of Chapter 23 God is forbidding the Israelites to have interaction with multiple people groups and for others restricting their access to the assembly of the Lord for as long as 10 generations of time.  While I’m not sure what length of time a generation was in Moses day, today it is around 25 years.  So here we find people that because of the actions of their ancestors they are restricted in their access and relationship with God for potentially 250 years.  In contrast to the new covenant that was established through Christ’s sacrifice that allows someone access to God at any point through belief in Christ.  Where the Israelites were commanded to avoid certain cultures today we are commanded to enter those cultures.  God didn’t change, Christ entered the equation, with out Him no new Covenant could exist and with out a new covenant, nothing in our world would look the way it does, Christ not only established a new covenant he transformed society. Pre Christ many of the punishments for actions of the people were God given as a way to restore that relationship.  Post Christ punishment is a reaction of society’s rules rather than a mandate by God.  Christ has changed that relationship, he has paid the price.  Everything about the relationship changes, it is so hard to fathom the community of life among the Israelites at the time of Moses simply because it is so far from our own experience. (Old law, nomadic, recent post slavery, visibly and physically connected to God)  And yet we find ourselves inextricably connected to them, because of a God that is universally constant, loving and just.  God more than permeates our society he set it in motion, it is built on the covenant he established with us.  For thousands of years people and society have shaped their communities based on this new covenant. Try as some may to keep God out of a society that is full of his believers; I think you will find that to be an effort in futility.  Where God’s people are He will be recognized.

 

Represent Him well today.

Rob

Deuteronomy 15-22 Today's thought

Deuteronomy 15-22 Today's thought

 

What a collection of verses this is, from canceling debt to cities of refuge to punishment for rape.  Moses continues to lay out God’s plan for His people.  It seams as though these people have lived with no rules no morality no understanding of permanent community.  It is as if everything is having to be told to them for the first time.  Well it’s kind of true.  The people who Moses is addressing have lived their whole life as wanders, a nomadic community with God literally in front of them.  Taking their daily actions based on the decree of Moses and his interactions with their God.  This is about to change, they are about to become a people of a region, territories divided among their tribes.  Life will be different for them from this point forward, the will be separated as a whole and autonomous as cities and regions.  No one living among them has experienced this and this has not been part of their culture for more than 400 years (pre slavery in Egypt) God, being the responsible God that he is, he is preparing them with all they will need to know.  It seems laborious and repetitive to see these rules laid out over and over, with only minute differences for many of them.  Yet that is who we know God to be.  A God that is concerned with the details, and a God that is concerned that his people have a right relationship with him. He knows that to have that relationship His people have to live within His will,  for his people to have a reasonable shot at this they have to be able to fully understand God’s will for them.  It may be difficult for us to grasp, but then again we have the luxury of printed law, hundreds of years of community development, and leaders that have been led themselves by those who paved the way.  They weren’t just learning how to be good followers of a God who desperately wanted to have relationship with them, they were learning how to be an established nation in a hostile land.  God had a plan and victory in store for them, but only on his conditions.  This is what Moses was trying to prepare them for.

 

Have a great day

Rob

 

Deuteronomy 12-15 = today's thought

Deuteronomy 12-15 = today's thought

 

God wants His people to be faithful, he wants them to succeed, he wants a right relationship with them.  He has instructed Moses to communicate His expectations.  So Moses continues on in his preparations of the people.  As you look over these last several chapters we are covering a lot of ground.  God knows how easily the people turn from following Him, he has seen their fickle hearts while wandering the last 40 years and he is leaving little room for misunderstanding of His expectations.  The specificity of some of these instructions is interesting, God is listing specific animals that are clean and unclean, specific forms of giving, specific instructions when overtaking their enemies.  Not general concepts but specific instructions.  He is a God who is most definitely involved in the details.  And if God is the same God today, and we know that he is, how have we come so far from specifically following God’s instruction.  As I think about the way we live our lives we often live our lives and our faith in the general realm and not in detailed intentional following.  We generally live as a Christian should live, but how is that evidenced different than just being good.  We may read the word, pray, etc… but is that study changing us, and is that change leading to action, and does our action communicate who Christ is to others.  With tens of millions of people professing to be followers of Christ, how come society doesn’t see us more distinctly different than they are.  We have concerned ourselves so much with being accessible we have in many ways made our beliefs irrelevant.  God was specific so his people would stand out.  He abhorred the following of other Gods, to the point he required in many circumstances their utter annihilation.  Moses instructions in chapters 12 and 13 to the Israelites were to fully destroy these places that worshiped false gods and to keep nothing that could lead them to be curious or interested in other Gods.  How different is that from the church today,  where tolerance is touted as enlightenment. Not only do we allow room for other gods, work, wealth, family, false gods, cults, false teaching, etc….we have made them part of our belief system in many ways, we even have a hard time agreeing much of the basics.  How come we are separated by the trivial rather than united around the core.  God’s desire for our lives is pretty specific,  He has a desire for us to know Him, seek Him, worship Him, share him with others.  And yet the things we concern ourselves with most of our days are not these things, but rather the things that he told us not to be concerned with, food, shelter, etc….  What would happen if tens of millions of people stopped focusing on our mortgages, our careers, our status, and all focused on sharing Christ.  It sounds ridiculous because it is so far from where we currently are, but isn’t it really who we are supposed to be and what we were created to do.  We will never arrive at the relationship we were created to have with God if we never set out on the journey.

 

Have a great day.

Rob

 

Deuteronomy 9-11 = Today's thought

Deuteronomy 9-11 = Today's thought

 

Moses continues to give direction to Israel, preparing them for their entrance into the Promised Land. Moses is quick to remind them however that as they proceed into the Promised Land that they not become arrogant as they see the miraculous victories that they witness God do before them.  Moses reminds them that they are a wicked people, undeserving of what the Lord has done for them and if they turn from God they will face certain consequence and destruction.  In chapter 11 Moses reaffirms what he instructed in chapter 6 that is that the Israelites must be careful not to be enticed by other gods,  he tells them again the way to do this is to : Fix the words of God upon their hearts and minds, tie them on their hands and forehead, teach them when you sit at home, when you travel, when you chat, when you lie down, when you get up (getting the picture here) put them on your homes and on your doorposts.  He says this so the days of their children will be many in the land that God is giving them.  Their faithfulness is a condition of this blessing, not of their relationship with God but definitely with the blessing of the Promised Land being a place of blessing and prosperity. 

 

Think of this application in our own lives, Where are our other gods, what do we teach in our homes, as we sit, chat, watch TV, travel.  What do we adorn our homes with, our bodies with,  is Gods word taught in the way we live our lives.  Is watching us making it easier for our children (those watching us) to see a people living in a right relationship with their God. It is easy to read these stories and be critical.  Introspection based on these stories however often has some sobering realities of its own.

 

What is on your life, your home, what are you communicating through your life and actions.  Is God able to bless the life you are living?

 

Have a great day,

Rob