Month: March 2023

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Choices!

Choose Life

Deut 30-32 and Ps 90 What are my choices today?

What is your legacy; what will you leave behind when the time comes for you to enter eternity?

Moses inaugurates Joshua to lead, and he challenges him to choose life which is really to choose God and His ways. He didn’t challenge him to work harder, be stronger, or any of that but to choose life! Choose life so that you and your descendants may live! [Deut 30:19] Follow God, choose Him, and honor Him. Then he added to that, be strong and courageous, for he knew what lay ahead.

What is your legacy today? Have you chosen life? Moses told Joshua that this is not too hard for you; it is not that you have to go and search for it across the world or go to heaven. But, it is front and center before you. Love the Lord your God, walk in his ways, and obey his commandments, his statutes, and his ordinances. Then you will live. That is the choice before us today as well and one we want to leave to our children.

Choose life! Love God! Obey God! 

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The Folly of Hypocrisy

hypocrisy or truth

Deut 29 God’s plan is pretty simple: obedience leads to blessing,  and disobedience leads to curses. Ironically we are much like the Israelites, a stubborn people. Hypocritically, we want to come to God on our terms, not His, and then we wonder why we are faced with such grievous lives. Deut 29:19 “It shall be when he hears the words of this curse that he will boast; I shall even have peace even though I follow the dictates of my heart.” Note his bold assertion is much like what we hear today; it is ok for you but not for me. It isn’t as if they can’t believe and obey, it is that they won’t believe and obey. Hypocritically, they say, “I have peace though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart.

The folly of hypocrisy is ever before us. Choose ye this day whom you will serve were Joshua’s words. Remember this; “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those that are revealed belong to us and our descendants forever, [why] so that we might obey all the words of this law” [Deut 29:29].

Are we a hypocrite in our words and actions? Turn around and walk the other way which is the way of truth.

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Protection for Women then and now

God cares

Deut 24 to 27 At first glance, we might think that God cares very little for each one of us, but nothing could be farther from the truth. Take the case of the divorced woman in Deut 24. We have no clues as to why her husband decided to divorce her. We aren’t told what that indecent factor is, but the woman is freed from that union. She remarries, and the second husband also seems to reject her and divorces her. God now has said she may not return to her first husband. We wonder why she would even consider that! God wants us to see His care for her when she has been in what might have been abusive situations.

Later, in Deut 25:5-10, we see how God protects women again. When a husband dies, the Law says the brother is to marry his sister-in-law and raise a child to keep the dead husband’s line honored. Yet suppose the brother refuses?  The woman is to take him to the council, where a verdict is rendered. Like the first two, this man is unworthy of her, so God protects her and honors her dead husband.

During his time on earth, Jesus honored women, and God is using these examples to remind Israel of their obligation to protect women.

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Relevance

relevance

Deut 21-22 God cares for the insignificant and the mighty. God cares for the little birds, and He cares for the women. In all of this, the principle is: That it may be well with you and that you may prolong your days.

Today, our young people face many challenges. All that is happening today is mocked as the “old-fashioned” ways, yet if we look carefully, we can see the reasons God placed these in his Word. The most vulnerable (the birds and the women) are placed side by side. God is saying; as I care for the least, so shall you do.  

There are two reasons for this: 1. obedience to the smallest is His command that brings blessing, and 2. kindness to the least carries over the greatest, and the contrast is true as well. Kindness is a Fruit of the Spirit, and God calls us to emulate that virtue to the smallest, the least, as well as to the greatest. 

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The Wheels of Justice

God's system of justice

Deut 17-20 Our US system of justice follows these patterns that Moses gave the Israelites. Just like then, so today, we must not judge a person based on the evidence of one witness but rather have at least two. This is impartial judging and brings forth truth rather than what is false.

Any death is a tragedy, but those that occur without a witness are even more so. At that time, just as now, a person was presumed innocent until proven guilty.  That is why Moses set aside several cities of refuge where a person could flee in those times when there were no witnesses. How gracious is our God to provide these places where one could flee and live unharmed until the truth could be revealed.  Those cities were also a place where even a true murderer could flee, but if and when the truth revealed that this person was certainly guilty, then the avenger could go and get him with a “posse” and bring him to justice.

God is concerned about a person’s life and reputation. God is honored when we listen and obey our judicial system.  

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Thankful for experts…”NOT”

Follow christ and him only

Deut 14-16 Today, we have a plethora of so-called experts on everything from climate change to the diets we are to use. “sigh” If there are any real experts, please stand up! That is where God comes in and says, listen, I am the expert, and I know what is best for you, and I created scavengers to clean the earth, but you are not to partake of them! Wisdom speaks, and it says to obey these laws so you can be free of disease.

Today are you thankful for the Word of God that is so clear and precise about such matters?

Second, there are” experts ” that live among us as if the OT is the go-to for today. So many live and would die over these laws, yet even Peter told the Jerusalem council that they could not be kept, and yet we have those “experts” today that say we must obey them.

Easter is coming, and it reminds us/me of the sacrifice of Jesus, that took away all those extraordinary laws that no one could keep! He is my Savior, and I am so thankful for the OT revealing what God requires but then the NT to see how Christ fulfilled every jot and tittle of those laws!

What “expert” are you following today? Is it someone that is a distraction from the gift of Christ?

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Encourage one another as God did.

Be an encouragement today

Deut 8-9 Paul wrote to the Ephesians to remind them that God is a promise keeper. He blessed them with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms. We once “were” but now “are” free from the shackles of sin. Moses, in essence, is saying that to the wandering Israelites who are now poised to enter the Promised Land.

Moses wanted them to recall that God did not set his love upon them or choose them because of anything within them but only because He loved them. Because of his love, he promised to keep his oath and redeem us. We also need this reminder that within us lies no good thing, yet because of His faithfulness, He chose us from eternity past for His purpose. “The promise that I make does not return to me, having accomplished nothing. No, it is realized as I desire and is fulfilled as I intend” [Is 55:11]

Unfortunately, more often than not, we are comfortable with our sins. Until we come to the place where we desire God more than our sins, we will remain imprisoned. So, take time today to thank God for His words of encouragement and then encourage someone else.

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God is Love and He Loves

God is LOVE

Deut 5-7 God Loves You!
The wandering Israelites are now ready to shed the past and move into the future. God allows Moses to speak to their hearts which are questioning their status. Moses reminded them that God is a God of love but also a God of justice. He had already told them: Num 23:19, “God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a human being, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not make it happen?” Now again, in Deut 7:7, God reiterates this thought along with this word: I love you not because of anything you have done or how many of you there are, but just because I am not like men who vacillate with their love, but I am God, and I am Love. However, I am also a jealous God. and will not tolerate waffling behavior regarding obedience. I will reject those who reject me because I am not just a God of love but a God of justice; that is my character. Therefore, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. [Deut 6:5]

Blessed Reader, when our arch-enemy comes calling, remind him of this fact: God loves you! God loves the world! [Jn 3:16] God’s character does not change; what He has said, He will do.

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God of Provision

God is the God of Provision

Deut. 1-2 Looking back over the years is something I have been doing lately. As I wandered through my journals and my thoughts, I am overwhelmed by how God has provided through the many moves. Each time, He has provided a new home, a new church, and new friends. That being said, is why I know so many all over the east coast and here in TX! Just as I have recalled the memories, Moses does as well for the new generation. They may or may not have grown up in Egypt, but they have seen all God has done in the last 40 years. Moses begins by saying to the Israelites; when you trusted God, He provided and protected, and when you chose not to trust Him, you failed-BIG TIME; Kadesh Barnea in particular. 🙁 Do you have a Kadesh Barnea in your past? Thankfully, God’s mercy has wiped our slate clean of all our past sins and failures. As Paul reminded the Ephesians, you heard and believed, and you were saved by His grace through faith. 🙂

Moses reminded them of the grace of God to those who seem the most unlikely: Esau and Lot. Like them, we have had failures on top of failures, along with blessings upon blessings. God’s mercy and grace abounded! Do we stop and wonder why God’s grace has overflowed on us? Isaiah has the answer: “Indeed, my plans are not like your plans, and my deeds are not like your deeds,” says the Lord,” [Is. 55:8[. Today, as you read these chapters in Deuteronomy, stop and thank God, who is “compassionate and gracious…slow to anger, and abounding in loyal love and faithfulness” [Ex. 34:6]

As Moses reminded them, so this is our reminder: “all the years God has been with us, we have lacked nothing.” [Deut 2:7]

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Honor Our Parents

Numbers 36 “A Stickey-Wicket Problem or Not?

Zelophehad had been a devoted father who had five daughters but no sons! We know he was faithful because the daughters eulogized him in chapter 27 “Our father died in the wilderness, although he was not part of the company of those that gathered themselves together against the Lord in the company of Korah, but he died for his own sin, and he had no sons.” Because the tribal lineage and legacy went through the male line, these daughters learned that their father’s name would be lost from among his family because of this law. Boldly, they asked Moses to rule that they receive  Zelophehad’s inheritance, and God agreed. Fast forward to chapter 36, and we find that the heads of their tribe came to Moses and reminded him that if they married out of their tribe, their dowry would be given to the new husband, the new tribe, along with their land.

 The girls agreed they should only marry in their tribe so that there would not be a problem with the land inheritance in the year of the Jubilee. God placed this long tale to remind us how to honor one’s legacy. These daughters are role models for obedience, decisions, and choices. They are mentioned in 3 chapters of Numbers and Joshua—and consistently named in their birth order.

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