Month: March 2019

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Deuteronomy 4 – 11

Keeping God’s commands involves both obeying them and not adding to them. For some of us obeying is easy; for those folks, the harder part might be not adding to them.  One example of adding to them would be Christians who hold to traditions and man-made institutions like they were commands from God.

The final words of Israel’s lawgiver instruct us as we take possession of and live in God’s promises to us. Moses warned them to be careful, to be diligent, not to deviate, to learn, to remember, and to teach. Their keeping of God’s commands was certainly not intended to be a casual part of their lives.

One way Moses gave them for remembering and keeping God’s commands was to “tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.” (v 6:8-9) So the people did just that: they kept passages of Scriptures in boxes strapped to their arms and heads, and carved them into the doorposts of their homes. Doing so fulfilled the command, but missing God’s intention, the action was meaningless and valueless.

God wanted what they had seen and known about Him to be on their hearts all the days of their lives. He wanted them to embrace their covenant, their relationship, with Him with all their hearts. He wanted them to love Him. Love is a matter of the heart, not of checking off boxes. He wanted them to obey His commands as a way of remembering Him, but He wanted their obedience to spring from their love for Him. When we love someone we want to please him or her. If pleasing the one we love is a matter of duty or performing the bare minimum, that isn’t love, is it?

God intended for those commands to be observed on a deeper level than the surface, to impact them more deeply than going through the physical motions. The symbolic tying of God’s commands on one’s hands meant that those commands should direct their actions and guide their work. Symbolically binding them on their foreheads meant that He wanted those commands to guide their thinking, decisions and behavior. Writing them on the doorposts on their houses meant that they would be evident in the home, in family relationships and in their work. Writing them on their gates would remind them to be guided by them as they left home and went into society.

Remember that Jesus said He came not to abolish but to fulfill the Law, and He gave us New Testament people few direct commands. He said that since God is spirit, His worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth. He sacrificed much to come to earth and suffered to restore us to right relationship with Him. How do all of these fit together, and with the revelation of God’s heart displayed in His Old Covenant? It merits a God-seeker’s prayerful consideration.

These chapters give us the occasion to evaluate our own relationships with God. Please do so prayerfully today and the next couple of days as you read.

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Deuteronomy 1 – 3

This book opens with Moses’ nutshell version of the nation’s history. He picked up the account at the point they had been formed into a nation, at Mt. Sinai (which is another name for what Moses here calls Horeb). God led them “through all that great and terrifying wilderness,” to an important place in their history, Kadesh-barnea.

We all have “great and terrifying wilderness” experiences in our lives, and we all face points of challenge like Kadesh-barnea, where we are confronted with a choice whether to trust God and go forward with Him, or turn away. Hopefully we are like Moses in Psalm 90:14, praying every morning that God will “satisfy us … with (His) unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.” Hopefully we follow Jesus’ example and pray, “… Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil….” This is the only way we can be prepared to handle our Kadesh-barneas better than God’s Old Testament people did.

So good God led His beloved people (He calls them so in Deuteronomy 7:8) through a “great and terrible wilderness.” The next stage of their journey didn’t improve their circumstances, for He brought them face to face with the prospect of war with giants. Do you ever have those seasons in your life, where you go from hard to harder? Can you trust God in those times to fight for you, to lead you to victory? Do you need to use the lesson of this passage to renew your commitment to trust God, asking Him to go before you and fight for you?

God has demonstrated His trustworthiness in His dealings with His Old Testament people. Later when they were ready for their second approach to the Promised Land, God warned them that taking possession would require them to contend with the enemy in battle. What looked like setback after setback, with one king hardening his heart and refusing to let the Israelites through his territory, to another king confronting them in battle array, God used to give His people victory. They captured every city; not one was too high for them as a result of God’s going before them and fighting for them.

This is His desire for all of His people, to be transformed from slaves into victorious soldiers and possessors.

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Numbers 30 – 31

As I wrote in last year’s post for these chapters (note the link to it in the underlined words), I can think of some good reasons why God’s treatment of women should differ from His treatment of men. The difference didn’t disparage or devalue women; rather, it gave them the good fortune to be granted reprieve from their “thoughtless utterances,” a privilege that men didn’t have. Our culture trains us to take offense at different treatment for women; we need to recognize that deception for what it is and instead submit to God’s higher ways and thoughts for our good.

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Numbers 27 – 29

Burnt offerings were a pleasing aroma to God. This is a part of His character that I find difficult. As much as He values His creation and demonstrates respect for life in His commands, I don’t believe that His pleasure indicates that He is cruel, although I believe Satan would like for us to be offended by it. This is something to give prayerful consideration as an opportunity to know God better.

Burnt offerings were recognized as a part of worship. It’s interesting that worship cost the people. In a culture where wealth was measured in flocks and herds, sacrificing burnt offerings was like throwing cash on an altar. God doesn’t need or value our cash any more than He needed food. So why did it please Him that they sacrificed their wealth? What does this teach you about right worship of God?

The schedule of their offerings teaches us about God’s desire for His people’s worship. They worshiped every day, morning and evening. An offering would have been burning on the altar continuously. What does that teach you about the worship God desires from you?

There were special observances each week on the Sabbath, and each month at the new moon. Every holiday featured worship of God, which would have made it part of their most treasured traditions as well as their everyday. Do you find Him worthy of including worship in your happiest occasions?

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Numbers 25 – 26

So we see why God forbid His people to interact with the people living in Canaan. They weren’t even in the Promised Land yet, and they had already disobeyed that command. And promptly gave in to the lure of worshiping other gods. That experience reinforces that God’s commands, harsh as they seemed, were protection for His people. Their observance would have protected the people from straying.

Once again, Israel’s experience offers us an opportunity to check ourselves, hopefully before we have to suffer the ugly consequences of sin. Do you feel safe flouting God’s (admittedly restrictive) warnings, which are given for your own protection, because you believe you are immune to the danger? God’s warnings are there for a reason. We may seem child-like to live by them rather than exercise our own judgment about the danger, but we must understand that God’s knows the danger better than we do.

The census taken at the end of the forty years in the wilderness is a reminder to us of God’s faithfulness to His promises, both for our good and our bad. The numbers indicate that God fulfilled His promise to Jacob to make his descendants into a great nation while they were in Egypt (Genesis 46:3), which of course also fulfilled His promise to Abraham to multiply his descendants. It also fulfilled His promise to the generation who rejected the Promised Land; not one of them were left except Caleb and Joshua. If He stuck to His promise to prevent their entrance into the Promised Land, will He also prevent sinners from entering the place of promised rest for eternity? Today’s reading is a sobering reminder to us, and an opportunity to evaluate where we stand so that we are prepared to be welcomed instead of rejected when we face Jesus.

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Numbers 14 – 15, Psalm 90

After rejecting God’s provision for them, the Israelites rejected God’s punishment for them and took off in pursuit of the Promised Land they had previously rejected! God’s mercy extended far enough that He didn’t destroy them all as He had Nadab and Abihu or the grumblers who perished at Taberah (v. 11:1-3), but no further. He did not relent this time, and they were stuck with the consequences of their choices.

One of sin’s effects on us is to harden us to sin. We grow used to our sin and it doesn’t offend us. We feel comfortable committing acts we never dreamed we could commit. That effect keeps us from seeing sin for the awful thing it is. The Israelites probably did not intend to show contempt for God with their complaints and turning away from the Promised Land, but that’s how God saw it. His viewpoint is the only one that matters.

Psalm 90 has felt like balm to my soul. Moses would have written this psalm during his forty years in the desert suffering not because of his own choices, but because of the people’s rebellion. In the midst of some painful and difficult situations of my own I appreciate the reminder that life isn’t easy for any of us, and we probably all have more difficult days than easy days in our lives. So why do we expect God to grant us better than that, or worse yet, expect to achieve better by our own efforts? Moses asked not for all glad days, but for more glad days than bad days.

This is probably important for us, because our enemy tries to convince us that a life of constant glad days is a realistic expectation, which keeps us striving instead of accepting from God and submitting to His will for our lives. Striving prevents us from ordering our days rightly. Rightly-ordered days each start with seeking God, being satisfied in His love and choosing to rejoice (there’s that word again!).

Can you imagine sitting in the desert, of all places, forty years with nothing to do, knowing that you could have been enjoying the fruits of your labor in an abundant land instead of twiddling your thumbs in that drab place? Those forty years would not have been glad days, but days of affliction. Yet Moses anticipated that God’s satisfying them with His love would result in their singing for joy and being glad all of the days of those forty years, and beyond. Can you expect the same in days of affliction?

Every morning we need to seek God. Moses didn’t admonish the people to be satisfied with God’s unfailing love; he asked God to satisfy them with His unfailing love. Can you choose to ask the same – each morning – and trust God to do it? I have placed this little gem before me so that I will remember to ask it each morning until it has become my habit.