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March 14th
Today’s Bible reading is in Deuteronomy chapters 8,9,10.
Moses continues to preach his last sermon. He has been receiving messages from God and delivering them to the congregation of Israel for over 40 years.
God made it abundantly clear how important it was for Moses to “tell it like it is”...straight from God’s mouth to the people...no variation...no poetic license or preacher sermonizing...just straight forward God’s words...letting the message do the work not the messenger. When Moses added his own emotions and changed up some of God’s words, he was disciplined for it severely.
So I sense Moses’ passion for “getting it right” for the sake of his young charges. He tells them that they must be “careful” to observe “every word” from God. He tells them that they must remember the “whole way” that God led them in the wilderness.
Moses told them that “man does not live by bread alone...but by every word, that proceeds from the mouth of God.” So be careful not to miss any of it. Those people who think that they are living on bread alone are really the “walking dead”. Only God’s word gives real life.
I like what Spurgeon wrote: “Some believers don't have time “to live” by the words of God”, because they are too immersed in “fighting” with the words of God.
The worst implement to use to knock a man down is the Bible. It is intended for us to live upon it, not use it as our weapon in our controversies...let us make it our daily food upon which we rejoice to truly live.”
I love what God said through Jeremiah about the Word of God...”Let the prophet who had a dream tell it. But let the man who has my words speak it faithfully...for what is the chaff compared to the wheat?”
God was using Moses to arrest the spiritual attention of the young generation of Israel by telling them to try to remember the “whole way” God led you and your parents and grandparents through the wilderness these last years.
Moses told them that God was “humbling” the young nation with hard places and deflated egos that caused the people to finally cry out to God again. Moses said that God was “testing” them...not to help God know what was in their hearts. God already knew.
God was testing them to help them know what was in their own hearts. And when they would see the pride in their hearts and how it sought to glorify them instead of God, they would confess to God and each other that their “overestimation” of themselves had to go...if they wanted to walk in the power of God instead of their own.
Jesus said to His disciples, “follow me...you can be just like me.”
We think on that and immediately we think of the glory of his miracle-working life. We think about the crowds he drew with his power to heal diseases and even raise the dead.
We say, “sign me up...that sounds like a great adventure and lots of perks...Until we see the rejection of his message and who he claimed to be...in word and deed. Exciting until we hear the lies told about him in public and in secret that destroyed his family. His dangerous mission-inspired our sense of loyalty...until the whipping, until the nailing of him to the cross.
Jesus said follow me you can be like me...humbled and tested and tried, not by friends..not by enemies...but by His Father in heaven....And like Moses said in today’s reading...” all that humbling testing and trying is for your good and the glory of God.
It’s getting good friends.
Have a great day
