April 28, 2021
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Reading along with us in Deuteronomy? Here’s today’s reading:
Deuteronomy 11 (NIV)
Love and Obey the Lord
1 Love the Lord your God and keep his requirements, his decrees, his laws and his commands always. 2 Remember today that your children were not the ones who saw and experienced the discipline of the Lord your God: his majesty, his mighty hand, his outstretched arm;......Continue Reading
What was really impressed on me here was the importance God placed in this chapter of handing down to their children what they had seen God do in their lives. It was mentioned several times and it is important for us to show our children what God has done for us. It isn’t always enough to tell a kid to believe something simply because I said but rather show them why we believe by telling them what God has done in our lives to help them see Him in their own!
You can almost hear Moses’ passion and concern as he instructs the people to follow God. The fact that he repeats Himself is just further affirmation of Hid desire to see them get this right, especially after the failure of the former generation. Moses certainly desires for the blessings and the cursings to motivate the Israelites. God has good things to provide if you obey and bad things to bring about if you don’t. Both dynamics are intended to convince us to follow and obey, which is the only way that God can condone. But once again Moses emphasizes that in order to follow, the knowledge of God has to be pursued. It has to be reenforced and repeated. It is far too easy for us to forget so we need to always have the word before us.
It is really sad to consider how poorly the Jews did after all these warnings and encouragement. They certainly could not say they were never told…..and the same goes for us as well……
You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.
I am to treasure God’s word. I am to lay it up in my heart, let it take root, and produce fruit in my life. Its presence in my life should overflow to where I speak of it in my daily activities.
“See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse— the blessing if you obey the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today; the curse if you disobey the commands of the Lord your God and turn from the way that I command you today by following other gods, which you have not known.”
Deuteronomy 11:26-28 NIV
https://www.bible.com/111/deu.11.26-28.niv
Obey God – be blessed, Disobey – be cursed
Moses tells the people that they are being given a land that they don’t need to tend by hand and foot and water “as a vegetable garden”. This is a land that God tends and waters and plants and prospers. As a gardener, this would be bliss! Their requirement: obey the Lord.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul, and he will Bless you!
26See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse— 27the blessing if you obey the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today; 28the curse if you disobey the commands of the Lord your God and turn from the way that I command you today by following other gods, which you have not known. 29When the Lord your God has brought you into the land you are entering to possess, you are to proclaim on Mount Gerizim the blessings, and on Mount Ebal the curses.