August 31, 2017
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Reading along with us in Deuteronomy? Here’s today’s reading:
Deuteronomy 8 (ESV)
“The whole commandment that I command you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers. 2 And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. 3 And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. 4 Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these forty years. 5 Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the Lord your God disciplines you. 6 So you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him. 7 For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, 8 a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, 9 a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. 10 And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you… Continue Reading
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3And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord
“Take care lest you forget the LORD your God by not keeping His commandments and His rules and His statutes, which I command you today,”
“Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the LORD your God disciplines you.” Deuteronomy 8:5
During the 40 years in the desert, God disciplined (reformed, instructed, chastened, taught) His people so they would learn to obey Him, for their good. Not because He’s a prison warden or despot, but because He loves them and wants them to have and enjoy all that He has prepared for them.
Imagine if our parents, as flawed as they are, took the lazy road and did not discipline us! What would we miss out on? Freedom, for one! We need only look at our nation today to see the fruit of permissiveness and a lack of discipline in the home while children are young and malleable, before rebellion takes root and produces the fruit of foolishness and destruction. You do not love your children if you do not discipline them!
I’m so thankful for God’s loving and perfect discipline. It is always for my good. Always.
“And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? ‘My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.’ It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” Hebrews 12:5-11
“Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.” Proverbs 12:1
“Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.” Proverbs 13:24
“My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the Lord reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights.” Proverbs 3:11-12
“Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.” Revelation 3:19
Test you to know what is in your heart
Remember the Lord and His commands and don’t forget them. It’s pretty sad that they/we have to be told that and yet how necessary it is for us to be reminded of this tendency. We all know what it is like…self sufficiency, letting the very things God has provided for us lead us to stray from Him because we make it about us and our success. We become convinced that we can handle it without God when the only reason we were handling in the first place was because of God.
We do that by disregarding and disobeying His commands as well as not pursuing the provision and power that God gives us for the Christian life, like not being in the word, or prayer, or the Spirit. Do we need God to make us hungry so we will have to look to Him for food? Do we need God to humble us rather than us humbling ourselves?