March 19, 2012 … Choosing Our Course In Life

Passage of the Day: Reference of Today’s Chronological Bible Study: Deuteronomy, Chapters 28-29 … To study these chapters, go to this link -

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Highlight Reference Passage : Deuteronomy 28: 64-66 … 64 Then [if Israel disobeys God’s Covenant] the LORD will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods—gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your ancestors have known. 65 Among those nations you will find no repose, no resting place for the sole of your foot. There the LORD will give you an anxious mind, eyes weary with longing, and a despairing heart. 66 You will live in constant suspense, filled with dread both night and day, never sure of your life.
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Highlight Reference Passage #2 : Deuteronomy 28: 9 … Carefully follow the terms of this covenant, so that you may prosper in everything you do.
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My Journal for Today: Okay, Moses reviews and lays out God’s Covenant with His chosen people who’ve been purified in the wilderness for 40 years in preparation for their cross over into the promised-land; and when you read Chapters 28-29 of Deuteronomy, knowing what the people knew, hearing Moses lay out God’s promise for obedience and His warnings for disobedience, and looking ahead to the exciting promise of finally being able to claim what God had promised His people in the land across the Jordan, I just have to shake my head with ire as I read the prophetic promise and historically fulfilled truth in the first highlight passage in Deut. 28: 64-66.

Obviously, we know that God’s people did, in fact, disobey the Mosaic Covenant [see Deut. 29] and were dispersed all over the known world (Israel by the Assyrians and Judah by the Babylonians and then all of the Jews by the Romans). And we know that they have – for centuries – lived in oppression, awaiting the complete fulfillment of God’s promises, which we Christians know will take place when Jesus, the Messiah, returns for His Bride (i.e., His chosen peoples), … the Jews and His Church.

But I charge you today to read through what I studied this morning in these two chapters in Deuteronomy. If you were a family, hearing what Moses laid out by reviewing the consequences of obedience or disobedience to the Covenant God had given His chosen people, and you believed what Moses was saying as the very word of God, what would your choice be – obedience or disobedience?

>>> No brainer; right?!!

Well, then we have to ask ourselves, knowing what we know from having all of God’s word [i.e., our Bible] and having the New Covenant from the life, death, and resurrection of THE MESSIAH, why do so many today refuse to believe and live according to the word which God Himself says is the only truth we can rely upon in the world (see Numbers 23: 19, Isaiah 55: 11, and 2nd Timothy 3: 16-17)?

Duh! … We falter in this world – today – for the same reasons which God’s people faltered when they finally crossed over the Jordan and moved into the promised-land for the first time. And God did exactly what He said He would do – through Moses – by dispersing His chosen people into every corner of the world. And we know – from history – that His people have been chastened and challenged throughout known history, … just as God promised would happen. BUT – big “but” - God’s promise to His people, including that promise now available to those of us, through Christ, in the New Covenant, is still out there, awaiting all who believe in His Son, the bearer of the promise of eternal life.

And what we have ahead of us is to believe and to cross over our Jordan, from our past into our future, headed for the promised-land, our place in Heaven, which is reserved for us by the One Who shed His blood so that we could be saved from our own deceitful hearts. But we have to choose to believe and to live as God demands by His word. And when we do, we will become children of the promise, living in the light of His promised-land and avoiding all the pitfalls of death and despair which come from disobedience. I pray that you are living in that light and doing al you can – as am I – to be children of faith in the promise of life rather than those who must live in the despair produced by sin and death.
And if you have about five minutes and would like to tag on to this devotional a wonderful song about the promise which comes by living in the faith of Christ, go to this link and hear a great song, by Keith and Kristyn Getty, which will raise your faith and make your choice of obedience much stronger.

My Prayer Today: … Thank You, Lord, for pursuing me until I saw that believing and following Your light was my partially fulfilled promised-land in this life, and being realized completely in the next. Amen