Can I pray for you in any way?
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In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
“Remember
this and never forget how you provoked the Lord your God to anger in
the desert. From the day you left Egypt until you arrived here, you have
been rebellious against the Lord. At Horeb you aroused the Lord's wrath
so that he was angry enough to destroy you. When I went up on the
mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant
that the Lord had made with you, I stayed on the mountain forty days and
forty nights; I ate no bread and drank no water. The Lord gave me two
stone tablets inscribed by the finger of God. On them were all the
commandments the Lord proclaimed to you on the mountain out of the fire,
on the day of the assembly.”
“At the end of the forty days and forty nights, the Lord gave me the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant. Then the Lord told me, ‘Go down from here at once, because your people whom you brought out of Egypt have become corrupt. They have turned away quickly from what I commanded them and have made a cast idol for themselves.’"
“And the Lord said to me, ‘I have seen this people, and they are a stiff-necked people indeed! Let me alone, so that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under Heaven. And I will make you into a nation stronger and more numerous than they.’"
“So I turned and went down from the mountain while it was ablaze with fire. And the two tablets of the covenant were in my hands. When I looked, I saw that you had sinned against the Lord your God; you had made for yourselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. You had turned aside quickly from the way that the Lord had commanded you. So I took the two tablets and threw them out of my hands, breaking them to pieces before your eyes.”
“Then once again I fell prostrate before the Lord for forty days and forty nights; I ate no bread and drank no water, because of all the sin you had committed, doing what was evil in the Lord's sight and so provoking Him to anger. I feared the anger and wrath of the Lord, for He was angry enough with you to destroy you. But again the Lord listened to me. And the Lord was angry enough with Aaron to destroy him, but at that time I prayed for Aaron too. Also, I took that sinful thing of yours, the calf you had made, and burned it in the fire. Then I crushed it and ground it to powder as fine as dust and threw the dust into a stream that flowed down the mountain.”
“You also made the Lord angry at Taberah, at Massah and at Kibroth Hattaavah.”
“And when the Lord sent you out from Kadesh Barnea, He said, ‘Go up and take possession of the land I have given you.’ But you rebelled against the command of the Lord your God. You did not trust Him or obey Him. You have been rebellious against the Lord ever since I have known you.”
“I lay prostrate before the Lord those forty days and forty nights because the Lord had said He would destroy you. I prayed to the Lord and said, ‘O Sovereign Lord, do not destroy Your people, Your own inheritance that you redeemed by Your great power and brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. Remember Your servants Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Overlook the stubbornness of this people, their wickedness, and their sin. Otherwise, the country from which you brought us will say, “Because the Lord was not able to take them into the land He had promised them, and because He hated them, He brought them out to put them to death in the desert.” But they are Your people, Your inheritance that You brought out by Your great power and Your outstretched arm.’"
“At that time the Lord said to me, ‘Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones and come up to Me on the mountain. Also make a wooden chest. I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. Then you are to put them in the chest.’"
“So I made the ark out of acacia wood and chiseled out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I went up on the mountain with the two tablets in my hands. The Lord wrote on these tablets what He had written before, the Ten Commandments He had proclaimed to you on the mountain, out of the fire, on the day of the assembly. And the Lord gave them to me. Then I came back down the mountain and put the tablets in the ark I had made, as the Lord commanded me, and they are there now.”
(The Israelites traveled from the wells of the Jaakanites to Moserah. There Aaron died and was buried, and Eleazar his son succeeded him as priest. From there they traveled to Gudgodah and on to Jotbathah, a land with streams of water. At that time the Lord set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord to minister and to pronounce blessings in his name, as they still do today. That is why the Levites have no share or inheritance among their brothers; the Lord is their inheritance, as the Lord your God told them.)
“Now I had stayed on the mountain forty days and nights, as I did the first time, and the Lord listened to me at this time also. It was not His will to destroy you. ‘Go,’ the Lord said to me, ‘and lead the people on their way, so that they may enter and possess the land that I swore to their fathers to give them.’"
“And now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the Lord's commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?”
Deuteronomy 9:7-29, 10:1-13
This ends our reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
Through the remainder of Deuteronomy, chapter 9 and into the start of chapter 10, we see Moses, the leader of the Israelite people, reminding them about their history of stubborn sinfulness, a stubborn sinfulness that consistently violated God’s commands, laws, and decrees. From Horeb (also known as Mount Sinai) where Israel had worshipped the golden calf, leading Moses to smash the two stone tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments…to Taberah, Massah, and Kibroth Hattaavah…to Kadesh Barnea, where Israel blew their first attempt at entering Canaan and ended up wandering the desert for forty more years to get to where they were in our passage today, a people who were on the brink of entering the Promised Land.
Israel’s behavior was summed up like this as Moses told them:
“From the day you left Egypt until you arrived here, you have been rebellious against the Lord.”
This behavior greatly angered God and had it not been for the times Moses interceded for the Israelites, they might have been completely destroyed before they even got a chance to enter Canaan.
Well, that’s what we know about how Israel behaved but how about us?
If we were to sit down and document all the times that we have been stubborn in our sinfulness, how long would our list be?
On second thought, maybe we don’t want to go through that drill because if we’re honest, I believe we’ll see that we’re not much better than God’s people in Old Testament times.
Going back to our scriptures for today, we see Moses finish up his summation with some words of wisdom for the Israelites…and for us as well. For in his discourse, he lets his brothers and sisters know all the things the Lord expected from them, things He still expects from us today. As I close, let’s look at each one separately.
1. The Lord asks that we fear Him.
Does this mean that we are to cower in fear to the point where we are paralyzed and unable to function?
No, but it does mean that we are to hold our God in the greatest esteem and admiration. This part of verse 12 in The Message translation reads like this:
“Live in His presence in holy reverence”.
The bottom line us that He is the Lord God Almighty, the Maker and Master of all things. He is greater than anything or anyone and has no rival, a truth that should always command our complete respect for Him.
2. The Lord asks that we walk in His ways.
Life offers us many paths to travel and left to our own devices, we are destined to go astray and leave ourselves vulnerable to Satan’s attack. Thankfully, we can completely avoid this by following the leading of the Holy Spirit that dwells within everyone who has placed their belief in Jesus. He (the Holy Spirit) will always lead us on the narrow path to life (Matthew 7:14) that Jesus not only talked about but walked Himself so we could walk in His footsteps, and in doing so, live out His ways.
3. The Lord asks that we love Him.
How can we show God we love Him?
By staying obedient to His will and way, sacrificing everything for Him as He has done for us, perhaps no more than when He willingly surrendered and sacrificed Jesus, His Son, so that we might be saved from Hell and gain the blessing of eternal life in Heaven instead.
And when we lay our lives down for God, loving Him with all our heart and mind and soul and strength (Matthew 22:37), then we will love others as He does. For the scriptures tell us this:
“God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.” 1 John 4:16
4. The Lord asks that we serve Him with all our heart and soul.
We can’t just give God part of ourselves. We have to give Him everything.
We can do this when we make Him the treasure of our lives.
Go to the Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and you will find Him saying this in Matthew, chapter 6:
“Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” v. 21
If the Lord is our treasure, then He and He alone will be in our heart and when that happens, we will be able to serve Him with all that we are because all of Him will be within us.
Finally...
5. The Lord asks that we observe His commands and decrees.
We don’t get to make up our own rules in life.
God gave us His word to instruct us and impart wisdom. Then, He sent His only Son to walk the earth and model proper living to us, living that perfectly adhered to the will and Word of His Father. And as if that wasn’t already enough, He sent us the Holy Spirit to bring illumination and understanding of His Word and guidance on any and all life matters to ensure we do the right thing, the thing He wants, each and every time.
The bottom line is that we have no excuse Christ disciples today. Our God has given us everything we need to live as He desires. We just need to use our spiritual tools and comply with His commands and decrees with obedience.
Friends, there’s no mystery as to what the Lord expects from us. He definitely doesn’t leave us in a place where we need to sit back and wonder what He wants.
What He wants isn’t hard but in order to meet His wishes, we must first divorce ourselves from the world and its ways, a world that would lead us to live counter to everything our Lord desires. In response to today’s message, let’s all commit anew to the Lord and His principles, denying ourselves while seeking to carry out what He wants us to do each and every day.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.
