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Today’s reading: Deuteronomy 27:1–27

As we continue our journey through Deuteronomy with Moses and the tribe of Israel, we have come to the actual description of the journey across the Jordan. In this passage, Moses gives specific instructions on how the people will cross the Jordan. Moses informs them what they will get from the Jordan, the stones for the altar. Then Moses explained how they will come in this new land with proclamations over them. These proclamations are written as blessings and curses.

Relationship. This is the one word that describes what is happening here. The relationship that God had with Israel. The relationship that was between God and Israel was strained when they were freed and sent into the wilderness. God had everything ready for the people and they didn’t trust God because their relationship was not strong enough. Throughout Deuteronomy and the entire Bible the main theme and the main focus is : relationship. In Deuteronomy we are seeing a new reset of expectations for the entire people of Israel. We are seeing that God is giving them a reset of the expectations and a reset of their relationship. God is not concerned about all of the small things but he wants us to be in a relationship with him.

Is the beginning of this Passage, when Moses is instructing the people how to gather the stones. God has instructed Moses to tell the people to use uncut stones. This was not a mistake. God wanted the people to obey and to make no excuses in their worship. He did not want them to get obsessed with the cutting and the perfection of the stones for the altar, He just wanted their love, their devotion and relationship with them.

Blessings and curses have been used throughout the Bible and throughout time. Blessings are defined as special favor, mercy, or benefits that have been given to you from God. Curses are defined as a prayer or invocation for harm or injury to come upon the person. When we see or hear these particular words, Blessings and Curses , many images come to our minds. But if we actually take a step back and understand the truth underlying meaning of both of these words, we can see that they can be linked back to relationships.

When we are in a relationship with God, we understand his purpose for us and his direction for us. When we are in a relationship with him, his favor is with us. But when we choose to go against his words or his will, then we are not in a relationship with him. And when we have a disconnect from God we feel out of place and lonely and disconnected. So when we try to redefine these words of blessings and curses that we see here in Deuteronomy, we can actually see it as being in relationship with God or not a relationship with God.

Hosea 6:6 “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”

‭‭Hosea‬ ‭6:6‬ ‭ESV‬‬

God‘s main focus for us is to be in a relationship with him. He does not want all of the things that we have put upon him to love us. He does not need our money, he does not need our riches, he does not need our sacrifices. The one thing that God needs is our relationship with him. When we start a relationship with him and maintain this relationship we can see the blessings and curses better.

Let’s look at a relationship with God as if we are going to an optometrist. We are able to live our daily lives without perfect vision. We might be able to see our world fairly clearly. But when we have been reviewed and examined we might come up a little out of focus. We are prescribed new glasses. Then the world that we have been living in and observing becomes clearer and the obstacles more pronounced and the opportunities are more defined. With our relationship with God, we have a new prescription and are able to see what are our obstacles and opportunities. In a similar manner to the optometrist , we must get a check up on our relationship with God on a regular basis.

This is what the relationship that we have with God changes. It creates new expectations and clarity to our lives. We are able to navigate the world with more light and not fall into pitfalls of our own creations. We can stay in connection with God without trying to do more things, but just being in relationship with him.

My relationship with God has not always been the best. I have fallen down many times. I have been shown grace and many times over. But I realize that my relationship is dynamic and living. It is not static and nonliving. I have to daily reassess my relationship and make a commitment to move forward. That is what God wants, he knows that it will not be perfect but He wants to be with us no matter what may come.

Be Blessed

7 years ago, my husband and I stood on a beach in Mexico with our children and recommitted our marriage vows to one another. We wrote down our own words and said them to each other. This was not a formal ceremony, no pastor or special person, except our children to hear that we would continue to love and honor each other. I have to admit, I thought my husband did a much better job at coming up with the words to honor me than I did. But, I know that it was the act of recommitting our covenant 20 years after our original vows that was the important aspect.

This marriage renewal was a special occasion for us, it didn’t make us more married or more in love with each other. There was no “legal” person there to witness the event, but it served a very useful purpose in our lives.

Today in our reading of Deuteronomy 26, the people were remembering that they had committed to follow the Lord.

The Lord your God commands you this day to follow these decrees and laws; carefully observe them with all your heart and soul. You have declared this day that the Lord is your God and that you will walk in obedience to him, that you will keep his decrees, commands and laws-that you will listen to him.
Deuteronomy 26:16-17

The people were proclaiming this covenant before entering the land. This renewal of vows reminds us of something important that we have committed to doing. The people were remembering they had made a commitment to follow the Lord.

It is easy in the busy daily life to forget the importance of the day we committed to follow Jesus. Maybe it was a few months ago, a year ago, or more than 30 years ago, but it is good to remember the day we decided to follow the Lord. Think back today on the day you gave your life to Jesus. Remember the commitment you made and the joy that filled your heart. Everyday we have the opportunity to ask for forgiveness and surrender to Jesus again.  Maybe take a moment today to recomit your life to Jesus, to walk with Him.

Today’s reading is Deuteronomy 12.

One of the basic tips of gardening is when pulling weeds, to always make sure you pull out the entire plant from the root, or else it can grow back from just a little bit of the root. I’ve heard this countless times; it was something I kept in mind when we planted our first real garden this spring. But after a summer of laziness on my part, as I look out into our backyard garden half-full of weeds, I’m woefully reminded of the diligence in removing your weeds properly, all the way down to the root, as soon as you can.

Moses’s commands to his people in Deuteronomy 12 to “destroy the all the places where the nations whom you dispossess served their gods” makes me consider my own diligence in rooting out the weeds, not just in a garden, but in my soul & mind. The Israelites had problems throughout the Old Testament of being tempted to turn back to the ways of the world in impatience after God had seen them through trial after trial. Knowing this, Moses made sure they knew to destroy any temptation to fall back to worldly sinful ways by completely ridding any sign of it from the very foundation. The mention of yeast throughout the Bible explains this point (5 Galatians 9: “ A little leaven leavens the whole lump.”) The smallest concession to sin makes one wholly sinful; the momentary distraction of the relics of the gods of man can lead to whole corruption. Instead, we are called to be like Jesus, wholly man but wholly without sin, no concession even when the Devil himself came to convince Him face-to-face to do things His own way.

Instead, Moses encourages us: “You shall not do according to all that we are doing here today, everyone doing whatever is right in his own eyes, for you have not  yet come to the rest and to the inheritance that the lord your God is giving you.” (Deut. 12:8-9) Instead we are to do as the Lord wants for us to be with Him and receive His blessings. 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 says “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him, for God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.” When we leave the root of our sin unchecked, encouraged to do things how we want as those of the world would do without a second thought, we open ourselves to the seed of sin growing uncontrollably and choking out the bountiful harvest the Lord has in store for us.

I pray today that the Lord would strengthen me to examine deeply where I have left the root of sin unchecked in my life so that I may better address and avoid doing what wouldn’t please Him. I pray for the courage, self-awareness, and love of what is holy to seek not what the world tells me is okay, what is pleasing in my own eyes, but what pleases the Lord. I rejoice that the Lord has delivered me through the trials of the past to be here now to worship Him, and am thankful and hold on to the hope of the inheritance I have in the Lord.

This past June I set a goal to begin walking. After healing from a broken ankle last fall, I started at ground zero! The best part of my new habit is that I did not have to do it alone! My Mom and my sister joined me almost everyday. Although the walking definitely has helped with my general fitness level, I have increased my distance from 1.5 to now 3 miles a day, what I enjoyed most was the time spent with my Mom and sister. We walked close together on the trail. We were not silent on our walks, rather we talked most of the time. We communicated so many things that would not have been discussed had we not chosen to walk together this summer.

We read about walking with God in Deuteronomy 10.

And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, 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 10:12-13

In these two verses above, God is giving Israel the basic things that He requires of them. These are also the same things that God is requiring of us today.

He calls us to:
1 – Fear Him
2 – Walk in obedience
3 – Love Him
4 – Serve Him with all our heart and soul
5 – Observe His commands

Fearing God does not mean that we are to be afraid of Him. Fearing God means having such a reverence for Him that it has a great impact on the way we live our lives. When we fear God, we respect Him, obey Him, submit to Him, and worship Him.

Just as I walked closely and communicated with my Mom and sister this summer, we are called to walk close to God. Walking is an action. We are called to take action and do the things that we know that God wants us to do. Walking in step with God throughout the day keeps us connected to Him and following His lead.

Deuteronomy 7:9-10

9 “Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and Keep His commandments; 10 and He repays those who hate Him to their face, to destroy them. He will not be slack with him who hates Him; He will repay him to his face.”

Do you fear God?  Do you love God? Can you love someone and fear them at the same time?

In a worldly sense, I think these two emotions are difficult to maneuver.  When we love someone, we have an unending appreciation, value, and yearning for a relationship with them.  We want to be with them and spend time with them.  We know them and trust them.

When we fear someone, we avoid them.  We resent them.  We may even hate them, to use a much harsher word.  The individual may have altered our lives in a way that seems unforgivable.

Here is how I ratify the two emotions as it relates to God, where I both love and fear Him.

God shows me mercy and grace every day.  I sin and He forgives.  I sin again, and His promises in scriptures says He will forgive again, if I repent and ask for forgiveness.  He showed us inconceivable love by sending His son, Jesus, to earth to become a man, to live a perfect life, breath scripture into our world, and suffer a horrible death to demonstrate His love for us.  God is merciful every day and His actions speak louder than words.

As for it relates to fear, I don’t want to disappoint God.  I have developed a relationship with Him that I do not want to “let Him down.”  I know that if I don’t live by scripture, follow His guidance, I will be punished.  Much like a parent and child relationship, I wish to please my Father.   Growing up, I “feared” my parents, as I did not want to disappoint them.  I did not fear mental or physical harm, by any means.  I “feared” letting them down as I knew right from wrong, good from bad, and I did not ever want them to be upset with me.

At a whole other level of fear, I know that if I don’t believe that Jesus died on the cross to forgive my sins, I will not spend eternity in Heaven with Jesus and the rest of my relatives that have passed.  I know that I will be sent to “Hades,” as the Bible calls it, where I will suffer great pain and “gnashing of teeth.”  That is not for me.

For me, I have learned right from wrong.  I know the standards and morals that I should live in my life.  My foundation for truth and direction is the Bible.  The Bible provides me specific guidance on how God wants me to live my life.  As such, I expect that if I sin against God, I will be punished as is written in the Bible.  As I did not want to disappoint my parents, I do not want to disappoint God.  My parents did not deserve my sin, and God certainly does not either.

Today’s Reading:  Deuteronomy 5:1-22

Earlier in my career, I got to lead the design and implementation of a few enterprise programs that enabled my employer to comply with different laws and regulations.  Every program was a little different, as each had its own unique set of challenges.  But all of them eventually led us to the same question – “How much is enough?”  Our business partners who were responsible for executing the programs always asked more detail.  They wanted a checklist that told them exactly what to do. That way, they always had an answer for every circumstance and were less likely to make a wrong decision.  From an enterprise view, however, the law of diminishing marginal returns usually applied.  While enough rigor to produce compliant outcomes was a must, we didn’t need to measure and monitor every little thing in order to drive the right behavior.

Today’s scripture in Deuteronomy 5 is the Ten Commandments.  Verse 22 of this passage caused me to reflect on the question – “How much is enough?”

These are the commandments the Lord proclaimed in a loud voice to your whole assembly there on the mountain from out of the fire, the cloud and the deep darkness; and he added nothing more. Then he wrote them on two stone tablets and gave them to me (Deuteronomy 5:22).

Did you catch the end of the first sentence?  “And he added nothing more” tells us that God concluded ten commandments were enough to drive the right behavior.  We have five commandments about how we relate to God and five commandments about how we relate to other people.

In Matthew 22, Jesus affirmed that loving God and loving other people were [are] the key principles of God’s plan for our lives.

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:37-49).

If Jesus is truly the Lord of our lives, ten commandments are enough to give us the guidance we need.