Deuteronomy 10:12-13 Love the Lord

 12And now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God by walking in all His ways, to love Him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13and to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD that I am giving you this day for your own good?

These apply to us also!

Fear of the Lord, a heart that honors Him and hesitant to offend.

Walk in His ways, walk in love towards others.

To love Him with all your heart ❤️.

The serve the Lord with all your heart and with all your soul, serve Him in a way that your heart and soul sings so others see Jesus is in you.

Keep the commandments, The greatest commandment: Matthew 22:  ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’e 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’

Some say they are a Christian but few act like it.

Do the above tributes apply to you?

Blessings 

Deuteronomy 10:10-11 Return to Me!

 10I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights, like the first time, and that time the LORD again listened to me and agreed not to destroy you.

11Then the LORD said to me, “Get up. Continue your journey ahead of the people, that they may enter and possess the land that I swore to their fathers to give them.”

“Getting right with God after a time of rebellion must always come to a place of progress again. It does no good to come back to the word, come through God’s priesthood in Jesus, and then remain stuck in the same place. God wants us to move on with Him, and when we are walking right with God again, we will go in and possess the land.” (Guzik)

Rebellion is a hard word, but when we sin we are in rebellion with God and saying that when Jesus died on the cross for our sins it didn’t matter!

Thankfully we have a loving God and Jesus keeps sticking out His to us saying, return to Me.

Have you returned to the Lord? Get up!

Blessings 

Deuteronomy 10:6-9 You can’t do it on your own!

6The Israelites traveled from Beeroth Bene-jaakan to Moserah, where Aaron died and was buried, and Eleazar his son succeeded him as priest. 7From there they traveled to Gudgodah, and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a land with streams of water.

8At 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 serve Him, and to pronounce blessings in His name, as they do to this day. 9That is why Levi has no portion or inheritance among his brothers; the LORD is his inheritance, as the LORD your God promised him.

The need for a priesthood shouted to Israel: “You can’t do it on your own. You need to come to God through a mediator, who will atone for your sin, pray for you, and bless you. If you refuse your priestly mediator, and trust in your own ability to do these things, you will perish.” (Guzik)

We can’t do it on our own either! Only by grace and with our Mediator, Jesus Christ can we come to God. Jesus atoned for our sins on the cross, He prays for you and He blesses you!

Accept His grace and be accepted by God.

Blessings 

Deuteronomy 10:1-5 God-breathed

 1At that time the LORD said to me, “Chisel out two stone tablets like the originals, come up to Me on the mountain, and make an ark of wood. 2And I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke; and you are to place them in the ark.”

3So I made an ark of acacia wood, chiseled out two stone tablets like the originals, and went up the mountain with the two tablets in my hands. 4And the LORD wrote on the tablets what had been written previously, the Ten Commandmentsa that He had spoken to you on the mountain out of the fire on the day of the assembly. The LORD gave them to me, 5and I went back down the mountain and placed the tablets in the ark I had made, as the LORD had commanded me; and there they have remained.

God-breathed

“God wanted His written word to be the starting point for Israel’s right walk with Him. Therefore, He restored the tablets, even writing on the second tablets with His own hand.” (Guzik)

2 Timothy 3: 16All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for instruction, for conviction, for correction, and for training in righteousness,

If all Scripture is God-breathed isn’t it essentially written with His own hand?

Blessings 

Deuteronomy 9:26-29 Power of Prayer

 26And I prayed to the LORD and said, “O Lord GOD, do not destroy Your people, Your inheritance, whom You redeemed through Your greatness and brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. 27Remember Your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Overlook the stubbornness of this people and the wickedness of their sin. 28Otherwise, those in the land from which You brought us out will say, ‘Because the LORD was not able to bring them into the land He had promised them, and because He hated them, He has brought them out to kill them in the wilderness.’ 29But they are Your people, Your inheritance, whom You brought out by Your great power and outstretched arm.”

Power of Prayer 

“Moses asked for mercy upon Israel because of God’s past faithfulness to the patriarchs, because of concern for the glory of God’s own name and His reputation among the nations, because they were God’s people.” (Guzik)

"Prayer pulls the rope down below and the great bell rings above in the ears of God. Some scarcely stir the bell, for they pray so languidly; others give only an occasional jerk at the rope. But he who communicates with heaven is the man who grasps the rope boldly and pulls continuously with all his might." (C H Spurgeon)

Do you stir the bell, pray so languidly, give an occasional jerk at the rope or do you grasp the rope boldly and pull continuously with all your might?

I’m afraid I fall into the first three descriptions!

Blessings 

Deuteronomy 9:23b, 24-25 Moses’s Prayer

 But you rebelled against the command of the LORD your God. You neither believed Him nor obeyed Him. 24You have been rebelling against the LORD since the day I came to know you. 25So I fell down before the LORD for forty days and forty nights, because the LORD had said He would destroy you.

“Israel’s disobedience to God began with their unbelief. They did not believe God loved them and was mighty enough to bring them into the Promised Land.” (Guzik)

Moses’s Prayer

Exodus 32: 11But Moses sought the favor of the LORD his God, saying, “O LORD, why does Your anger burn against Your people, whom You brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? 12Why should the Egyptians declare, ‘He brought them out with evil intent, to kill them in the mountains and wipe them from the face of the earth’? Turn from Your fierce anger and relent from doing harm to Your people. 13Remember Your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, to whom You swore by Your very self when You declared, ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, and I will give your descendants all this land that I have promised, and it shall be their inheritance forever.’ ”

Look at verse 25 and the length of time Moses fell down before the Lord! 

How long do we pray daily? 🤔

Seems lacking, doesn’t it?

Blessings 

Deuteronomy 9:22-23 What’s in a name?

 22You continued to provoke the LORD at Taberah, at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah. 23And when the LORD sent you out from Kadesh-barnea, He said, “Go up and possess the land that I have given you.”

What’s in a name?

Taberah means “burning”, burning fires of God’s judgment, where the Israelites immediately complained.

Massah means “tempted”, where Israel provoked the LORD by doubting His loving care.

Kibroth Hattaavah “graves of craving” the place where Israel longed for meat instead of manna, and God gave them meat.

It’s a good thing that the Lord doesn’t rename a place every time we complain, are tempted or have a craving because we’d be continually lost!

Let these verses be a lesson for us, don’t wander through life complaining, tempted and craving. Find happiness in Jesus Christ.

Blessings 

Deuteronomy 9:20-21 Have your god and drink it too!

 20The LORD was angry enough with Aaron to destroy him, but at that time I also prayed for Aaron. 21And I took that sinful thing, 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 I cast it into the stream that came down from the mountain.

Look at the power of prayer, it had spared the Israelites and Aaron!

“Moses burnt the idol, ground it up, and sprinkled it in the people’s drinking water for three reasons.

· To show this god was nothing and could be destroyed easily.

· To completely obliterate this idol.

· To make the people pay an immediate consequence of their sin.” (Guzik)

Have your god and drink it too! Let this be an example for us, what is your god and are you drinking from it too?

Blessings 

Deuteronomy 9:18-19 Listened to me

 18Then I fell down before the LORD for forty days and forty nights, as I had done the first time. I did not eat bread or drink water because of all the sin you had committed in doing what was evil in the sight of the LORD and provoking Him to anger. 19For I was afraid of the anger and wrath that the LORD had directed against you, enough to destroy you. But the LORD listened to me this time as well.

“The Hebrew word here is a rare word, translated in the Septuagint by the strong word ekphobos, which means “exceedingly frightened” or “stricken with terror.” When he saw the sin of Israel and knew the holiness of God, Moses was very afraid for the sake of the people of Israel.” (Guzik)

Does the Lord listen to you as well?

To answer that question, you have to ask yourself, do I talk to Him?

When you talk to Him you also have to add the words of Jesus in the garden, 

Luke 22:42 “Father, if You are willing, take this cup from Me. Yet not My will, but Yours be done.”

We have to be in His will. So, whatever you ask add the words, Your will be done.

Blessings 

Deuteronomy 9:15-17 Anger!

 15So I went back down the mountain while it was blazing with fire, with the two tablets of the covenant in my hands. 16And I saw how you had sinned against the LORD your God; you had made for yourselves a molten calf. You had turned aside quickly from the way that the LORD had commanded you. 17So I took the two tablets and threw them out of my hands, shattering them before your eyes.

Anger!

Was Moses’s anger justified or was it a sin? Imagine the two tablets written with the finger of God, destroyed! 

You will have to read on further and decide by the word of the Lord spoken to Moses and determine if he was disciplined! I believe he was!

Anger does that to us, sometimes it’s justified but it’s how we react to anger than ensnares us.

Does your anger go off like a flash in the pan or do you separate yourself from the world and lift your anger up to the Lord in prayer? 

If the later, did you wait for His answer?

Blessings 

Deuteronomy 9:13-14 Stiff-necked!

 13The LORD also said to me, “I have seen this people, and they are indeed a stiff-necked people. 14Leave Me alone, so that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven. Then I will make you into a nation mightier and greater than they are.”

Stiff-necked people, leave me alone, so I may destroy and blot out their name!

Has the Lord ever said this about me or you? Makes me think about running and hiding like Jonah!

Fortunately we have Jesus Christ to intercede for us and my stiff-neck is only arthritis!

It can be said of stiff-necked people, strong as a mule and twice as stubborn!

A word of warning, if your name isn’t in the Lambs Book of Life, in the end it will be blotted out!

Blessings 

Deuteronomy 9:8-12 Corruption

 8At Horeb you provoked the LORD, and He was angry enough to destroy you. 9When I went up on the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that the LORD made with you, I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I ate no bread and drank no water.

10Then the LORD gave me the two stone tablets, inscribed by the finger of God with the exact words that the LORD spoke to you out of the fire on the mountain on the day of the assembly. 11And at the end of forty days and forty nights, the LORD gave me the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant. 12And the LORD said to me, “Get up and go down from here at once, for your people, whom you brought out of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. How quickly they have turned aside from the way that I commanded them! They have made for themselves a molten image.”

“This recalls the events at Mount Sinai, where Israel worshipped a golden calf when Moses was gone a long time on Mount Sinai, receiving the law from the LORD (Exodus 19-32).” (Guzik)

How quickly we turn from the Lord and corrupt ourselves!

Are we any different than the Israelites? I say no because of our human sinful nature. 

Only when we leave our earthly tent will we be changed! Paul agrees!

Romans 7: 18I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh; for I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19For I do not do the good I want to do. Instead, I keep on doing the evil I do not want to do. 20And if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it………….

24What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then, with my mind I serve the law of God, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

Move forward today, “Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

Blessings 

Deuteronomy 9:7 Rebelling

 7Remember this, and never forget how you provoked the LORD your God in the wilderness. From the day you left the land of Egypt until you reached this place, you have been rebelling against the LORD.

“God’s purpose in reminding Israel of their rebellions against Him was not to discourage them or to make them feel defeated. The purpose was so that they would recognize their own weakness and trust in Him.” (Guzik)

1 Corinthians 10: 11Now these things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.

When we remember our sinful nature, we walk in the poverty of spirit Jesus said was essential to a life of blessing:

Matthew 5: 3“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Have you been rebelling against the Lord?

Blessings 

Deuteronomy 9:4-6 Righteousness

 4When the LORD your God has driven them out before you, do not say in your heart, “Because of my righteousness the LORD has brought me in to possess this land.” Rather, the LORD is driving out these nations before you because of their wickedness.

5It is not because of your righteousness or uprightness of heart that you are going in to possess their land, but it is because of their wickedness that the LORD your God is driving out these nations before you, to keep the promise He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 6Understand, then, that it is not because of your righteousness that the LORD your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people.

Righteousness

“This is a preview of salvation by grace through faith, in which we cannot think that it is our righteousness that has obtained it. Instead, it is the righteousness we have received in Jesus Christ.” (Guzik)

Stiff-necked “is a figurative expression for stubborn, intractable, obdurate, and hardheaded.” (Kalland)

Do you understand what David Guzik says, “This is a preview of salvation by grace through faith”? There is nothing we can do to earn salvation! It is by grace through faith, because of the righteousness we have “received” in Jesus Christ!

Blessings 

Deuteronomy 9:1-3 Strength, ours or His?

 1Hear, O Israel: Today you are about to cross the Jordan to go in and dispossess nations greater and stronger than you, with large cities fortified to the heavens. 2The people are strong and tall, the descendants of the Anakim. You know about them, and you have heard it said, “Who can stand up to the sons of Anak?” 3But understand that today the LORD your God goes across ahead of you as a consuming fire; He will destroy them and subdue them before you. And you will drive them out and annihilate them swiftly, as the LORD has promised you.

Strength, ours or His?

On their own the Israelites couldn’t stand up to the sons of Anak but the Lord was a consuming fire 🔥 that will destroy them and subdue them! 

Without the Lord the Israelites wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.

The same is with us also, without the Lord Jesus how do we get through another day in this world? He heals the broken hearted, makes the weak strong and supplies grace that isn’t deserved or earned.

What is your source for strength?

Blessings 

Deuteronomy 8:19-20 Pride

 19If you ever forget the LORD your God and go after other gods to worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely perish. 20Like the nations that the LORD has destroyed before you, so you will perish if you do not obey the LORD your God.

“Israel would be tempted to look at the nations being judged in front of them, and to think, “We’re better than them, so we are safe. God would never deal with us that way.” But God would deal with them that way if they rose up in pride against Him.”

“Pride is the greatest danger in the Christian life. It is the most Satanic of sins because it was by pride that Satan himself fell. Satan prizes a proud believer over the most notorious sinner, because he looks at the proud believer and says, “Now there’s a man just like me!”

“Pride of face is obnoxious; pride of race is vulgar; but the worst pride is the pride of grace.” (Guzik)

Are you a proud believer?

Blessings 

Deuteronomy 8:17-18 Abundance

 17You might say in your heart, “The power and strength of my hands have made this wealth for me.” 18But remember that it is the LORD your God who gives you the power to gain wealth, in order to confirm His covenant that He swore to your fathers even to this day.

“In times of abundance, it is easy to forget the LORD, or to at least no longer seek Him with the urgency we once had.” (Guzik)

I recall a story about a visitor from another country who went into a supermarket and walked down a pet food isle and broke down crying 😢. When asked what upset him, he stated we had more pet food available than they had people food in their markets back home.

We still live in a land of abundance, have you been praying for it?

“the LORD your God who gives you the power to gain wealth, in order to confirm His covenant”

Blessings 

Deuteronomy 8:15-16 Venomous Snakes and Scorpions!

 15He led you through the vast and terrifying wilderness with its venomous snakes and scorpions, a thirsty and waterless land. He brought you water from the rock of flint. 16He fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers had not known, in order to humble you and test you, so that in the end He might cause you to prosper.

“venomous snakes and scorpions, a thirsty and waterless land”

Reminds me of Tucson, venomous snakes were all around our home and the fire department would relocate them, remove them from your yard and move them elsewhere. I had to scorpion proof our home by checking all door seals and using wire screen on all the roof vents. They would find their way into the shower and it was good practice to look before you leaped. Where’s there’s one you’ll always find another! 

Can you imagine living in the wilderness for forty years in a tent? I can only imagine the Israelites were a hard rugged people!

Blessings 

Deuteronomy 8:11-14 Your heart will become proud!

 11Be careful not to forget the LORD your God by failing to keep His commandments and ordinances and statutes, which I am giving you this day. 12Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses in which to dwell, 13and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all that you have is multiplied, 14then your heart will become proud, and you will forget the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

“your heart will become proud”

“When everything is fine and our lives are filled with abundance, it is not hard to have our hearts lifted up. We can easily forget the LORD Himself and forget it was all His work on our behalf.”(Guzik)

Do you see the warning about your ❤️?

Unfortunately it’s true! We will begin to believe we did it and become proud!

Humble yourself before the Lord and thank Him for your blessings! 

Stay focused on Him, stay in the word and don’t forget the Lord!

Blessings