Quote for the Day
“Your eyes have seen all that the LORD did in …”
Today's Prayer
This week LISTEN to God. No questions, no requests, simply be with Him. Quietly sit with God and listen to His voice as He reveals Himself to you.
Deuteronomy 29:1-29
Deuteronomy 29:1-29 (NIV)1 These are the terms of the covenant the LORD commanded Moses to make with the Israelites in , in addition to the covenant he had made with them at Horeb.2 Moses summoned all the Israelites and said to them:Your eyes have seen all that the LORD did in to Pharaoh, to all his officials and to all his land. 3 With your own eyes you saw those great trials, those signs and great wonders. 4 But to this day the LORD has not given you a mind that understands or eyes that see or ears that hear. 5 Yet the LORD says, “During the forty years that I led you through the wilderness, your clothes did not wear out, nor did the sandals on your feet. 6 You ate no bread and drank no wine or other fermented drink. I did this so that you might know that I am the LORD your God.”7 When you reached this place, Sihon king of Heshbon and Og king of came out to fight against us, but we defeated them. 8 We took their land and gave it as an inheritance to the Reubenites, the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh.9 Carefully follow the terms of this covenant, so that you may prosper in everything you do. 10 All of you are standing today in the presence of the LORD your God—your leaders and chief men, your elders and officials, and all the other men of Israel, 11 together with your children and your wives, and the foreigners living in your camps who chop your wood and carry your water. 12 You are standing here in order to enter into a covenant with the LORD your God, a covenant the LORD is making with you this day and sealing with an oath, 13 to confirm you this day as his people, that he may be your God as he promised you and as he swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. 14 I am making this covenant, with its oath, not only with you 15 who are standing here with us today in the presence of the LORD our God but also with those who are not here today.16 You yourselves know how we lived in and how we passed through the countries on the way here. 17 You saw among them their detestable images and idols of wood and stone, of silver and gold. 18 Make sure there is no man or woman, clan or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the LORD our God to go and worship the gods of those nations; make sure there is no root among you that produces such bitter poison.19 When such a person hears the words of this oath and they invoke a blessing on themselves, thinking, “I will be safe, even though I persist in going my own way,” they will bring disaster on the watered land as well as the dry. 20 The LORD will never be willing to forgive them; his wrath and zeal will burn against them. All the curses written in this book will fall on them, and the LORD will blot out their names from under heaven. 21 The LORD will single them out from all the tribes of for disaster, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this Book of the Law.22 Your children who follow you in later generations and foreigners who come from distant lands will see the calamities that have fallen on the land and the diseases with which the LORD has afflicted it. 23 The whole land will be a burning waste of salt and sulfur—nothing planted, nothing sprouting, no vegetation growing on it. It will be like the destruction of and , Admah and Zeboyim, which the LORD overthrew in fierce anger. 24 All the nations will ask: “Why has the LORD done this to this land? Why this fierce, burning anger?”25 And the answer will be: “It is because this people abandoned the covenant of the LORD, the God of their ancestors, the covenant he made with them when he brought them out of . 26 They went off and worshiped other gods and bowed down to them, gods they did not know, gods he had not given them. 27 Therefore the LORD’s anger burned against this land, so that he brought on it all the curses written in this book. 28 In furious anger and in great wrath the LORD uprooted them from their land and thrust them into another land, as it is now.”29 The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.
Message
Once again we will see the necessity of looking at God as a whole, not simply one event or one verse or one command. As we have seen in Deuteronomy God has protected, coddled, and nourished the Israelites over a very long period of time. We have also seen how this has been, continues to be, and will remain God’s plan for His children. God has a love so great that He will do what it takes to allow us to rest in His arms, including allowing us to struggle without Him to see our need for Him.Moses has spent the last few chapters giving instructions to the Israelites as to their relationship with God Almighty. This is a relationship that he states over and over again is dependent on God and on their resting in His promises and power. This chapter starts off with a simple reminder of what they have seen and what they will see. “Your eyes have seen all that the LORD did in to Pharaoh…With your own eyes you saw…those signs and great wonders.” Much as we do today, the Israelites took their focus off of God and placed it in their own skills (the flesh). So in His loving way He let them spend forty years in the desert, yet NOT deserted. Verse 5 states, “During the forty years that I led you through the wilderness, your clothes did not wear out, nor did the sandals on your feet.” Notice two things in this verse: first, God led them; second, nothing wore out, which could also be described as God ensuring all their provisions were taken care of. Remember the manna? Food every day that lasted for one day only? God took care of it.Let’s skip back to verse 4 where Moses tells them, “But to this day the LORD has not given you a mind that understands or eyes that see or ears that hear.” This is a tough one for some of us, but the point is important. First, God is in control. Second, He gives us what we need when we need it, including the timing of when we hear what His plans for us are. Our job? To listen to the voice of God and respond to it in His power. One thing I have found in life is that you can hear MUCH better when you are NOT talking.This week, don’t talk to God; just listen to what He has to say. He will come up with the questions the answers.