God has amazed me. =) I thought I wouldn't learn anything from reading the Pentateuch, but I was wrong.
The Isrealites were told to remove everything from this area of their lives, and if they left any piece behind, it would come back to haunt them and trouble them. On a smaller scale, is there anything in my life God has told me to clear out, but I left something behind in my selfishness?
Lets put cause and effect on this, if I decide to keep a corner of my life to myself, I'm not going to enjoy it in the least. In fact, it will make me miserable and damage my relationship with God. In the long run, my selfishness hurts me greatly.
On the other hand, if I surrender every sin to God, then I will be clean and new. I will have a great burden lifted, I will have joy and have a complete communion with God! How wonderful! momentary pain for eternal joy is very much worth it.
How amazing would it have been to see God perform so many wonders!! This verse made me meditate for several days, and caused me to put myself in the shoes of the Israelites. Can you believe that they rebelled even after they saw the sea parted, and God carried them through, and did all the hardest parts for them?! Well, that's considering if 21st-century-me was put in their place. It would seem pretty radical, but they weren't from the 21st century. What they saw was to them almost every-day occurrences.
We think that God doesn't perform radical miracles anymore, but He does! They just look like every-day occurrences! And we are the same as those "stupid Israelites" who didn't seem to care. We give the credit to ourselves, to nature, to government, whatever. The credit goes anywhere but to God. I think we ought to examine ourselves and take notice of not only the blessings we miss, but what we fail to give God glory for. And while you're at it, say thank you.
Numbers 33:50-56Lesson #1: Give it all to God, no reservations.
Now the LORD spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan, across from Jericho, saying, “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘When you have crossed the Jordan into the land of Canaan, then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, destroy all their engraved stones, destroy all their molded images, and demolish all their high places; you shall dispossess the inhabitants of the land and dwell in it, for I have given you the land to possess. And you shall divide the land by lot as an inheritance among your families; to the larger you shall give a larger inheritance, and to the smaller you shall give a smaller inheritance; there everyone’s inheritance shall be whatever falls to him by lot. You shall inherit according to the tribes of your fathers. But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then it shall be that those whom you let remain shall be irritants in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall harass you in the land where you dwell. Moreover it shall be that I will do to you as I thought to do to them.’”
The Isrealites were told to remove everything from this area of their lives, and if they left any piece behind, it would come back to haunt them and trouble them. On a smaller scale, is there anything in my life God has told me to clear out, but I left something behind in my selfishness?
Lets put cause and effect on this, if I decide to keep a corner of my life to myself, I'm not going to enjoy it in the least. In fact, it will make me miserable and damage my relationship with God. In the long run, my selfishness hurts me greatly.
On the other hand, if I surrender every sin to God, then I will be clean and new. I will have a great burden lifted, I will have joy and have a complete communion with God! How wonderful! momentary pain for eternal joy is very much worth it.
Deuteronomy 1:29-33Lesson #2: Give to God the glory He deserves.
“Then I said to you, ‘Do not be terrified, or afraid of them. The LORD your God, who goes before you, He will fight for you, according to all He did for you in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness where you saw how the LORD your God carried you, as a man carries his son, in all the way that you went until you came to this place.’ Yet, for all that, you did not believe the LORD your God, who went in the way before you to search out a place for you to pitch your tents, to show you the way you should go, in the fire by night and in the cloud by day.
How amazing would it have been to see God perform so many wonders!! This verse made me meditate for several days, and caused me to put myself in the shoes of the Israelites. Can you believe that they rebelled even after they saw the sea parted, and God carried them through, and did all the hardest parts for them?! Well, that's considering if 21st-century-me was put in their place. It would seem pretty radical, but they weren't from the 21st century. What they saw was to them almost every-day occurrences.
We think that God doesn't perform radical miracles anymore, but He does! They just look like every-day occurrences! And we are the same as those "stupid Israelites" who didn't seem to care. We give the credit to ourselves, to nature, to government, whatever. The credit goes anywhere but to God. I think we ought to examine ourselves and take notice of not only the blessings we miss, but what we fail to give God glory for. And while you're at it, say thank you.
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