Deuteronomy 6-9 – Warnings – Promises – Gratitude & Obedience to God-Part 3

As I read Deuteronomy 6 – 9, I kept asking myself why is it most of us Christians dismiss those words of God when in reality they are there in black and white? How do we manage to find it so natural and easy to claim God's promises while dismissing what accompany His promises?

I am sure all of us Christians are familiar with a very popular and partial verse that Christians love saying “the Lord is faithful and He keeps His covenant.” But one look at Deuteronomy 7:9-11 you will see it is a partial truth we tell ourselves because God has conditions there. He also talked about those who love Him and keep His commandments.

I heard a well known pastor saying that since we are under grace, then, the conditions no longer applied to us, otherwise it would not be grace and grace is free. If only we can learn the meaning of God’s grace through the Holy Spirit’s teaching, we would understand it is exactly because we are under grace these conditions apply.  Yes, grace is totally free.  Grace transforms us, and because of His grace Christ lives within us. If indeed we are under His grace, then fulfilling His conditions become part of our own will, because we have the will of God within us to do, and to bring Him glory.

We are so creative when it comes to dismissing God's word. Like the Pharisees we get so busy covering up the lack of God in our lives and sadly, we get caught up in our own hype. Through it all, we are incapable of seeing the same God that we find in the Old and New Testament. Most of us are incapable of translating into our lives, the conditions and warnings found in the Old Testament, for what they mean to today’s Christians.

When you look at the Israelite’s path, meaning their ungratefulness, the blindness, lack of love, faith and their harden hearts, we see they have never changed from the time God left them to die in the wilderness. As we can see in Jeremiah, after decades of warning, they never took God at His word, always assumed they would be fine and never felt the need to change. In the end they lost the Promised Land just like God promised He would do if they did not follow according to His idea of what following Him meant.  Much later we find the Pharisees caught up in their religiosity, the word of God had not penetrated their hearts, and once again they did what was best for them, which means they killed their king. Can you see how easy it is to follow blindly the wrong path in our spiritual ignorance, blindness and lack of humility?

Sometimes, I am discouraged and feel like it’s a losing battle because hell is going to have way too  many Catholics, Baptist, Methodist, Evangelical, Adventist, Mormons, popes, pastors, priests, church leaders, nuns, etc. The list goes on. I can see the blindness which is so thick out there. The Spiritual ignorance that is leading the Church, while each one of them thinks it is the other one. Because of our lack of true Christianity, most of us have no idea what it means to be healed of our messy emotions that lead our lives.

Sometimes when I think of Christ dying on the Cross and tore the veil, my heart is overwhelms because I know too well what that means. This veil that has been removed gives us access to the Holy of Holies. Yet, the majority of Christians is living with no idea what it means for God to have removed the veil. One of the reasons the Israelites never get there, is because they could not switch gears and make it about God. No, it was like asking them for too much. Although God repeated several times in Deuteronomy that they were chosen not because they were impressive, but rather He chose them out of pure grace, it still did not sink into their hearts. And as long as they could not get them in their thick heads and in their harden hearts, they could never find gratefulness and gratitude to honour Him for who He is. They could never humble themselves in the way God truly sees them, so they took everything for granted.