Today I
was reading Deuteronomy 27-29, I found several verses such as:
Deut. 28:9
"The LORD will establish you as a holy people to Himself, as He swore
to you, if you keep the commandments of
the LORD your God and walk in His ways.” Here is what Matthew Henry has to
say about it.
Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary
“Deut.
28:1-14 - This chapter is a very large exposition of two words, the blessing
and the curse. They are real things and have real effects. The blessings are
here put before the curses. God is slow to anger, but swift to show mercy. It
is his delight to bless. It is better that we should be drawn to what is good
by a child-like hope of God's favour, than that we be frightened to it by a
slavish fear of his wrath. The blessing is promised, upon condition that they
diligently hearken to the voice of God. Let them keep up religion, the form and
power of it, in their families and nation, then the providence of God would
prosper all their outward concerns.”
Deut.
28:47 “If you do not serve the LORD your God with joy and enthusiasm for the
abundant benefits you have received,”
I like
this verse because it shows how God expects to be served and worshiped. But if
we have not learned to be grateful for who He is and what He has done for us
through Christ, we end up living the type of Christianity where we feel
obligated to fulfill our obligations to Him. So, while we are religious, we are
so resistant to changes that the Holy Spirit cannot make a dent in us. The real
love, the enthusiasm and the joy of it all will always be missing in our walk.
Deut.
28:63 “Just as the LORD has found great pleasure in causing you to prosper and
multiply, the LORD will find pleasure in destroying you. You will be torn from
the land you are about to enter and occupy.”
This
verse might sound off a bit to some, and we might even question God. But this
is who God is. His love and wrath has the
same intensity. So, yes He will find pleasure in destroying them. The pleasure
comes from the fact that He simply has no tolerance for wickedness and His Holiness
demands it. For us Christian our wickedness comes from the fact that we want to
butt heads with Him at any cost, because we have His promises and He cannot
lie.
This
kind of Christianity is drilled into us day in day out. Most Churches today,
along with social media, and everywhere on the internet we find joy in claiming
verses we like, that speak of His promises. In reality, these verses do not
stand by themselves as they are not complete. We learned to cultivate that
mentality where we think He owes us something and we can get away with murder. God has no tolerance for this kind of
self-serving Salvation. The hearts of the Israelites were not right with Him,
just as us today. When we insist on having our way instead of His, well, we
share in the same symptoms and diseases as the Israelites. Like God showed me,
there is a big difference between those who love Him and will be losing some rewards,
and those who do not love Him at all as if Salvation never touched their hearts.
Moses
example is one that shows Moses love for God, but his disobedience caused him
not to see the Promised Land. VS God, destroying the Israelites because of
their lack of love for Him, they could not follow at all. God does not expect us to be perfect until we
die because perfection belongs to Him. But, we have to learn to examine
ourselves, not through our eyes, but His.
ON ANOTHER NOTE….
I shared with you in yesterday’s post. God touched my heart
and I understand that I made it all sound so bad, as if God has not done
anything good for me while I am waiting on Him, upon Him and for Him. The
reality is that He showered blessings on me through my two sons. The past three
months have been incredible. Each news I received from them is earth shattering.
There has been a lot as if God has
opened a flow of blessings from heaven.
Last
week I was praying and asking God how long will I have to wait? I even told Him
whenever He tells me to do something, I do it, and then it is like He uses my
obedience to humble me in a way that things always turn sort of sour for me. In
His defense, I have to say, even though my life is truly rough and my soul
could use a break from this divine training, I still pray for Him to keep me
where I am. My relentless prayer goes along this line: “Teach me and train me
to be like Paul so that I, too, have no aim, no end and no purpose but you my
Lord.” Yes, it seems crazy that after such a long period of time I am still
spending long hours with God asking Him to make me this person.
I have
to be honest, there was a time I stopped praying this way because I realized
God was giving me the desires of my heart, in a painful way. After a few months
of not praying this kind of prayer, God
showed me how my heart was letting Him go slowly as my first love. The only
thing that had changed was the way I prayed on purpose I avoided this kind of
prayer. Because God has given me the
ability to touch His heart, I am able to feel His pain and joy, (only when He
wants to) which is both a blessing and a curse as far as I am concerned. I had
no choice but to stop the pain that I was causing Him and go back to praying
Him to keep me like Paul with no aim, no end and no purpose but Him. Since
then, I never deviated from the path.
So during
my prayer time last week while I was talking to God as if He had forgotten me
in the waiting process, I felt suddenly a flow of peace all over me. This awesome,
still, peaceful and comforting voice told me “it has to be this way for now my
child, but have you noticed that you are not forgotten because all the
blessings that should come to you is happening to your children?” I was
speechless for a moment. Then, I realized it is true; God has blessed my two
boys so much. Yet, even in the midst of all these news I had received, I saw
these things as “my children’s own lives” and did not associate them with me at
all.
Right
after that, I went to my laptop I found an email that my son sent to us his
parents and wife together to announce another major news in his life. I checked
the time to see when the email came in; it was less than a minute. I grabbed
the phone to call him. He told me he was about to call his wife when he saw my
number, needless to say he was surprised with the speed of my phone call. As I
talked to him all I could see was how everything my boy touches turns into
blessings in his life. It is unreal how God lined up people on his path to
accomplish His will in his life.
I did
not stay on the phone because I wanted him to call his wife and rejoice in the
news together. As I hung up the phone God confirmed in my heart how my son’s
life is about me and my walk with Him. Something inside of me could not take it
anymore and I wept from the depth of my soul for about half an hour. My tears
were tears of joy, couple with how real God is and how awesome my God is. If I
were to list all that has happened in my two boys lives, it would look like I
am bragging. Even today as I am writing this post today, I still cannot believe
someone like me would have ever had the blessings that I received through them.
My
point is, it is not all that bad while someone could look at my life and ask
where is my God, but I know He has not abandoned me. No matter how hard things
are for me, I would not have it any other way because it brings joy to my
Savior.
When
you read Deuteronomy 29: 24-29 I rejoice in the way He ends it. These verses
tell us what people will say about the Israelites. Notice while these people
will say those things in verses 24 28, they will not understand why God is
doing all that He is doing in the Israelites lives because they are not privy
to the whole story. So, in verse 29 He says: Deut.29:29
"The LORD our God has secrets known to no one. We are not accountable
for them, but we and our children are accountable forever for all that he has
revealed to us, so that we may obey all the terms of these instructions.”
