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.
