Deuteronomy 8

Deuteronomy 8
A Call to Remember and Obey
  
   “Be careful to obey all the commands I am giving you today. Then you will live and multiply, and you will enter and occupy the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors. 2 Remember how the Lord your God led you through the wilderness for these forty years, humbling you and testing you to prove your character, and to find out whether or not you would obey his commands. 3 Yes, he humbled you by letting you go hungry and then feeding you with manna, a food previously unknown to you and your ancestors. He did it to teach you that people do not live by bread alone; rather, we live by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. 4 For all these forty years your clothes didn’t wear out, and your feet didn’t blister or swell. 5 Think about it: Just as a parent disciplines a child, the Lord your God disciplines you for your own good.
   6 “So obey the commands of the Lord your God by walking in his ways and fearing him. 7 For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land of flowing streams and pools of water, with fountains and springs that gush out in the valleys and hills. 8 It is a land of wheat and barley; of grapevines, fig trees, and pomegranates; of olive oil and honey. 9 It is a land where food is plentiful and nothing is lacking. It is a land where iron is as common as stone, and copper is abundant in the hills. 10 When you have eaten your fill, be sure to praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.
   11 “But that is the time to be careful! Beware that in your plenty you do not forget the Lord your God and disobey his commands, regulations, and decrees that I am giving you today. 12 For when you have become full and prosperous and have built fine homes to live in, 13 and when your flocks and herds have become very large and your silver and gold have multiplied along with everything else, be careful! 14 Do not become proud at that time and forget the Lord your God, who rescued you from slavery in the land of Egypt. 15 Do not forget that he led you through the great and terrifying wilderness with its poisonous snakes and scorpions, where it was so hot and dry. He gave you water from the rock! 16 He fed you with manna in the wilderness, a food unknown to your ancestors. He did this to humble you and test you for your own good. 17 He did all this so you would never say to yourself, ‘I have achieved this wealth with my own strength and energy.’ 18 Remember the Lord your God. He is the one who gives you power to be successful, in order to fulfill the covenant he confirmed to your ancestors with an oath.
   19 “But I assure you of this: If you ever forget the Lord your God and follow other gods, worshiping and bowing down to them, you will certainly be destroyed. 20 Just as the Lord has destroyed other nations in your path, you also will be destroyed if you refuse to obey the Lord your God.

*New Living Translation~

FORGIVE AND LIVE

FORGIVE AND LIVE

I listened to other Godly women tell of how it just broke their hearts to see people hurting…. How they just loved people so much that they would just pray and pray for them…. I sat in silence because for whatever reason, I knew I didn’t have that burning desire….my heart didn’t just break when I saw God’s people hurting…  what was wrong with me… maybe I am not saved…maybe I am not a child of God… How can I believe and trust in the God of Love and not love his people….the way these women did…. I knew it…something was wrong with me!!   On the way home that night I prayed and asked God why I didn’t have that burning desire to see people saved…that burning desire to comfort his people.  What was my purpose as a Christian if I didn’t have the burning desire to save his people?  Had I become so bitter towards other people in my life that I no longer loved them…and if so…how on earth could God use me…. All of these questions just echoed throughout my heart and head….Praying I would ask God to please help me to love his people, help me to WANT to see them saved….Then  so strongly in my spirit I heard one word, “Deliverance”!  That was it…one word… and I wasn’t real sure what God meant by that… So, of course, I asked.   Again, so strongly in my spirit.. I heard, “I created you for deliverance!” 

That night Keely, our 4year old, brought one of the children’s Bibles that sits on her bedside table for me to read…. Sighing (because the print is small…ugh…this would take forever I thought) but, “Okay, come on Ke!”  She crawls up in bed with me beside her and I open the cover and start to read.  You know it’s just like God in his infinite patients to teach you something from the very beginning.  Page one “Creation”!  Really, God is taking me back to the beginning of time!!  I read aloud the events of Adam and Eve and how in their disobedience…they were taken out of the perfect peace and happiness of the garden…and would grow old and eventually die.   I read aloud and God began to show me that from the very beginning of their journey outside the Garden of Eden…God is careful to mention in his word that he loved them and cared for them…. I continued to read, not for Keely’s sake so much anymore but because I felt the Holy Spirit showing me that from the beginning of time, God is LOVE.  He would take me through the story of Cain and Abel… Noah… the Tower of Babel… and then Abram… and every situation from Gensis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21.  God is showing LOVE…I know this may sound so strange: how can someone who has been a Christian for so long not understand God’s love.  Well, it wasn’t that I didn’t understand God’s love… But, God was showing me that even though through the years of my life when my heart had been broken by others…I had to implement Gods love!  And part of implementing Gods love is forgiving others.   I had to reflect his undying, unconditional love.   I had to move past all the hurt I had accumulated through the years and love… truly love…not in words only…but I had to love from my heart... just as God did! 

What a task it was, God commanding me to forgive! It felt so huge…a mountain that I had to climb…And in order to reach the summit, the place where peace that passes all understand reigns…I had to start with forgiveness!   God would began to show me that I had not been so broken in my life that I hung on the cross…I had not been so broken that nails pierced my hands…I had not been so broken that strips were put on my back… I DID THIS-God would remind me… I suffered the cross so you might have life and have life more abundantly… I love you that much… I love you so much that I left my home in heaven, took the form of the body in which I gave to you… I am not a God that cannot be touched by your afflictions… I am a God that is tangible… that is sovereign…that in your pain I am made strong…that in your weakness I show my strength…. I am not a God that will ever leave you… I will never forsake you… So, if you know that I will never leave you nor forsake you… You know that I have given you my strength to forgive and love as I love… to be spiritually minded to walk in my ways.  Look to me for your joy…Look to me for your strength… I will never, never, never, never, never let you go! In my hands you will be for all eternity… You, my child, have the power to forgive and to live abundantly!  So you see, I have to take you through all of the hurt so you can understand deliverance~ the purpose I have for your life!