10Mar/100

Week 10 Day 3 – A Tale of Two Cities

Joshua 5:13-7:26

Here’s the devotional thought for today, plain and simple: Sin messes things up! So don’t do it!

God could not have been any clearer to the people. He told them not to take any of the booty from Jericho. The spoils from this victory were to be the firstfruits of Israel’s income from the endeavor God had sent them on. Remember from Exodus that the Israelites were to bring the firstfruits of their harvests to the Lord as an act of sacrifice and faith in God’s provision (Exodus 23:16). For 40 years the people had not planted crops or had an income. The city of Jericho was very symbolic as it represented the firstfruits of the promised blessing that God was fulfilling to His people.

And yet, even with the clarity of instruction, Achan could not resist. When he saw the goods, he knew he had to have it. Perhaps he felt that he deserved it because he had been without for his entire life. Perhaps he thought that God and Joshua would never notice. After all, it was just a trinket in comparison to the vast riches they had just acquired. Whatever his thoughts and rationalizations, the fact remains that Achan blew it and the nation suffered.

As modern, individualistic people, we tend to see the sin of Achan and apply it to our own personal lives. It becomes clear to us that if we get greedy and disobey God, then we will suffer the consequences. While that is a valid application point from this story, there is another that is perhaps deeper and broader. The sin of Achan affected the entire nation, even to the point where 36 innocent men died in battle. As Christians we need to reconnect to the reality that we are parts of the body of Christ. We do not live in a vacuum where our sins affect only us. Just like in the human body, when one cell turns cancerous, it begins to destroy the cells around it.

God knew that sinful attitudes are like a cancer in the collective body of His people. The story of Achan demonstrates that a cancerous cell must be dealt with quickly and decisively for the sake of the health of the body.

The next time you are tempted to give in to your cherished sin again, stop and think about all the other people in your church community. Realize that by committing that sin you are disrupting the flow in your relationship with God. When your flow gets disrupted you will stop overflowing onto others and will become disconnected. This can lead to a cascade failure and destroy a community. If you are in the moment of temptation and feel yourself giving in, reach out to God and reach out to a trusted brother or sister in the church and ask them to give you the strength to turn away and get reconnected to the flow of God. If you have committed a sin that you know is eating at your heart and jeopardizing the collective health of the body, first confess it to God, then confess it to a member of the community. Repent from it. Turn away. The worst thing you can do in that situation is to hide from others because of shame. Bring it into the light, let the fire of God’s truth burn it out, and let the balm of God’s Spirit heal it up.

Don’t just do it for your own sake, do it for the sake of the community. You are not alone.

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9Mar/100

Week 10 Day 2 – The BE Complex

Joshua 1:6-9

I’m no military strategist, but I have a sneaking suspicion that when generals are preparing for battle there are certain processes and checklists that they employ. They probably send out intelligence agents to study the enemy. They count the troops to determine their strength on land, sea, and air. They study strategies of great generals before them to determine the most effective tactic to defeat the foe. This kind of planning just makes sense.

Let’s broaden our perspective on this discussion and see how the same principles apply in many areas of life. When a person is making a career change, she will do her homework, strategize, leverage her resume, outsmart the competition, etc. In something as simple as planning a vacation, we tend to look at the task at hand and map out the best approach to the project.

Joshua was a man who was facing a very daunting task. He was supposed to lead a group of second-generation freed slaves, who have been living a nomadic existence for 40 years, into the land of Canaan to fight against well-trained, well-fortified "giants." The wisest general, as we have already suggested, would have spent this preparation time in strategy sessions. Yet, God pulls a reversal on Joshua. God tells Joshua that, if he wants to be successful, (and who wouldn’t) he is to not spend his time on strategizing, but to spend his time on Prayer and Meditation. God did not tell Joshua what he was to do, he told him how to be.

He said...

BE strong

BE courageous

BE obedient

How could Joshua be strong and courageous in these circumstances? His strength and courage came from the knowledge that God had ordained this attack. Joshua was not being called upon to be a great leader. He was being called upon to be a great follower. God was leading this army. God was going ahead of them to drive out the Canaanites. All Israel had to do was to believe, obey, and follow.

The key to Joshua’s strength and courage was in his obedience. If Joshua would focus his energy on the Law of God, meditate on it daily, keep it in the forefront of his mind and speech (not letting it depart from his mouth), then He would be in tune with the will, heart, and mind of God and would have the strength and courage to do the things that God asked him to do.

Once again, we run right into the overflow principle. If Joshua would detach himself from the task of leading an army and graft himself into authentic fellowship with God through the disciplines of study, prayer, and meditation, then the fruit (or the overflow) of Joshua’s life would be a "success" because it would be orchestrated by God Himself.

Too many times we rush into a venture that we have planned, using our own strength and "wisdom." After noodling it out in our own steam, we then offer it up to God and say, "bless this." Let’s shift our focus. Let’s join with Joshua in his formula for success. Let’s remember that we are called to follow God’s agenda for His Kingdom. Even if we are "leaders" in the church, we are called to simply follow. Let’s let our strength and courage be the result of knowing the mind and heart of God so well that He is naturally flowing through our lives.

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8Mar/100

Week 10 Day 1 – Choose Life

Deuteronomy 30:11-20

The message of the entire Bible cannot get much clearer than it is proclaimed in this passage. Spreading out before you today are two paths. One path, called obedience, leads to God’s eternal Kingdom, to a life of fellowship with the eternal creator; to LIFE itself. The other path of self-reliance and self-indulgence leads to separation from the God of the universe, to isolation from true purpose and fellowship, to Death itself.

Jesus echoes these words in Matthew 7:13-14, ”Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” He said that a man who enters through the wide gate is like a man who builds his house on sand. When the winds blow and the rain crashes down, that house will be washed away. A man that enters through the narrow gate, on the other hand, will be anchored deep into the rock of truth, the bedrock of all existence, the original author, the uncaused cause, the alpha and the omega, the first and last. A house anchored into that kind of foundation will be able to weather any storm.

One of the greatest phrases in the Bible is in that defining moment when Moses burns his piercing gaze into the eyes and the souls of the Israelites and urges them, as a father who is letting his son go to be on his own would urge, “NOW CHOOSE LIFE.” Jesus said, in John 10:10, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the fullest.”

The question that perhaps you have asked about this is, “what is the good life?” Notice how Moses goes on to explain it in the same verse...”so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to His voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life...”

Here’s an acrostic that may help us remember what real life is all about.

Living In Father’s Fellowship Eternally

Death is anything that distracts us from knowing God and being fully filled with His presence.

Each day we are faced with this choice. Will you choose life today, or death? Will you choose to die to your selfish desires, your cherished sins, your self-pity, and lay those things at the altar of sacrifice so that you may exchange those nasty clothes for a brilliant garment of God’s grace and walk in obedience to His leading? Or, will you wake up and say, “What is on my agenda today; how can I build my dreams?”

I am not talking about waking up and risking the loss of your eternal salvation. I’m talking about waking up and risking the loss of your present salvation. Jesus didn’t come simply to give us fire-insurance so that we could pray a prayer and know that we will wake up in Heaven when we die. He came to give us life...right now. He came to give us life abundantly. Even those who have claimed Jesus as their savior, who are eternally secure in their post-mortal destination, can live in death each day. We can wake up and choose to turn aside from the path of surrender, obedience, and love, and walk down our own self-made path. How sad it is that so many Christians are not choosing life each day.
Today, right now, choose life.

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5Mar/100

Week 9 Day 5 – Blessings and Curses

Deuteronomy 27:1-28:68

The term "blessing" is one that gets thrown around quite a bit in our Christian culture. When is it most often used? When we get a big raise, or the loan for a new house comes through, we say that God really "blessed" us. Does that mean that if the job had not gone through that you were cursed by God? Is physical and financial prosperity the evidence of God’s blessing on our lives and painful suffering or disappointment the evidence of His curse?

Where does this kind of thinking come from? Honestly, it comes from the book of Deuteronomy. Throughout Moses’ sermon, he continually reminds the nation that if they will obey God they will be blessed and if they disobey God, they will be cursed.

If you come from an evangelical protestant perspective, then the language of blessings and cursings may seem anti-biblical to you. You have been well-versed on the evils of a "works based" salvation. You have been taught that God is not standing in Heaven with a scale on which hangs a basket on one side labeled "good works" and a basket on the other labeled "evil deeds." The criteria for entrance into Heaven is not based on which basket is heaviest--good heavier=you’re in; bad heavier= you’re out. It doesn’t work like that. You have been taught that Paul told us that it is by grace that we have been saved, through faith, not of works, so that no one can boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9).

Rest assured, you have been taught well. It is by grace that we have been saved. If that is true, then, how do we then deal with passages like Deuteronomy 27-28? In these passages, and truly, in the very heart of the message of Deuteronomy, it seems as if God is saying, "Do good and live, do evil and die." How do we deal with this paradigm?

Here are some points to keep in mind:

The religions of the nations in Canaan believed in gods that were irradic, tempermental, and unpredictable. The people had to appease the gods and coerse them to bring about good things like fertile crops and physical health. Yaweh, through the law given to Moses, demonstrates to Israel that He is not like that. There is a lifestyle that leads to health and safety, and there is a lifestyle that leads to death and destruction. There is order to the universe and God does act justly. So, stop living in the anxiety of a neurotic diety.

As was already cited in the introduction, the blessings and curses of Deuteronomy were spoken to the nation as a whole. They were not individual contracts of direct cause and effect relationships between each man’s "righteous acts" and God’s "fiscal blessing." The stories of Joseph, Job, Ecclesiastes, Jesus, and the apostles reaffirm that righteousness does not automatically insure physical/material prosperity.

The blessings and curses were more general truisms that needed to be driven home into the hearts of the people. If the nation will follow God, it will go well for them. (of course it will, because God’s Law was designed to keep them safe and healthy and protected from corruption). If they did not obey God’s Law then they would open themselves up to the very infectious diseases (both physical and spiritual) against which the Law was designed to defend. The blessings and curses can be thought of more as a natural law of cause and effect as opposed to the arbitrary acts of a vindictive God sending down lightning bolts to punish the disobedient.

If God were all about cursing the sinner, then the human story would have been over with Adam and Eve. They would have been destroyed at the crunch of the fruit and it would have been lights out. Instead, God has established an everlasting covenant with Abraham which He will fulfill no matter how wicked the covenant people become.

Let’s remember that God loves us and that His laws have been established for our benefit, to create space in our lives in which the Kingdom of God can flourish. They are not oppressive, rather they are truly liberating. Let’s also remember that the true blessing of God is a relationship with Him. It is in the spirit of this blessing that James could say, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you suffer various trials." Let us live in the blessing of obedience today.

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4Mar/100

Week 9 Day 4 – The Poor

Deuteronomy 24:17-22

Most Christians would acknowledge, in word at least, that helping the poor is an important thing to do. Yet, very few are involved in the endeavor. Why is this?

Perhaps one reason there seems to be a general sense of apathy in the church toward the poor is because there is a confusion about who the poor really are. Many kind-hearted people have become cynical and skeptical of those who are in need and asking for help. They ask, "How can we know if a person is in need or is just looking for a free ride?" When we look at the issue from one perspective we can observe that, compared to 2/3 of the world’s population, there are very few really poor people in our country. Even the most destitute of our citizens have more than the poor of those impoverished nations. Then there is the issue of the pan-handler. In the past decade the average urban commuter has become familiar with, and even jaded to the person standing on the street corner with a sign inscribed, "will work for food." Is this legitimate need? Are we supposed to shell out cash to every person we see that is begging for money? How can we know? How can we truly help the poor?

One key to understanding this issue is to understand the truth of what the Bible says about the poor. Today’s passage is representative of the many passages that deal with helping the poor, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. In these passages there are typically three kinds of people identified as those in need: The alien, the fatherless, and the widow. What do these three types of people have in common? They don’t have any rights, because they don’t own land. Only Jewish men could own land at that time in history. The father of the house was the centerpiece of the culture. The woman and child was protected under the man’s estate, but if the man died, the woman and child were left in the cold. In the event of the man’s death, the wife and children would be transferred to a relative’s estate and would be cared for by that relative. If there were no relatives, then that woman and child would fall under the definition of today’s passage and be considered true widows and orphans.

The Alien "is one whose permanent residence is in another nation, in contrast with the foreigner whose stay is only temporary...The Israelites themselves were sojourners in Egypt (Gn. 15:13; Ex. 22:21; Dt 10:19; 23:7). Indeed, this fact was to govern their attitude to the sojourners in Israel." ¹

The key here is that the poor and needy that fell under the protection of the Law were those people who, in that culture, were not able to help themselves. The community of Israel was to always keep these people in mind. When they harvested their fields, they were to go through only once and leave the pieces they missed behind so that the needy could come and harvest the rest for themselves. What would that look like in our non-agricultural society? How are we to help those in need?

In our culture everyone has the opportunity to work. If a person can work, then they should. One way that the church can help is for business owners to provide opportunities to employ people and to train them in employable skills.

A church should set aside a majority of its financial resources to help those who are truly in need to have food and find shelter.

The biggest aspect of the Old Testament Law, and the indictment against Israel throughout its history was regarding justice for the needy. Society tends to look down upon the needy and abuse them or take advantage of them. One important way that the church can be involved is to be aware of the programs in the city that provide holistic care for the needy and to partner with those programs.

Christian lawyers can donate their time to be an advocate for the rights of the poor.

Within the church, there should be no one who is poor. Everyone who can work, should work. Everyone who can’t work, should be cared for by the community with food and shelter.

Poverty is a big issue in our world. Today, ask God to search your heart and expose to you a way that you could be more involved in providing care for the alien, the widow, and the orphan.

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3Mar/100

Week 9 Day 3 – Destroy them All!?!

Deuteronomy 20:16-17

One of the greatest threats to our planet today is the Holy War. Militant Fundamentalists—both Muslim and Christian—are so convinced that they are absolutely correct in their doctrine, uniquely blessed by God, and the sole vehicle for God’s vengeance on a sinful world, that they are willing to wage war in God’s name.

When we come to a passage like Deuteronomy 20:16-18 and Deuteronomy 7, it becomes easier to understand why these groups feel justified in their violent attitudes. In both passages, God commands His people to utterly destroy the Canaanite people. That means that the men of Israel were to swoop into the land of Canaan and mercilessly kill all men, women, and children that were living in that region.

How does that make you feel about God?

Truthfully, everything in my being wants to skip over this passage and get to the love. That is one of the reasons why it is important to read through the whole Bible systematically. We have to deal with these issues. We must deal with the questions: "How could God order the murder of children?" "My God would never annihilate a whole race. Isn’t that genocide? Isn’t that what Hitler did?"

Here are some things to keep in mind:

This is the story of Israel, not the entire world. This is an underdog story where one group of people who had known nothing but oppression at the hands of a large, violent empire is led from bondage to freedom. God was delivering them from oppression and leading them to a place of peace. The Canaanites were bigger and stronger than they were. Humanly speaking, there was no possible way for Israel to defeat the Canaanites.

God had a story going on with the Canaanites, too. They had rejected Him centuries before. The annihilation of the Canaanites was a consequence for their rejection of God, not a cultural preference on the part of the Israelites.

The Canaanites had had 400 years to come back to a right relationship with God. 400 years is a very gracious waiting period and an ample window of opportunity for reconciliaton. This was the day of reckoning.

This "holy war" was a one-time-only mandate, and not a justification for any country to annihilate their enemies for their own selfish gain. In other words, there are no real "holy wars" today.

God was protecting His people because He knew that if the Canaanites, being thoroughly given over to paganism, were spared and allowed to infiltrate the ranks of the Israelites, then their idolatry would spread like a cancer and destroy the nation.

The message of Jesus gives us a corrective lens for these types of passages. Jesus destroyed the idea that one nation was special to God and that every other nation was worthless. Jesus helped us realize that the real battle is not between physical nations, but was an internal battle of the heart, against destructive attitudes that tear us away from God and each other.

In light of this, we can learn a very important lesson from these two passages on war. As we have discussed before, Israel’s journey from Egypt to the Promised Land can be easily seen as an allegory for every person’s spiritual journey to the heart of God. The Promised Land represents our heart. In our natural self we are infected with the sin, shame, blame, greed, lust, etc. that was the result of our separation from God. God’s desire for us is to be set free from all that garbage and to live in an undistracted, focused existence in His Presence. God’s instructions to the Israelites on how to wage war on Canaan will be helpful for us on how to wage war on the strongholds of sin that are in our heart.

Don’t think you can do the fighting. The Canaanites are giants and, if you are operating in your own strength, will clean your clock. Let God go ahead of you. It is His battle not yours.

Obedience to God’s plan is the key to your successful victory. Don’t focus on your enemy (don’t fixate on your addiction or chant "I will break this habit, I will break this habit"). Focus on the life-giving truth of God’s word, love Him and obey His word, and that will insure your victory.

Don’t leave any survivors. As we will see with Israel, they did not obey God and allowed some of the nations to remain. As Moses predicted, this mistake came back to bite them in the behind. In our hearts it is easy to allow God to come in and wipe out the really ugly sins. Who wants those anyway? But there are some sins that are very beautiful. We like them. They make us feel special and bring us comfort when things get difficult. As difficult as it is, we must allow God to utterly destroy those "cherished sins" because, if we do not, they will wrap their spidery roots around the depths of our heart and completely short-circuit our relationship with God. It is better to let God wipe it out now than to have to go through the intense open-heart, root-canalish surgery of getting it out later.

What is your cherished sin that is begging you to stay in the land of your heart? Don’t let it fool you. It doesn’t love you, it only wants to devour your soul. Let God flush it out with the truth of his grace.

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2Mar/100

Week 9 Day 2 – A Circumcised Heart

Deuteronomy 10:14-22

When you hear the word "circumcised" what comes to your mind? If you are a man, you may think, "Ouch!" If you are a woman you may think, "here is another example of the male exclusivity of the Bible. I’m a woman, therefore I cannot be circumcised, and therefore I must not count." These reactions are natural, for the term circumcision is a very physical reality that can only happen to males. It was an external symbol of God’s covenant to Abraham.

When Jesus walked the streets of Jerusalem, the reactions mentioned above were the predominant view of circumcision among the Jews of His day. To be circumcised meant that you were part of an elite class of humanity that were the "chosen ones." It was believed that God loved the circumcised, but He hated the non-circumcised. Only men could be circumcised, so women must be nothing. Women were only good for doing men’s dirty work and bringing a male heir into the world to carry on the "blessing" of the covenant and the family name into the next generation. The problem is that the people had externalized the Law and made it all about the physical realities of cutting off a foreskin, killing an animal, washing your hands before a meal, and not walking too far on the Sabbath day. Jesus’ message turned that upside down.

The question has been asked, "why did Jesus condemn the teachers of the Law for following the Law when it was God that gave them the Law? It seemed as if God is punishing them for doing the very thing that He told them to do." This is one of the biggest criticisms that non-Christians have about Christianity, and one confusion that many Christians have about the Bible. At first glance this seems like a legitimate concern about the nature of God and the continuity of the Bible. As we have been reading through the Old Testament Law, it is easy to see how the people could get caught up in the minutia of the Law, because there is a great deal of minutia!

That is why today’s passage is so important. Although God did establish a multitude of external rules and regulations upon His people, this passage gives us a glimpse of the eternal, spiritual truth behind the external Law of Moses. God doesn’t care about the state of your foreskin (or lack thereof). He cares about the state of your heart. (Guess what ladies, you’ve got one of those.) To have a circumcised heart is to have a heart that has had the distractions of the physicality of life -- pride, greed, indulgence, shame, and blame -- cut away in a spirit of consecration and devotion to the eternal kingdom of God. A circumcised heart is one that has taken its focus off of the circumstances of life and has placed it on the creator and sustainer of life.

If our circumcision were limited to that of a male organ then, yes, it is an exclusive, male-Jew only club where nobody else can get in. Praise God, that in the center of Moses’ Law itself, God reveals to us the intent of the Law. God loves the whole world and longs for the "alien" to enter into His covenant of love and freedom, to have their hearts circumcised -- male and female, rich and poor, old and young, black white or green. All are welcome to come and lay their whole heart before the knife of truth, be cut free from the bondage of the flesh, and enter into the life-giving presence of God.

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1Mar/100

Week 9 Day 1 – Don’t Forget

Read the introduction to Deuteronomy here.

Deuteronomy 6:1-12

In Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of Christ it is brutal to watch his portrayal of the stark reality of Jesus’ torturous execution as it is painfully and realistically portrayed in a vivid, front-row seat perspective. Why did Mel make this movie?

As I watched The Passion I was immediately reminded of my emotional reaction to another film made by Steven Spielberg, called Saving Private Ryan. This film depicted the brutal reality of World War II as it took you into the first-person perspective of a soldier storming Normandy beach. The grisly reality of that film left me sick to my stomach and somber for days.

Why did these men make these movies? Were they sensationalists out to entice the consumer’s blood thirst and rack up a box office jackpot? I don’t think so. I believe these movies were made for a simple reason...so we would not forget. As a post Viet Nam, Gen Xr, I have never known war. War for me was Desert Storm where we watched from the comfort of our living rooms as smart missiles methodically wiped out cities from a distance. From our perspective, it was no different than watching any other type of TV.

I believe Spielberg made Saving Private Ryan so that my generation would know the truth and would have a greater respect for those men who gave their lives—and their youth—to fight for freedom.

In the same way, and at an infinitely deeper level of intensity, Gibson made The Passion. We, as comfortable Americans, have woefully sanitized and intellectualized the crucifixion of Jesus. We can tend to forget the truth of the pain that Jesus suffered. So, a film like The Passion, as difficult as it is to watch, is a helpful reminder of the truth about Jesus.

Moses knew that the people who stood on the east side of the Jordan were no different than you and I. It didn’t matter that they had eaten miracle bread their entire life or had seen the water miraculously gush forth from the rock, or had been following a supernatural pillar of cloud and fire through the wilderness. Those things would fade into a misty memory as soon as the juice of a newly harvested cluster of grapes gushed between their toes in their very own winepress. It would not take long before the prosperity of a land flowing with milk and honey would tempt them to forget the source of their abundance and slip into pride, arrogance, and the pursuit of self-gratification.

Notice where the focus of Moses’ instruction was targeted. The weight of responsibility for the proper instruction in God’s Law for God’s people lay with the parent. The priests were not called to teach the people about the Law. The priests were only to manage the sacrifices. There were no religious schools established to teach children how to "do it right." Those came much later. God’s original plan for the transmission of His Law and the preservation of the purity of the nation was to that of parental life education.

Parents, every moment of your life you are teaching your children about God, whether you know it or not. If you are always gone and are working three jobs to "provide for your family" then you are teaching them that God is an absent God. If you are bitter and angry towards others, then you are teaching them that God is a bitter and angry God. If you are humble, compassionate, and willing to seek forgiveness and extend forgiveness, then you are teaching them that God is a compassionate and forgiving God.

You’ve probably heard the old cliché that more is caught than taught. That is very true. It doesn’t matter what you say about God, or what the Bible lesson is in Sunday School. The message the children hear about God is what they see in the adults around them. In our church communities we have a very precious and important opportunity and responsibility. Even if you don’t have a child of your own, you may be in the presence of children in the church. They are watching you. They watch how you interact with the group. They watch what you do when you think no one is looking.

As adults it is our job to teach the children about the Kingdom of God through our lifestyle. Why? So that they don’t forget. As is usually the case, this comes back to the overflow principle. If you are living in the Kingdom, and you are not forgetting, then your behavior will teach the children about the truth of the Kingdom of God.

So, as we participate in the spiritual disciplines of daily scripture reading, prayer, weekly gathering, seasonal celebrations, let’s realize that these things are in our lives to keep the reality of God’s Kingdom in the forefront of our minds and hearts and to spill over into our children. Don’t forget.

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26Feb/100

Week 8 Day 5 – Looking Back, Moving Forward

Deuteronomy 1:1-4:49

Here are three thoughts for today:

1. It is a healthy exercise to periodically set aside time to look backward and see what God has done. One of the best ways to do this is to incorporate the spiritual discipline of journaling into your life. If you will spend part of your daily quiet time with God writing down your prayers, thoughts, feelings, interactions with God, interactions with others, and evidences of God at work in your life, it will serve you well in the future. At least once a year, it is healthy to sit down and review this chronicle of your spiritual journey. When we review the ways in which God has worked in our life it can be a great source of conviction and encouragement. We can be reminded of the spiritual trajectory that God has set us on and set a course to either continue in the same direction or to alter course because we realize we have drifted.

2. It is important that we never lose our focus. Moses knew that the nation of Israel was about to transition into a radically different phase of their existence. He knew that the allure of the fertile lands, the riches, and the sensual worship practices of the Canaanites would serve as intense distractions to the sole purpose of the nation. In this final sermon by Moses we hear the intensity in his voice as he tries to connect the people to their source of life. God was the only source of life for the people. God had given the people the detailed instruction of the Law to keep them focused on the goal and not be distracted by sin. We, too, must never forget that it is all about God. If anything, no matter how "good" it may seem, gets in the way of our growing relationship with God, then it is a distraction and needs to be removed from our lives.

3. In Deuteronomy 4:15-20 we are reminded that God has no form. There is nothing that can adequately describe the nature of God. We often speak of God’s face, or His loving arms, but we must remember that this is simply figurative language. God does not have a face. God does not have arms. God is infinite spirit. He is not a being like you and me. He is the source of all being. He is beyond comparison. This passage may seem to be outdated to our 21st century perspective since we do not worship idols. Yet, it is very appropriate for us because we make idols every day. Every time we place a limitation on God and say that, "God MUST do this," or "God CAN’T do this," we are carving a stone image of Him. Anytime we create a religious system and say that this particular system is THE ONLY RIGHT WAY to worship God, we have carved a statue of wood and are bowing down to it. Now, before I am misinterpreted as buying into the "all roads lead to God" heresy, let me say that...well...I’m not saying that. There is only one true God. God has objectively revealed Himself through scripture. Now, get this...scripture is a completely accurate description of God, BUT scripture is not a complete description of God. That would be impossible. No amount of scripture could contain enough words to adequately describe the nature of God.

Think of it this way. With God, we are on a need to know basis. He is the creator, we are the creation. We were created for His purposes, we don’t create Him for our purposes. Therein lies the heart of today’s message. As soon as we start creating a conception of God that serves OUR agenda, then we are sliding down the slippery slope of idolatry just like Moses warned the Israelites not to do.

Ask God to examine the temple of your heart today. Are there any idols that have been carved to look like your own desires? If there are, get rid of them. Ask God to smash them.

We must keep our focus on the infinite, indescribable, mysterious, loving God that made us and loves us and has a plan for our lives. His Kingdom come, His will be done!

Tagged as: Deuteronomy, The Bible in A Year No Comments

25Feb/100

Week 8 Day 4 – Cities of Refuge

Numbers 35:1-34

Here at the close of the book of Numbers the Israelites are gathering at the east bank of the Jordan River, getting ready to storm into Canaan, conquer the inhabitants, and take over the land that God had promised to Abraham many centuries earlier. The men were gearing up for battle, conquest, and settlement. One of the many purposes for the books of Moses was to instruct the people as to the geographical distribution of the tribes. In other words, it was a real estate guide, divvying up the land to each of the tribes of Israel.

Each one got a piece of the pie. Each one, that is, except for the Levites. Remember, in Exodus the Levites were set aside as the priestly tribe. They were not allowed to own land. They were dedicated to the Lord and were set apart to facilitate the Israelites’ worship of God. In this chapter we see that the Levites were sprinkled throughout the tribes of Israel, much like one would sprinkle salt all around one’s dish of food. Hmmm....salt.

There are some observations and applications we can make from this chapter:

The priests of God were sprinkled like salt throughout the nation. Peter tells us that we, as followers of Jesus, are a royal priesthood. The church is like the tribe of Levi in the world. We are to 1) not consider the land our possession, we are just strangers and sojourners in it, 2) infiltrate the culture and be present "in it, but not of it" (John 17:15-19) in order to be "salt and light" (Matthew 5:13-16) in the world. God distributed the Levites throughout the nation because He knew that without the presence of the priests in their midst, the nation would be tempted to follow the idol-worshipping nations around them. The hope of the world is the church scattered throughout it. It is the presence of God-focused, Christ-centered, Spirit-filled Christians in the midst of pagan worldviews that will slow the rate of decay and be a conduit of hope to the lost and dying world.

One of the purposes of the Levitical cities was to protect people from their own sinfulness. They were to be a haven of refuge. Notice an important piece of the instructions regarding the city of refuge...if a person was guilty of intentional murder, then they deserved to be punished. However, if a person did something stupid and it ended up in a terrible result, like death, then the offender needed a place of refuge. The avenger of blood was hot on his heels and he needed a place to hide out, be safe, regroup, repent, and wait for the day of deliverance. When the high priest died then the killer could be released from the bondage of guilt and allowed to return to a normal life.

Let’s draw an analogy from this for the church. If Christians are like the Levites, being the royal priesthood, and are sprinkled throughout the world like salt, then one aspect of the function of the church is that it should be a city of refuge for the spiritual refugee. We live in a world where people are being spun around so fast by the whirlwind of sinfulness in our dominant culture that people are hurting each other and themselves needlessly, "innocently" all the time. That is not to say that people are innocent and not responsible for their actions. It is to say that the majority of sinners are such because of the dominant influence of evil in the world. These lost souls need a place where they will be welcomed in and sheltered from their great accuser, the avenger of blood, their enemy, the accuser, and allowed to heal. When the high priest dies, then their sin will be forgiven and they can be set free.

Guess what...the high priest died. When Jesus died He set the captive free.

As the church, let us consider how each meeting place could consider itself a city of refuge for the people in its surrounding neighborhood. As we gather each week to worship God, we are like the Levites, shining the light of God’s truth. People in the immediate vicinity should be able to detect that something is going on. Through our prayers and our intentional relational outreach, they should be able to smell the joy and hope that comes from that church. If our churches would view themselves as little outposts of the Kingdom of God in our neighborhoods, then we can serve as cities of refuge for the sinner to enter and be healed.

Tagged as: Numbers, refuge, The Bible in A Year No Comments

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