Deuteronomy 30:1-14
Tuesday, 9 February 2021
“He will bring you to the land that belonged to your ancestors, and you will take possession of it. He will make you more prosperous and numerous than your ancestors.” -Deut. 30:5
Meditating on the devotion today, an introspection would help, to see where you stand in your relationship with God. Your peace, joy and blessing are directly related to your intimate relationship with Him. If not, you must be in a place where you are facing one defeat after another. Is this how people see you?
This is what we read about God’s people in the Scripture portion. Even before they broke relationship with their God due to their unfaithfulness, Moses prophetically speaks into their lives of their behavior in future. Yet the people did not heed his warning and all through history we read about the punishment meted out to them due to their disobedience toward God. But God was willing to bless them when they returned to him on His terms.
According to Deut. 30 what were some of the steps God expected them to take? How would He respond to their return? The very instructions given to them is applicable to our own lives, and if we obey them, God is willing to restore everything we have lost, just as he did/ does for his people.
Return / Turn to the Lord with all our heart and soul (Vs. 2 & 10): Nothing is more important than returning to the Lord. The lost son in Luke 15 understood this truth. Away from his father, he was living in poverty, shame and hunger. Then he made a decision, TO RETURN to the one who holds all his blessings. When we come to the Lord: “From the fullness of His grace we received one blessing after another…” (John 1:6)
Obeying the commands of God with all our heart and soul (V.2): Returning meant not only coming back but also letting go off the former way of life and following God’s ways. James 1:25 says “But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.” In the parable of the Rich man and Lazarus, we hear the rich man begging Father Abraham to send Lazarus to warn his brothers and the response he got was “ they have Moses and the prophets” meaning they had the Law with them. All they needed to do was to listen and obey. Each of us has the freedom to either obey the Word or spurn it. And the Bible records in Psalm 1, that the one who meditates and delights on the Word is like a lush green tree full of fruit. It shows a life that is prosperous and successful. [cf. Joshua 1:8]
When we take these steps toward God, He walks toward us and works something brand new in us, that it not only blesses us but also the generation after us. Deut. 30: 6&7 we read about God changing the hearts of the people and their children to love Him. This is what God does to all who are justified by faith through our Lord Jesus Christ, he pours his love into their hearts by the Holy Spirit (Rom 5:1-5). And the promise of the Holy Spirit is “…to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.”(Acts 2:39)
When we receive this love we will never be the same and instead of focusing on the blessings we receive we make every effort to become channels of the Blesser, so that the world would be touched by his love through our lives.
Quote for the Day: “God doesn't bless us just to make us happy; He blesses us to make us a blessing.”- Warren W. Wiersbe
Listen: ‘Praise God from whom all blessings flow’