Reminder After Reminder

We have finished the first four books of the Bible and are now in Deuteronomy. I actually like Leviticus with the many laws but Numbers is quite another story.

Before Moses dies, he’s given one last task, to explain the Lord’s instructions. He goes through the Israelite’s history, where they have come from, their failures and the importance of depending upon the Lord including obeying the Lord.

You would think that the wondering in the dessert would have taught the new generation a lesson but how quickly they forget. Oh wait, how quickly we forget! We know that the Lord will take care of us, but we fall short in trusting Him in our difficult situations. We start figuring out ways in which we can “help” Him out, which usually doesn’t turn out so well.

“Listen carefully…” two words that Moses says over and over. Perhaps we need to hear it out of the New Testament, Heb. 12:1b-2 “let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” As we steadily listen to Him (through reading the Bible), we gain an endurance to stay focused upon Him, obeying as we turn away from temptation. Sin often can ensnare us, making us feel shame and guilt. He longs for us to come to Him in repentance, humbly asking Him to forgive us of our sin and vowing to not fall into that sin again.

In Deuteronomy 5, Moses repeats the ten commandments. And today, we must read the Bible daily so as not to forget what God is calling us to do. He does call us to wholehearted commitment and in doing so Moses says, “be careful not to forget the Lord,” and I would remind you this day the exact same thing. When things are going well, we get into a routine and complacency often forgetting the Lord is part of that routine.

We must live each day keeping our eyes on Him, filling our mind and heart with His Word for a day is coming that we will live in fear if we have not prepared for what the demons of hell have in store. They count on you living in fear rather than peace. Pray for His will for your life. Pray that you will always stay close to Him. But remember, “humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up in honor.”(James 4:10) Gain the strength that only comes from Jesus as you read His Word daily.

“May the Lord bless you and protect you.

May the Lord smile on you and be gracious to you.

May the Lord show you His favor

and give you, His peace.” Num 6: 24-26.

Holy to the LORD

Before we get started with going over what we read this past week, I want to share with you another project I am working on.

On day 16 in “Faithful Promises of God”, I made the statement, “if you look closely, you will see that our forefathers fashioned the laws of our land directly from the Bible.”

Probably over a year ago, my daughter suggested to me to start taking the laws and regulations of the Bible and show how they were “fashioned” by our forefathers. That’s a big project but I finally saw a starting point on day 16. Not until I got started did I realize what a big task I might be taking on. Probably what I will do is add an insight to how a law applies today (according to our Constitution). Please help me to hold to this! If I start skipping it a week or two, send me an email and remind me to get back on task.

OK, here we go. This is to encourage you to keep reading each day, whether you are using “Faithful Promises of God” or not.

Exodus 24:3b reads, “We will do everything the Lord has commanded.” (NLV) MacArthur writes “Civil, social, and religious laws were received by Moses on Mt. Sinai, orally presented (v3), then written down (v4), and read to the people.”

My observations as I read this section this time around is that there was a lot of emotional motivated behavior at this time. The people were motivated to respond, “All the words which the Lord has said we will do.” (NKJV) But, just like today, people find themselves all hyped up from a song service, or a motivational speaker and are willing to promise anything. At that moment, they really did mean it. And the people telling Moses that they would do whatever the Lord commanded was probably this same emotional high that we see in so many churches/camps/conferences today.

At the end of the day, when things have quieted down, and regular life kicks in, our promise isn’t so much in our thoughts and we sort of forget about what we promised. The Israelites moved on. Although their words were sincere at the time, they were not so obedient. Why does God include this information? Because we are the same today. We promised we will obey, then we do what we think is best even though God is directing us in another direction.

Even though their response was sincere, they didn’t obey God’s direction. We will see this over and over throughout the Old Testament. This doesn’t give us an excuse because we are doing the same thing but it does remind us that this happens and we should be ready to humble ourselves and ask God’s forgiveness and that He would help us to keep our eyes on Him.

We only have to read a few chapters more before we see that the Israelites took their eyes off of God. Instead, they were looking to Moses as their “savior” and demanded that Aaron make them a “god”.

The Lord said to Moses, “They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them” (Exodus 32:8) I wrote in my journal, “Fae, be careful to always follow His ways.”

And with that, I will let you ponder this encouragement to keep your eyes on Him and follow His ways. One of the best ways to do just that is to daily read your Bible, to pray continually and to obey His Word. It’s another week, you can do this! He is faithful!

Necessities of Life

The best thing about winter is we get to enjoy being inside a little more. That is unless you have to scoop each time it snows, take the dogs out for exercise and necessities and do all the little chores that are needed each day. But, none the less, I find that in the dead cold of winter, I have more time to spend with my Lord.

But wait, let me explain. At the beginning of 2023, as I listened to Curtis Bowers’ Agenda Weekly, I accepted his challenge to pray more, focus on serving Christ more, read more, and less social media and T.V. With that said, I love reading the Bible so have started in Genesis again this year and will continue to the last book by the end of 2023, Lord willing.

Which is why I am here. I want to encourage you! If you are using “Faithful Promises of God” to read through the Word, and you are finding that you can’t read the recommended reading each day, may I suggest that you use two days to do the reading before moving on to the next day. Sure, it will take a little longer but that OK. Keep pressing on! You can do it!

In your daily readings, what jumped out at you this past week? For myself, early in the week, when I read Exodus 1:8, it talked about the new Egyptian king that “knew nothing about Joseph or what he had done.” So as a result, the king feared the Israelites, their numbers were enormous. This king thought it would be a good idea to make the Israelites do slave labor, making bricks.

What struck me is that this king didn’t know the past history of his own country or why (and how) the Israelites were there in Egypt…he didn’t know what Joseph had done for Egypt.

Ignorance will get you nowhere and possibly can get you killed!

Remember this when you see what is happening in our world around us. Many people don’t know American history much less world history and as a result, are leaning towards repeating the mistakes of the past. Much of what our country is pushing towards is the exact same mistakes that other countries have made. Why? Because we are no longer students of history. We think we know of a better way but nothing is new under the sun—nothing!

Will we be like the king in Egypt who was so hard hearted that it brings our destruction?

As in Exodus 6, are we suffering because we have chosen not to obey Him. How much more pain do we have to experience before we (individually or as a nation) surrender our lives to the Lord?

As we journey through Exodus, we see over and over God’s protection and provisions for the Israelites. Every so often He tested the people of “their faithfulness to Him.” What do you think, does He test us to see if we are faithful to Him?

Do we only look to the Lord when things are not going so well and we come to Him as spoiled, whining children? Or are we steadily looking to Him and choosing to obey all the time?

Remember, He fights the battle as we surrender with uplifted hands (as a child reaches out to his father). Our enemies will be remembered no more.

He made a conditional covenant with Israel, “If you will…I will…”. Today we serve Him because of our love for Him, not what He can do for us. For He’s already given us the best gift of all.

Should we not tremble before the Lord as the Israelites did in Exodus 20? Do we show Him respect and reverence or are we walking our own path in arrogance, thinking we don’t need Him? That is, unless things don’t go well, then we are back begging Him to make things better.

And so we continue reading, following the greatest story ever told. I would love hearing from you. Share how He is guiding you on our walk together. Until next week, may God watch over you and keep you focused on Him.