Author: Braden Condray

Devotional

Daily Devotional-August 30

August 30, 2020

The message of Deuteronomy is one that the church desperately needs to hear today. These final words of Moses given to the children of Israel as they prepared to enter into the Promised Land serve as a warning, an encouragement, and a charge. Through them, God exposes the idolatry of our hearts and calls us to give all of our love, worship, and devotion to Him alone in every area of our lives! Moses warns the people that when they enter the land there will be things that compete with God for their attention, their affections and their worship. We, too, have hundreds of things that compete for our hearts each and every day. In this book, God teaches us how to properly respond to the amazing grace He has given us by giving Him our undivided allegiance, our whole hearts and our whole lives. Over the next 34 days, let’s seek this ancient way together as a church!

In this passage the Lord reveals to us His concern for justice to be upheld among His people. Moses commands the people concerning cities of refuge, to which those who had killed someone unintentionally could flee for their lives, the establishment of property boundaries, and false witnesses. Notice that each of these laws is a specific application of one of the ten commandments (v.1-13 you shall not murder; v.14 you shall not steal/covet; v.15-21 you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor).

The extent of God’s justice, as well as the extent to which the people were to purge all evil from among themselves, are displayed in verse 21. The retaliatory judgment against evildoers was perfectly just: eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life. Exactly as they had done, or exactly as they intended to do, it was to be done to them.

God is the God of mercy, but He is also the God of justice. We see both put on display ultimately in the cross, where God’s just wrath towards sin and His compassionate mercy towards sinners meet. As His people, God calls us to put His justice on display in the way that we conduct ourselves and in the way we treat others!

Deuteronomy 19

Laws Concerning Cities of Refuge

19 “When the Lord your God cuts off the nations whose land the Lordyour God is giving you, and you dispossess them and dwell in their cities and in their houses, 2 you shall set apart three cities for yourselves in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess. 3 You shall measure the distances and divide into three parts the area of the land that the Lordyour God gives you as a possession, so that any manslayer can flee to them.

4 “This is the provision for the manslayer, who by fleeing there may save his life. If anyone kills his neighbor unintentionally without having hated him in the past— 5 as when someone goes into the forest with his neighbor to cut wood, and his hand swings the axe to cut down a tree, and the head slips from the handle and strikes his neighbor so that he dies—he may flee to one of these cities and live, 6 lest the avenger of blood in hot anger pursue the manslayer and overtake him, because the way is long, and strike him fatally, though the man did not deserve to die, since he had not hated his neighbor in the past. 7 Therefore I command you, You shall set apart three cities.8 And if the Lord your God enlarges your territory, as he has sworn to your fathers, and gives you all the land that he promised to give to your fathers—9 provided you are careful to keep all this commandment, which I command you today, by loving the Lord your God and by walking ever in his ways—then you shall add three other cities to these three, 10 lest innocent blood be shed in your land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, and so the guilt of bloodshed be upon you.

11 “But if anyone hates his neighbor and lies in wait for him and attacks him and strikes him fatally so that he dies, and he flees into one of these cities,12 then the elders of his city shall send and take him from there, and hand him over to the avenger of blood, so that he may die. 13 Your eye shall not pity him, but you shall purge the guilt of innocent blood from Israel, so that it may be well with you.

Property Boundaries

14 “You shall not move your neighbor’s landmark, which the men of old have set, in the inheritance that you will hold in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess.

Laws Concerning Witnesses

15 “A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established. 16 If a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing, 17 then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the Lord, before the priests and the judges who are in office in those days.18 The judges shall inquire diligently, and if the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely, 19 then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. 20 And the rest shall hear and fear, and shall never again commit any such evil among you. 21 Your eye shall not pity. It shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

Family Discussion Question:

  • Do you think that one of the characteristics of the church today is a concern for justice? Why or why not? How can we move towards being people of justice, as God has called us to be?
Devotional

Daily Devotional-August 29

August 29, 2020

The message of Deuteronomy is one that the church desperately needs to hear today. These final words of Moses given to the children of Israel as they prepared to enter into the Promised Land serve as a warning, an encouragement, and a charge. Through them, God exposes the idolatry of our hearts and calls us to give all of our love, worship, and devotion to Him alone in every area of our lives! Moses warns the people that when they enter the land there will be things that compete with God for their attention, their affections and their worship. We, too, have hundreds of things that compete for our hearts each and every day. In this book, God teaches us how to properly respond to the amazing grace He has given us by giving Him our undivided allegiance, our whole hearts and our whole lives. Over the next 34 days, let’s seek this ancient way together as a church!

In this chapter Moses gives the people instructions concerning the sacrificial portions for the priests and the Levites in the land, commands them not to adopt the wicked spiritual practices of the nations they are dispossessing, and tells them that the Lord is going to raise up another prophet like him for the people. 

This last portion of the chapter is of utmost significance to our understanding of the Jewish anticipation of the Messiah; if you will turn to the end of Deuteronomy (spoiler alert!) it says that there has not been another prophet like Moses. The five books of the Torah end with this anticipation, that a prophet like Moses is going to come; similarly, the part of the Hebrew Scriptures called the prophets ends with an expectation that a prophet like Elijah is going to come (Malachi 4:5-6). 

It is no coincidence that these are the two exact figures from Israel’s history who appear to converse with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matthew 17:3). Jesus is the prophet like Moses that God is promising His people here! It is a bit ironic that God promises this prophet in response to the peoples’ request that they should no longer hear the voice of God, since in hearing Jesus speak they heard the voice of God once more!

This is so significant for us because it means that, over the course of human history and down to the tiniest details, God is faithful to His promises. Not one word that He has spoken will fail; it shall all come to pass in due time. Put your trust and all your hope once more in His faithfulness today, and celebrate that the prophet like Moses has come and has reconciled us to God!

Deuteronomy 18

Provision for Priests and Levites

18 “The Levitical priests, all the tribe of Levi, shall have no portion or inheritance with Israel. They shall eat the Lord’s food offerings as their inheritance. 2 They shall have no inheritance among their brothers; the Lordis their inheritance, as he promised them. 3 And this shall be the priests’ due from the people, from those offering a sacrifice, whether an ox or a sheep: they shall give to the priest the shoulder and the two cheeks and the stomach. 4 The firstfruits of your grain, of your wine and of your oil, and the first fleece of your sheep, you shall give him. 5 For the Lord your God has chosen him out of all your tribes to stand and minister in the name of the Lord, him and his sons for all time.

6 “And if a Levite comes from any of your towns out of all Israel, where he lives—and he may come when he desires—to the place that the Lord will choose, 7 and ministers in the name of the Lord his God, like all his fellow Levites who stand to minister there before the Lord, 8 then he may have equal portions to eat, besides what he receives from the sale of his patrimony.

Abominable Practices

9 “When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. 10 There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer 11 or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, 12 for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. And because of these abominations the Lord your God is driving them out before you. 13 You shall be blameless before the Lord your God, 14 for these nations, which you are about to dispossess, listen to fortune-tellers and to diviners. But as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you to do this.

A New Prophet like Moses

15 “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen— 16 just as you desired of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.’ 17 And the Lord said to me, ‘They are right in what they have spoken. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. 19 And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him. 20 But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.’ 21 And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?’— 22 when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lordhas not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

Family Discussion Question:

  • How do the Old Testament promises of God fulfilled in Christ Jesus bolster and grow our faith in Him?
Devotional

Daily Devotional-August 28

August 28, 2020

The message of Deuteronomy is one that the church desperately needs to hear today. These final words of Moses given to the children of Israel as they prepared to enter into the Promised Land serve as a warning, an encouragement, and a charge. Through them, God exposes the idolatry of our hearts and calls us to give all of our love, worship, and devotion to Him alone in every area of our lives! Moses warns the people that when they enter the land there will be things that compete with God for their attention, their affections and their worship. We, too, have hundreds of things that compete for our hearts each and every day. In this book, God teaches us how to properly respond to the amazing grace He has given us by giving Him our undivided allegiance, our whole hearts and our whole lives. Over the next 34 days, let’s seek this ancient way together as a church!

In this chapter Moses gives laws concerning proper sacrifices, dealing with idolaters in the land, solving legal cases that are too difficult for the local authorities to handle, and how the king who the Lord chooses for Israel should conduct himself. In all of these things it is stressed once more that God’s people are to be holy; they are to live and worship and rule in a way that is so different from the nations around them, in a way that reflects the character and holiness of their God!

In verse 1 Moses tells the people that, when they offer sacrifice to the Lord, they must not offer an animal that has any defect or blemish, because to do so is an abomination to the Lord. The animals they offered were to be spotless, without fault of any kind. They were to do this out of reverence and worship towards God; because He is holy and incomparably great, He deserves the best of what we could offer Him, and offering Him anything less than that demonstrates a blatant disregard for His glory!

What was true for Israel then is true for us now: when we offer our worship to the Lord, we should be giving Him the absolute best that we have! In our busy schedules today, many of us struggle to make having time with God a priority, and even when we do it we’re so tired or so focused on getting to the next thing that we are hardly being still in His Holy presence. Why are we so often content, even happy with ourselves, when we give God merely the scraps of our time and attention?

The Lord is clear in this passage: He wants our all, our everything, the very best that we have to offer to Him. He has not withheld anything from us, not even His own Son; will you then withhold anything from Him?

Deuteronomy 17

17 “You shall not sacrifice to the Lord your God an ox or a sheep in which is a blemish, any defect whatever, for that is an abomination to the Lordyour God.

2 “If there is found among you, within any of your towns that the Lord your God is giving you, a man or woman who does what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God, in transgressing his covenant, 3 and has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun or the moon or any of the host of heaven, which I have forbidden, 4 and it is told you and you hear of it, then you shall inquire diligently, and if it is true and certain that such an abomination has been done in Israel, 5 then you shall bring out to your gates that man or woman who has done this evil thing, and you shall stone that man or woman to death with stones. 6 On the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses the one who is to die shall be put to death; a person shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness. 7 The hand of the witnesses shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

Legal Decisions by Priests and Judges

8 “If any case arises requiring decision between one kind of homicide and another, one kind of legal right and another, or one kind of assault and another, any case within your towns that is too difficult for you, then you shall arise and go up to the place that the Lord your God will choose. 9 And you shall come to the Levitical priests and to the judge who is in office in those days, and you shall consult them, and they shall declare to you the decision. 10 Then you shall do according to what they declare to you from that place that the Lord will choose. And you shall be careful to do according to all that they direct you. 11 According to the instructions that they give you, and according to the decision which they pronounce to you, you shall do. You shall not turn aside from the verdict that they declare to you, either to the right hand or to the left. 12 The man who acts presumptuously by not obeying the priest who stands to minister there before the Lord your God, or the judge, that man shall die. So you shall purge the evil from Israel. 13 And all the people shall hear and fear and not act presumptuously again.

Laws Concerning Israel’s Kings

14 “When you come to the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you possess it and dwell in it and then say, ‘I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me,’ 15 you may indeed set a king over you whom the Lord your God will choose. One from among your brothers you shall set as king over you. You may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother. 16 Only he must not acquire many horses for himself or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to acquire many horses, since the Lordhas said to you, ‘You shall never return that way again.’ 17 And he shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold.

18 “And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priests. 19 And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them, 20 that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left, so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children, in Israel.

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

Family Discussion Question:

  • What are some ways in which you tend to withhold the best you have to offer from God?
Devotional

Daily Devotional-August 27

August 27, 2020

The message of Deuteronomy is one that the church desperately needs to hear today. These final words of Moses given to the children of Israel as they prepared to enter into the Promised Land serve as a warning, an encouragement, and a charge. Through them, God exposes the idolatry of our hearts and calls us to give all of our love, worship, and devotion to Him alone in every area of our lives! Moses warns the people that when they enter the land there will be things that compete with God for their attention, their affections and their worship. We, too, have hundreds of things that compete for our hearts each and every day. In this book, God teaches us how to properly respond to the amazing grace He has given us by giving Him our undivided allegiance, our whole hearts and our whole lives. Over the next 34 days, let’s seek this ancient way together as a church!

In this chapter Moses explains the three main festivals that the people of Israel are to observe each year: the Passover, the Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Booths. Each of these feasts serves as a reminder of the way that God had delivered His people from slavery in Egypt, and during these feasts the entire land was to rejoice before the Lord!

Why was it so important that the people of Israel have these feasts to remind them of God’s saving work in their lives? They needed these reminders because, as Moses has already asserted multiple times throughout the book of Deuteronomy, they were prone to forget God, to forget all He had done for them, and to go after other gods because of it. This is demonstrated in the ending of the chapter: Moses launches immediately from talking about these festivals of remembrance to warning them against injustice and, once more, against idolatry! 

If you think about it, the church calendar functions in a similar way: we have the season of Lent leading up to our celebration of Easter, and the season of Advent leading up to our celebration of Christmas. We observe these things as a means of being reminded of the way that God has moved and worked in history to accomplish our salvation through Jesus Christ! 

Because we are fallen, sinful creatures, we are all still so prone to forget God and all He has done. When we forget, we try to find our identity, our security, our joy, and our peace in lesser things that can never, ever give them to us! We need to be reminded daily of Who we serve and Whose we are, daily reminder of the truths of the gospel that we proclaim! 

Choose to remember and to be reminded today! 

Deuteronomy 16

Passover

16 “Observe the month of Abib and keep the Passover to the Lord your God, for in the month of Abib the Lord your God brought you out of Egypt by night. 2 And you shall offer the Passover sacrifice to the Lord your God, from the flock or the herd, at the place that the Lord will choose, to make his name dwell there. 3 You shall eat no leavened bread with it. Seven days you shall eat it with unleavened bread, the bread of affliction—for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste—that all the days of your life you may remember the day when you came out of the land of Egypt. 4 No leaven shall be seen with you in all your territory for seven days, nor shall any of the flesh that you sacrifice on the evening of the first day remain all night until morning. 5 You may not offer the Passover sacrifice within any of your towns that the Lord your God is giving you, 6 but at the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name dwell in it, there you shall offer the Passover sacrifice, in the evening at sunset, at the time you came out of Egypt. 7 And you shall cook it and eat it at the place that the Lord your God will choose. And in the morning you shall turn and go to your tents. 8 For six days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a solemn assembly to the Lord your God. You shall do no work on it.

The Feast of Weeks

9 “You shall count seven weeks. Begin to count the seven weeks from the time the sickle is first put to the standing grain. 10 Then you shall keep the Feast of Weeks to the Lord your God with the tribute of a freewill offering from your hand, which you shall give as the Lord your God blesses you.11 And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite who is within your towns, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are among you, at the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name dwell there. 12 You shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt; and you shall be careful to observe these statutes.

The Feast of Booths

13 “You shall keep the Feast of Booths seven days, when you have gathered in the produce from your threshing floor and your winepress. 14 You shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are within your towns. 15 For seven days you shall keep the feast to the Lord your God at the place that the Lord will choose, because the Lord your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, so that you will be altogether joyful.

16 “Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Lord your God at the place that he will choose: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, at the Feast of Weeks, and at the Feast of Booths. They shall not appear before the Lord empty-handed. 17 Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the Lord your God that he has given you.

Justice

18 “You shall appoint judges and officers in all your towns that the Lord your God is giving you, according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment. 19 You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality, and you shall not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of the righteous. 20 Justice, and only justice, you shall follow, that you may live and inherit the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

Forbidden Forms of Worship

21 “You shall not plant any tree as an Asherah beside the altar of the Lordyour God that you shall make. 22 And you shall not set up a pillar, which the Lord your God hates.

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

Family Discussion Question:

  • What are some ways that you can daily be reminded of who God is and all He has done for us in Christ? How can you set up reminders for yourself of these truths?
Devotional

Daily Devotional-August 26

August 26, 2020

The message of Deuteronomy is one that the church desperately needs to hear today. These final words of Moses given to the children of Israel as they prepared to enter into the Promised Land serve as a warning, an encouragement, and a charge. Through them, God exposes the idolatry of our hearts and calls us to give all of our love, worship, and devotion to Him alone in every area of our lives! Moses warns the people that when they enter the land there will be things that compete with God for their attention, their affections and their worship. We, too, have hundreds of things that compete for our hearts each and every day. In this book, God teaches us how to properly respond to the amazing grace He has given us by giving Him our undivided allegiance, our whole hearts and our whole lives. Over the next 34 days, let’s seek this ancient way together as a church!

Moses continues explaining the Covenant Law to the people of Israel. In this chapter, Moses continues to lay out practices of worship, generosity, and social equity that would have very much distinguished them among the neighboring nations. Their way of life was to put the glory and holiness of the God they served on display, and that Law was the means of doing that!

Moses specifically speaks to the matter of the Sabbath year and the generosity which was to characterize the people of God. In reverence and worship towards God, without a grudging heart nor a fearful one, everyone in Israel who had lent to another was to release them from that debt in the Sabbath year. It didn’t matter if the person had paid or not, whether they had the debt for six of the seven years or only a couple of weeks; all debts were to be forgiven in the seventh year. 

The Lord also commanded His people to give generously to all their Israelite brothers or sisters who became poor in the land. They were not to harden their hearts in greed nor even consider how close the Sabbath year was (and therefore how likely they were to actually get repaid for the loan); they were to live with an open hand and a soft heart towards those who were in need around them.

If the people of Israel obeyed these commands, the Lord promised to bless them. The very same expectations, along with the very same promises, exist for God’s people today; in light of the incredible generosity of God towards us in Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 8:9), we are to be people characterized by generosity and open-handedness towards those in need, especially those within the church. 

In Acts chapters 2 and 4 we see descriptions of the radical generosity that the life-transforming power of the Holy Spirit and the gospel produced in the lives of the early believers in Jerusalem. They gave as there was need among them, so that “There was not a needy person among them” (Acts 4:34). What would it look like for us to really live this way, in this radical kind of generosity that the Lord calls us to?

Just like it was for the early church, this kind of genuine love demonstrated through generosity is one of the most powerful witnesses to the world of the reality of God’s presence in and among us as His people. In the end, the call of God towards this sort of generosity is a call to trust Him and His promises. If we truly believe that He is who He says He is, and we truly trust that He will follow through on His promises to bless us when we live this way, then that frees us to walk in radical open-handedness towards those in need!

Deuteronomy 15

The Sabbatical Year

15 “At the end of every seven years you shall grant a release. 2 And this is the manner of the release: every creditor shall release what he has lent to his neighbor. He shall not exact it of his neighbor, his brother, because the Lord’s release has been proclaimed. 3 Of a foreigner you may exact it, but whatever of yours is with your brother your hand shall release. 4 But there will be no poor among you; for the Lord will bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance to possess— 5 if only you will strictly obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all this commandment that I command you today. 6 For the Lord your God will bless you, as he promised you, and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow, and you shall rule over many nations, but they shall not rule over you.

7 “If among you, one of your brothers should become poor, in any of your towns within your land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, 8 but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be. 9 Take care lest there be an unworthy thought in your heart and you say, ‘The seventh year, the year of release is near,’ and your eye look grudgingly on your poor brother, and you give him nothing, and he cry to the Lord against you, and you be guilty of sin. 10 You shall give to him freely, and your heart shall not be grudging when you give to him, because for this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake. 11 For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.’

12 “If your brother, a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you, he shall serve you six years, and in the seventh year you shall let him go free from you. 13 And when you let him go free from you, you shall not let him go empty-handed. 14 You shall furnish him liberally out of your flock, out of your threshing floor, and out of your winepress. As the Lord your God has blessed you, you shall give to him. 15 You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you; therefore I command you this today. 16 But if he says to you, ‘I will not go out from you,’ because he loves you and your household, since he is well-off with you,17 then you shall take an awl, and put it through his ear into the door, and he shall be your slave forever. And to your female slave you shall do the same. 18 It shall not seem hard to you when you let him go free from you, for at half the cost of a hired worker he has served you six years. So the Lordyour God will bless you in all that you do.

19 “All the firstborn males that are born of your herd and flock you shall dedicate to the Lord your God. You shall do no work with the firstborn of your herd, nor shear the firstborn of your flock. 20 You shall eat it, you and your household, before the Lord your God year by year at the place that the Lord will choose. 21 But if it has any blemish, if it is lame or blind or has any serious blemish whatever, you shall not sacrifice it to the Lord your God.22 You shall eat it within your towns. The unclean and the clean alike may eat it, as though it were a gazelle or a deer. 23 Only you shall not eat its blood; you shall pour it out on the ground like water.

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

Family Discussion Question:

  • What are some excuses that we sometimes make for not helping the people we see around us who are in need? Is it possible that those excuses say more about our own hearts than they do about the needy people we see? How does the command of God towards the people of Israel, as well as the example of the early church, challenge you to live with greater generosity towards others?
Devotional

Daily Devotional-August 25

August 25, 2020

The message of Deuteronomy is one that the church desperately needs to hear today. These final words of Moses given to the children of Israel as they prepared to enter into the Promised Land serve as a warning, an encouragement, and a charge. Through them, God exposes the idolatry of our hearts and calls us to give all of our love, worship, and devotion to Him alone in every area of our lives! Moses warns the people that when they enter the land there will be things that compete with God for their attention, their affections and their worship. We, too, have hundreds of things that compete for our hearts each and every day. In this book, God teaches us how to properly respond to the amazing grace He has given us by giving Him our undivided allegiance, our whole hearts and our whole lives. Over the next 34 days, let’s seek this ancient way together as a church!

This chapter begins with a significant statement which helps set us up to understand the rest of the chapter as well as the Law as a whole. Moses tells the people of Israel that they are the sons of the Lord their God, and that God has chosen them out of all the peoples on the face of the planet to be a special and holy people unto Himself. 

The fact that God intended for this people to be holy, set apart, unique, distinct from every other people on the earth, helps us to understand at least in part why God commands them the way that He does concerning food laws. This may seem strange or obscure, or even somewhat boring to us, but at least part of the point is that God wants His people to be so holy, so different from all the other peoples, that even the food they consume looks different from the rest of the world!

This concern for the distinctness and holiness of God’s people comes through in the commands concerning tithes as well. The people were to set apart a tenth of all that they produced and bring it to contribute it to the Temple each year, as well as setting it apart for those who had nothing to partake of it every three years. While many in the church today might see the giving of tithes as an obligation, the people of Israel were to see it as a delight, an act of worshipful response to what God has done for them that year. They were to rejoice in giving it (v.26)!

All of these things demonstrate the need for God’s people to be holy. Holiness is more than simply morally righteous behavior; it is distinctness from everything else, and this means that God’s people are to look different in every aspect of their lives in view of God’s grace towards them. The question then becomes, how different from the surrounding culture do we really look in our lives? Have we settled for looking different from the world around us in how we choose to spend our Sunday mornings and perhaps a bit of our time, being distinct from the world in little else? Where have we unwittingly compromised with the culture around us when we should be distinct from it?

God calls us, as His chosen and beloved people, to a level of holiness which surpasses the way in which many of us live and which affects the way we live in every area of our lives. He calls us to live not as citizens of nation but of an eternal Kingdom. He calls us to be distinct, because He is distinct: there is no one like our God! Are we really living this way?

Deuteronomy 14

Clean and Unclean Food

14 “You are the sons of the Lord your God. You shall not cut yourselves or make any baldness on your foreheads for the dead. 2 For you are a people holy to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.

3 “You shall not eat any abomination. 4 These are the animals you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat, 5 the deer, the gazelle, the roebuck, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope, and the mountain sheep. 6 Every animal that parts the hoof and has the hoof cloven in two and chews the cud, among the animals, you may eat. 7 Yet of those that chew the cud or have the hoof cloven you shall not eat these: the camel, the hare, and the rock badger, because they chew the cud but do not part the hoof, are unclean for you.8 And the pig, because it parts the hoof but does not chew the cud, is unclean for you. Their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses you shall not touch.

9 “Of all that are in the waters you may eat these: whatever has fins and scales you may eat. 10 And whatever does not have fins and scales you shall not eat; it is unclean for you.

11 “You may eat all clean birds. 12 But these are the ones that you shall not eat: the eagle, the bearded vulture, the black vulture, 13 the kite, the falcon of any kind; 14 every raven of any kind; 15 the ostrich, the nighthawk, the sea gull, the hawk of any kind; 16 the little owl and the short-eared owl, the barn owl 17 and the tawny owl, the carrion vulture and the cormorant, 18 the stork, the heron of any kind; the hoopoe and the bat. 19 And all winged insects are unclean for you; they shall not be eaten. 20 All clean winged things you may eat.

21 “You shall not eat anything that has died naturally. You may give it to the sojourner who is within your towns, that he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner. For you are a people holy to the Lord your God.

“You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.

Tithes

22 “You shall tithe all the yield of your seed that comes from the field year by year. 23 And before the Lord your God, in the place that he will choose, to make his name dwell there, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, of your wine, and of your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and flock, that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always. 24 And if the way is too long for you, so that you are not able to carry the tithe, when the Lord your God blesses you, because the place is too far from you, which the Lord your God chooses, to set his name there, 25 then you shall turn it into money and bind up the money in your hand and go to the place that the Lord your God chooses 26 and spend the money for whatever you desire—oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves. And you shall eat there before the Lord your God and rejoice, you and your household. 27 And you shall not neglect the Levite who is within your towns, for he has no portion or inheritance with you.

28 “At the end of every three years you shall bring out all the tithe of your produce in the same year and lay it up within your towns. 29 And the Levite, because he has no portion or inheritance with you, and the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, who are within your towns, shall come and eat and be filled, that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands that you do.

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

Family Discussion Question:

  • How do we find the balance between celebrating the good things in our culture and still looking so different from it in every aspect of our lives? What areas have you compromised with our culture where you should be looking distinct from it?
Devotional

Daily Devotional-August 24

August 24, 2020

The message of Deuteronomy is one that the church desperately needs to hear today. These final words of Moses given to the children of Israel as they prepared to enter into the Promised Land serve as a warning, an encouragement, and a charge. Through them, God exposes the idolatry of our hearts and calls us to give all of our love, worship, and devotion to Him alone in every area of our lives! Moses warns the people that when they enter the land there will be things that compete with God for their attention, their affections and their worship. We, too, have hundreds of things that compete for our hearts each and every day. In this book, God teaches us how to properly respond to the amazing grace He has given us by giving Him our undivided allegiance, our whole hearts and our whole lives. Over the next 34 days, let’s seek this ancient way together as a church!

The Lord will not compete for our affections. He will suffer no rival for our worship, for our heart’s devotion and allegiance. In this chapter Moses demonstrates the extent to which our love and devotion towards God must surpass our love and devotion for anything else, as well as the seriousness and severity with which we are to treat anything or anyone which would seek to lure us away from Him.

Moses shows us here the extremes the people of Israel were called to go to protect their fidelity to the Lord alone: they were to put to death any prophet who suggested that they worship other gods; they were to both mercilessly and personally put to death even their dearest friends and loved ones who tried to draw them away from the true God, without pity; they were to put to death and burn an entire city along with even its cattle should that city be turned to idolatry. The point that Moses is making is that our love and devotion towards God must so far surpass our love and devotion to anything and everything else that we would willingly destroy anything or anyone who tried to turn us away from Him!

This seems extreme to us, and that’s because it is! At the same time, Jesus demands a similar sort of love and devotion from His followers. While He does not require us to put anyone to death for luring us away from Him, He does command that anyone who follows Him should love Him so dearly and be so wholly devoted to Him that all their other love and devotion would seem like hatred in comparison (Luke 14:26). Jesus demands an exclusive place in our hearts that we cannot give to anyone or anything else!

Are you giving Him that place, His rightful place, in your heart?

Deuteronomy 13

13 “If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, 2 and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’ 3 you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. 4 You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him. 5 But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has taught rebellion against the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of slavery, to make you leave the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

6 “If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or your daughter or the wife you embrace or your friend who is as your own soul entices you secretly, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which neither you nor your fathers have known, 7 some of the gods of the peoples who are around you, whether near you or far off from you, from the one end of the earth to the other, 8 you shall not yield to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him, nor shall you conceal him. 9 But you shall kill him. Your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. 10 You shall stone him to death with stones, because he sought to draw you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 11 And all Israel shall hear and fear and never again do any such wickedness as this among you.

12 “If you hear in one of your cities, which the Lord your God is giving you to dwell there, 13 that certain worthless fellows have gone out among you and have drawn away the inhabitants of their city, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which you have not known, 14 then you shall inquire and make search and ask diligently. And behold, if it be true and certain that such an abomination has been done among you, 15 you shall surely put the inhabitants of that city to the sword, devoting it to destruction, all who are in it and its cattle, with the edge of the sword. 16 You shall gather all its spoil into the midst of its open square and burn the city and all its spoil with fire, as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. It shall be a heap forever. It shall not be built again. 17 None of the devoted things shall stick to your hand, that the Lord may turn from the fierceness of his anger and show you mercy and have compassion on you and multiply you, as he swore to your fathers, 18 if you obey the voice of the Lord your God, keeping all his commandments that I am commanding you today, and doing what is right in the sight of the Lord your God.

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

Family Discussion Question:

  • Do you love Jesus so much that all your other love would seem like hatred if you compared it? Why do you think Jesus demands this of us? How can you work to cultivate and to grow your love and devotion towards God?
Devotional

Daily Devotional-August 23

August 23, 2020

The message of Deuteronomy is one that the church desperately needs to hear today. These final words of Moses given to the children of Israel as they prepared to enter into the Promised Land serve as a warning, an encouragement, and a charge. Through them, God exposes the idolatry of our hearts and calls us to give all of our love, worship, and devotion to Him alone in every area of our lives! Moses warns the people that when they enter the land there will be things that compete with God for their attention, their affections and their worship. We, too, have hundreds of things that compete for our hearts each and every day. In this book, God teaches us how to properly respond to the amazing grace He has given us by giving Him our undivided allegiance, our whole hearts and our whole lives. Over the next 34 days, let’s seek this ancient way together as a church!

It is significant that, as Moses here begins to formally explain the law to the people of Israel, the first section of law deals with completely ridding the land of all idols. They were to drive out the gods of the nations just as much as they were to drive out the nations themselves! God repeatedly warns the children of Israel through Moses that they must rid the land of every hint of the idolatrous practices of the nations. Why would God be so concerned that they leave no trace of this idolatry in the land?

The reason that they needed to be so comprehensive in ridding the land of idols is that God knew that if they didn’t then their hearts would be led astray into worshipping them. The same is true for us today, who live surrounded by idolatry with no means of removing it from the environment in which we exist. The idolatry that surrounds us always draws the attention of our sinful hearts!

While we cannot rid our lives of everything that would tempt us to worship something other than God, we canget rid of some things, and so we should! But even more importantly, we have to understand that idolatry is always a matter of the sin inside us before it becomes a matter of the temptation outside of us. Just as ruthlessly and as mercilessly as the people of Israel were to rid the land of idols, we must rid our hearts of them!

Deuteronomy 12

The Lord’s Chosen Place of Worship

12 “These are the statutes and rules that you shall be careful to do in the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess, all the days that you live on the earth. 2 You shall surely destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess served their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. 3 You shall tear down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and burn their Asherim with fire. You shall chop down the carved images of their gods and destroy their name out of that place. 4 You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way.5 But you shall seek the place that the Lord your God will choose out of all your tribes to put his name and make his habitation there. There you shall go, 6 and there you shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution that you present, your vow offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock. 7 And there you shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your households, in all that you undertake, in which the Lord your God has blessed you.

8 “You shall not do according to all that we are doing here today, everyone doing whatever is right in his own eyes, 9 for you have not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance that the Lord your God is giving you. 10 But when you go over the Jordan and live in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to inherit, and when he gives you rest from all your enemies around, so that you live in safety, 11 then to the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name dwell there, there you shall bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution that you present, and all your finest vow offerings that you vow to the Lord. 12 And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your sons and your daughters, your male servants and your female servants, and the Levite that is within your towns, since he has no portion or inheritance with you. 13 Take care that you do not offer your burnt offerings at any place that you see, 14 but at the place that the Lord will choose in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all that I am commanding you.

15 “However, you may slaughter and eat meat within any of your towns, as much as you desire, according to the blessing of the Lord your God that he has given you. The unclean and the clean may eat of it, as of the gazelle and as of the deer. 16 Only you shall not eat the blood; you shall pour it out on the earth like water. 17 You may not eat within your towns the tithe of your grain or of your wine or of your oil, or the firstborn of your herd or of your flock, or any of your vow offerings that you vow, or your freewill offerings or the contribution that you present, 18 but you shall eat them before the Lordyour God in the place that the Lord your God will choose, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, and the Levite who is within your towns. And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God in all that you undertake. 19 Take care that you do not neglect the Levite as long as you live in your land.

20 “When the Lord your God enlarges your territory, as he has promised you, and you say, ‘I will eat meat,’ because you crave meat, you may eat meat whenever you desire. 21 If the place that the Lord your God will choose to put his name there is too far from you, then you may kill any of your herd or your flock, which the Lord has given you, as I have commanded you, and you may eat within your towns whenever you desire. 22 Just as the gazelle or the deer is eaten, so you may eat of it. The unclean and the clean alike may eat of it. 23 Only be sure that you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life, and you shall not eat the life with the flesh. 24 You shall not eat it; you shall pour it out on the earth like water. 25 You shall not eat it, that all may go well with you and with your children after you, when you do what is right in the sight of the Lord. 26 But the holy things that are due from you, and your vow offerings, you shall take, and you shall go to the place that the Lord will choose, 27 and offer your burnt offerings, the flesh and the blood, on the altar of the Lord your God. The blood of your sacrifices shall be poured out on the altar of the Lord your God, but the flesh you may eat. 28 Be careful to obey all these words that I command you, that it may go well with you and with your children after you forever, when you do what is good and right in the sight of the Lord your God.

Warning Against Idolatry

29 “When the Lord your God cuts off before you the nations whom you go in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, 30 take care that you be not ensnared to follow them, after they have been destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods?—that I also may do the same.’ 31 You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way, for every abominable thing that the Lord hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods.

32 “Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it.

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

Family Discussion Question:

  • What are some things in your environment that you could eliminate which tempt you towards sin and idolatry? How can you be intentional about asking the Lord to expose and remove idols from your life?
Devotional

Daily Devotional-August 22

August 22, 2020

The message of Deuteronomy is one that the church desperately needs to hear today. These final words of Moses given to the children of Israel as they prepared to enter into the Promised Land serve as a warning, an encouragement, and a charge. Through them, God exposes the idolatry of our hearts and calls us to give all of our love, worship, and devotion to Him alone in every area of our lives! Moses warns the people that when they enter the land there will be things that compete with God for their attention, their affections and their worship. We, too, have hundreds of things that compete for our hearts each and every day. In this book, God teaches us how to properly respond to the amazing grace He has given us by giving Him our undivided allegiance, our whole hearts and our whole lives. Over the next 34 days, let’s seek this ancient way together as a church!

Moses has just called the people of Israel to consider the great love and grace of God; now he calls them to consider the greatness, power, and discipline of God that He displayed in Egypt and all along the way. Why is it important that we stop to consider who God is, the attributes of His character?

Moses gives his reasons for calling the people’s attention to these various attributes and actions of God: that they would, in light of these things, carefully obey all of His commands! Note how Moses lumps loving God, serving God, and obeying God into the same category. The point he is trying to make is that a heart that loves God leads to a life of obedience to Him; on the other hand, a life of true obedience cannot exist apart from a heart that loves Him. 

All of these things serve as a reminder to us that considering the ways, the actions, and the character of God should always lead to our affections for Him being grown and our hearts being moved to worship Him alone! In the end of the chapter, Moses sets before the people a blessing if they obey the Lord and a curse if they do not. We stop to consider who God is and all that He has done in order that we would remember to choose the path of blessing, the path to life!

Deuteronomy 11

Love and Serve the Lord

11 “You shall therefore love the Lord your God and keep his charge, his statutes, his rules, and his commandments always. 2 And consider today (since I am not speaking to your children who have not known or seen it), consider the discipline of the Lord your God, his greatness, his mighty hand and his outstretched arm, 3 his signs and his deeds that he did in Egypt to Pharaoh the king of Egypt and to all his land, 4 and what he did to the army of Egypt, to their horses and to their chariots, how he made the water of the Red Sea flow over them as they pursued after you, and how the Lord has destroyed them to this day, 5 and what he did to you in the wilderness, until you came to this place, 6 and what he did to Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, son of Reuben, how the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households, their tents, and every living thing that followed them, in the midst of all Israel. 7 For your eyes have seen all the great work of the Lord that he did.

8 “You shall therefore keep the whole commandment that I command you today, that you may be strong, and go in and take possession of the land that you are going over to possess, 9 and that you may live long in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to give to them and to their offspring, a land flowing with milk and honey. 10 For the land that you are entering to take possession of it is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and irrigated it, like a garden of vegetables. 11 But the land that you are going over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water by the rain from heaven, 12 a land that the Lord your God cares for. The eyes of the Lord your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.

13 “And if you will indeed obey my commandments that I command you today, to love the Lord your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, 14 he will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your oil. 15 And he will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and you shall eat and be full. 16 Take care lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them; 17 then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and he will shut up the heavens, so that there will be no rain, and the land will yield no fruit, and you will perish quickly off the good land that the Lord is giving you.

18 “You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 19 You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 20 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, 21 that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, as long as the heavens are above the earth. 22 For if you will be careful to do all this commandment that I command you to do, loving the Lord your God, walking in all his ways, and holding fast to him,23 then the Lord will drive out all these nations before you, and you will dispossess nations greater and mightier than you. 24 Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours. Your territory shall be from the wilderness to the Lebanon and from the River, the river Euphrates, to the western sea. 25 No one shall be able to stand against you. The Lord your God will lay the fear of you and the dread of you on all the land that you shall tread, as he promised you.

26 “See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: 27 the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, 28 and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way that I am commanding you today, to go after other gods that you have not known.29 And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, you shall set the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal. 30 Are they not beyond the Jordan, west of the road, toward the going down of the sun, in the land of the Canaanites who live in the Arabah, opposite Gilgal, beside the oak of Moreh? 31 For you are to cross over the Jordan to go in to take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving you. And when you possess it and live in it, 32 you shall be careful to do all the statutes and the rules that I am setting before you today.

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

Family Discussion Question:

  • How does considering the character and the works of God lead us to love, worship, and obey Him? How might you be intentional about stopping to consider these things more frequently?
Devotional

Daily Devotional-August 21

August 21, 2020

The message of Deuteronomy is one that the church desperately needs to hear today. These final words of Moses given to the children of Israel as they prepared to enter into the Promised Land serve as a warning, an encouragement, and a charge. Through them, God exposes the idolatry of our hearts and calls us to give all of our love, worship, and devotion to Him alone in every area of our lives! Moses warns the people that when they enter the land there will be things that compete with God for their attention, their affections and their worship. We, too, have hundreds of things that compete for our hearts each and every day. In this book, God teaches us how to properly respond to the amazing grace He has given us by giving Him our undivided allegiance, our whole hearts and our whole lives. Over the next 34 days, let’s seek this ancient way together as a church!

In this chapter Moses finishes recalling the story of the disaster and covenant at Mt. Sinai before commanding the Israelites to do a strange thing. He tells the people of Israel that it is for their own good that they listen to, fear, obey, love, and serve the Lord. He tells them that God, who holds power and authority over every single thing that exists and who owns all of His creation, simply chose in His grace to lavish His love on their fathers and, subsequently, on them. In view of this amazing grace, Moses tells them that they must circumcise their hearts.

Circumcision was the sign of the covenant that God made with Abraham. It was a symbol that physically set the people of God apart from every other people on the planet. Moses says that, in view of God’s abundant mercy, unfailing love, and extravagant grace, the people are to circumcise their hearts, making their hearts distinct and set apart as holy unto the Lord! 

The call is for us, in worshipful, grateful response to the love and grace of the Lord, to give our hearts wholly and completely to Him. It is for us to worship Him exclusively and to give Him His rightful place of supremacy in all our affections and desires and devotion!

The people of Israel failed to do this. Apart from the intervention of God’s power and grace in our lives, none of us is able to do it. But now, in Christ and under the new covenant, the Holy Spirit has come and circumcised our hearts for us! Now, because of the power of the Spirit within us, we are empowered by him to give all of ourselves to God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 

And, just like the people of Israel, we do not receive this amazing gift of grace based on anything we have done, but simply because of God’s choice to lavish His love on us!

Deuteronomy 10

New Tablets of Stone

10 “At that time the Lord said to me, ‘Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and come up to me on the mountain and make an ark of wood.2 And I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets that you broke, and you shall put them in the ark.’ 3 So I made an ark of acacia wood, and cut two tablets of stone like the first, and went up the mountain with the two tablets in my hand. 4 And he wrote on the tablets, in the same writing as before, the Ten Commandments that the Lord had spoken to you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly. And the Lord gave them to me. 5 Then I turned and came down from the mountain and put the tablets in the ark that I had made. And there they are, as the Lord commanded me.”

6 (The people of Israel journeyed from Beeroth Bene-jaakan to Moserah. There Aaron died, and there he was buried. And his son Eleazar ministered as priest in his place. 7 From there they journeyed to Gudgodah, and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a land with brooks of water. 8 At that time the Lordset apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant of the Lord to stand before the Lord to minister to him and to bless in his name, to this day. 9 Therefore Levi has no portion or inheritance with his brothers. The Lord is his inheritance, as the Lord your God said to him.)

10 “I myself stayed on the mountain, as at the first time, forty days and forty nights, and the Lord listened to me that time also. The Lord was unwilling to destroy you. 11 And the Lord said to me, ‘Arise, go on your journey at the head of the people, so that they may go in and possess the land, which I swore to their fathers to give them.’

Circumcise Your Heart

12 “And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lordyour God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13 and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which I am commanding you today for your good? 14 Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. 15 Yet the Lord set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day. 16 Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn. 17 For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe. 18 He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. 19 Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. 20 You shall fear the Lord your God. You shall serve him and hold fast to him, and by his name you shall swear. 21 He is your praise. He is your God, who has done for you these great and terrifying things that your eyes have seen.22 Your fathers went down to Egypt seventy persons, and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars of heaven.

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

Family Discussion Question:

  • What are some things that compete with God for first place in your love and devotion? How can you be intentional about “circumcising your heart” and giving that place to God alone?