August 24, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\u2019s seek this ancient way together as a church!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Lord will not compete for our affections. He will suffer no rival for our worship, for our heart\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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<\/em>; 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!<\/p>\n\n\n\n This seems extreme to us, and that\u2019s 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!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Are you giving Him that place, His rightful place, in your heart?<\/p>\n\n\n\n