Category Archives: Deuteronomy

You Can Do It

Posted on March 1, 2023 | Leave a comment

And Old Testament Verses
— Leviticus 18:5 You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules; if a person does them, he shall live by them: I am the Lord.
— Deuteronomy 30:12 It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ 13 Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ 14 But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.

I think I learned a simple base-line truth about righteousness when I was highlighting the Romans verses.  Righteousness that is based on the law…does AND righteousness based on faith says…For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.

In between those …’s is the mysterious truth about righteousness.  There are rules and how you keep them impacts everything about your life.  The Lord says so!  “The design of the law was to lead people to Christ. The moral law was but for the searching of the wound, the ceremonial law for the shadowing forth of the remedy; but Christ is the end of both.”[a]

— My heart heart knows when my mind choses to obey God’s statutes as if they’re a bandaid that can cover the accusation that it’s my behavior that will strengthen my heavenly image here on earth instead of Christ.
— My heart knows when my mind relies on the phony satisfaction of good intentions and moral righteousness as if they’re a good excuse for not opening my mouth to say they were the result of Christ resurrecting my life so I actually had something to rely on.

The simple base-line truth about righteousness
for my life and yours is:
If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved…
The word is near you in your mouth and in your heart, so that
YOU CAN DO IT!

[a] Matthew Henry

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Posted in Deuteronomy, Leviticus, Light, Romans, Wednesday

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Heart-Breaking Headlines – Adultery and Murder

Posted on February 23, 2020 | Leave a comment

2 Samuel 11:1-5 It happened in the spring of the year, at the time when kings go out to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the people of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.  Then it happened one evening that David arose from his bed and walked on the roof of the king’s house. And from the roof he saw a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful to behold.  So David sent and inquired about the woman. And someone said, “Is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?”  Then David sent messengers, and took her; and she came to him, and he lay with her, for she was cleansed from her impurity; and she returned to her house.  And the woman conceived; so she sent and told David, and said, “I am with child.” [NKJV] 

“While Joab is busy in laying siege to Rabbah, Satan is [laying seige] to David, and far sooner prevailed.” [Trapp]

God’s plan for marriage
The condition,1 the promise2 and the blessing.3
Genesis 2:24-25 For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother.1 and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.2  And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.3
The reality of the relationship…Deuteronomy 17:17a  He must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray.
The evidence of accumulated sin…2Sa 3:2-5 Sons were born to David in Hebron: His firstborn was Amnon by Ahinoam the Jezreelitess;  his second, Chileab, by Abigail the widow of Nabal the Carmelite; the third, Absalom the son of Maacah, the daughter of Talmai, king of Geshur;  the fourth, Adonijah the son of Haggith; the fifth, Shephatiah the son of Abital;  and the sixth, Ithream, by David’s wife Eglah. These were born to David in Hebron.

News flash! Deceit and cover up from a position of power are not new and the consequences of  sin are not normalized by repetition or by calling it by some gentler name.  How does a nation deal with the complete moral failure of its leader?  Consequences aren’t just a dismal surprise resulting from corrupt acts, they’re a given.  Heart-breaking consequences were the result for a whole family and a whole nation as a result of the accumulated sins of the very king who had captured God’s own heart.  Satan found a way to expose those accumulated sins into the tragic reality of consequences that included adultery, murder and death. 

Here’s the Good News from 2 Samuel this Sunday: God did provide for the king’s heart to remember the grace of repentance and restoration that could forgive accumulated sins even in the midst of heart-breaking circumstances.   That should sound familiar to our heart too.  God has provided for our hearts to remember the grace of repentance and restoration we have through the death of another child, His own Son.   Jesus,  is God’s provision for our hearts to find repentance and restoration in every circumstance. 

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Posted in 2 Samuel, Deuteronomy, Genesis, Old Testament, Sunday

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From the Mouth of God

Posted on July 15, 2018 | Leave a comment

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Posted in Deuteronomy, Sunday

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Entitlement

Posted on February 1, 2017 | Leave a comment

Exodus 14:11-12 They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? 12 Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!”

Quote from Ray Cortese, Pastor at Seven Rivers Presbyterian Church in Lecanto, Florida. “It’s easier to take people out of Egypt than it is to take Egypt out of people.”

That statement hit home for me in a very personal way. “Egypt” is my metaphor for entitlement – “the belief that one is inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment.” See if my story sounds familiar to you.

I am like those Israelites. It seems to be built into me to feel I am entitled to more from my faith…from God…from circumstances…and from people too. There was that thrilling moment of freedom when I accepted God’s promise that he would give me more than I deserved. That’s when the amazing journey began. I could clearly see I was being led to a new place and was eager to get there. It’s that timeline between being led and getting there that is the problem.

I guarantee you won’t forget being saved. Just as surely I can testify that your sense of entitlement will become an issue. That realization hit me hard on Sunday. Like the Israelites I know what I have escaped. I have my own forty years walking with Jesus. Shouldn’t wisdom and faith be like second nature that just oozes out of me by now? Why do I have to spend so much time reading, studying, writing and rewriting to end up with a few paragraphs of belief only to discover I still have so far to go? Don’t I deserve some kind of powerful response to my will to keep walking?

Ah, there’s the tell…”my will.”  That’s my “Egypt.” This is what brought me to tears: you don’t get credit hours or special privileges for time spent walking through Egypt with God. Your time is the only thing that can make the one entitlement you actually have been given a reality…to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. Deuteronomy 6:5

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Posted in Deuteronomy, Exodus, Wednesday

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