READ: Deuteronomy 34:1-4
(1-3) Moses climbed
from the Plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, the peak of Pisgah facing Jericho. God showed him all the land from Gilead to
Dan, all Naphtali, Ephraim, and Manasseh; all Judah reaching to the Mediterranean
Sea; the Negev and the plains which encircle Jericho, City of Palms, as far
south as Zoar.
(4) Then and there
God said to him, "This is the land I promised to your ancestors, to
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob with the words 'I will give to your
descendants.' I've let you see it with
your own eyes. There it is. But you're going to go in."
THINK: This section asks us why we think God takes
disobedience so seriously, as well as what some of the consequences have been
in our own lives for sin.
One
thing I can tell you is that I could not even begin to recount all the
consequences for my sins, but I know there have been several. And the one thing I have tried to raise my
kids to understand is that there are always consequences. I hesitate to use the word because it seems
to carry such negative connotations, but the actual definition of the word
consequence is:
"a
result or effect of an action or condition"
Used this way, it's
easy to see that, regardless of whether you choose rightly or wrongly, there is
always going to be an outcome. Hence,
there is always going to be a consequence.
It's basic physics: for every
action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
In
regards to our reading today: Moses was
not allowed to enter the Promised Land because he was disobedient and struck a
rock he should've just touched. It seems
a little harsh, sure. But, God does take
disobedience seriously. Why do I think
this is?
The
best I've been able to come up with goes back to the First Commandment. Exodus 20:3 tells us that we shall have no
other gods before us. What we need to
realize is that, what Satan was trying to accomplish in the Garden, when he
tempted Eve was not what actually happened.
Satan had tried to usurp God's authority by saying that He ought to be
on the throne. As a result, God created
Hell and struck him and 2/3 of the host of angels who agreed with him, Lucifer,
into the lake of fire. In the Garden,
Lucifer/Satan took the form of a serpent and slithered his way into Eve's
thinking by - essentially - getting her to doubt God's goodness, by leading her
down a path that led her to believe that God was holding out on them. Satan was indeed right when he told Eve that
once they ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, their
eyes would be opened and they would be "like God, knowing good and
evil. So, she ate and she gave the fruit
to Adam, and he ate, and immediately, their eyes were opened. At that point, they realized that they were
naked. And it was at that point, that
they first experienced shame. Then, they
did what everyone does when they know they've done something wrong: they tried to hide their sin.
This
is where Satan's plan for dominion over man went sideways. Instead of seeing Satan as the person who
opened their eyes, and to whom they should pay their allegiance, Adam and Eve
became gods in their own eyes. And we
have all been in a power struggle for our own lives ever since. We desperately want to control our own
lives. So does Satan. And God wants us to come back to Him so that
He can show us the way He intended our lives to be in the first place: being led by the only being that has always
known everything and who always has our best interest at heart.
So…why
do I think God takes disobedience so seriously?
Because it directly negates the very first commandment. Our disobedience tells God we think we know
better what is best for our lives than He does.
Our disobedience states that WE will be the god of our lives.
PRAY: "Ask God to help you live a life of
faith and obedience, the kind of life that honors him at all time."
LIVE: "Think of Moses-like people you
know--older, godly individuals living faithfully for God. Consider connecting with them and getting to
know them and their stories."
There
is an old African proverb: "When an
old man dies, a library burns."
There is such a wealth of knowledge inside the heads of those who have
lived longer than us, that when they die, it is indeed like a library has
burned to the ground, when that person dies.
The elderly are so often overlooked in this country, which so prizes
youth and beauty. The problem with the
thinking that "new and improved" is better is that we forget our
history. We have a big problem with that
in this country. And a nation that
forgets its past is condemned to repeat it.
Why
else would God spend so much time reminding the Israelites to write His
commands on their hearts and to talk about them all the time, and to share them
with their children, and remember that God delivered them from evil, and to
never forget. Because they did
forget. Repeatedly. And time and time again, they found
themselves back in the midst of oppression.
Connecting
with and getting to know an older, godly individual living faithfully for God
will not make our lives easier, but it will help us to get a frame of reference
for the suffering we find ourselves going through. It will help us to see that nothing lasts
forever, that while sorrow may last through the night, joy does come in the
morning. Sometimes, that's all we need
to keep up our obedience just one day more.
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