“See, I am setting before you today a blessing & a curse – the blessing if you obey the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today; the curse if you disobey the commands of the Lord your God & turn from the way that I command you today by following other gods, which you have not known.” Deut 11:26-28
God gave the people of Israel, right from the start, a choice between a blessing or curse. We have the same choice today; God’s way or ours.
Sadly we see, that overtime, most of them, through their disobedience, chose the curse.
“Fix these words of mine in your hearts & minds; tie them as symbols on your hands & bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home & when you walk along the road, when you lie down & when you get up. Write them on the doorframe so of your houses & on your gates” Deut 11:18-20
God recognized how easily they would fall astray & so he gave these words. To keep him a part of every aspect of your day, to be reminded of him where ever you turn & to talk about him.
The same holds true for us today; the more time we spend focused on him, the closer we will be to him & the more aligned our life will be with his.
“Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones & burn their Asherah poles in the fire; cut down the idols of their gods & wipe out their names from those places.” Deut 12:3
God, also, warned them to remove every pagan altar & idol in the land. He knew how easily they could be tempted to change their beliefs & be tempted to use them.
In the same way, we need to remove anything in our lives that tempt us to turn our hearts from God. We should never consider ourselves to be too strong to be tempted. God's warning was to remove the temptation completely. A sin doesn't just come out of nowhere. The more time we spend in places or with people that are not honouring to God, the easier it is to follow the crowd. The more we allow ideas into our minds, whether through media or conversations, the more quickly our mindset & attitudes change. God wants us to guard ourselves.
“None of those condemned things shall be found in your hands, so that the Lord will turn from his fierce anger; he will show you mercy, have compassion on you, & increase your numbers, as he promised on oath to your forefathers, because you obey the Lord your God, keeping all his commands that I am giving you today & doing what is right in his eyes.” Deut 13:17-18
And by following him, we will know his love & mercy, & will be blessed for it.
2 comments:
Good point warning us not to think of ourselves as too strong to be tempted. We are all vulnerable on our own, no matter how strong we feel, only with strength and help from God can we stay on course.
It is sad, reading these words from this side of history, knowing the choices the Israelites would make would ultimately end in exile. We need to learn from their mistakes, and, like you said, never consider ourselves above temptation.
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