Year 4, Day 181: Deuteronomy 30

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Obedience

• Obedience: Genuine and satisfying obedience comes out of our identity.  Our true identity comes only from Father.

I’m going to stick with obedience as our focus two days in a row.  Deuteronomy 30 speaks to the idea of obedience well.  As Moses says in the second half of this chapter, “it is not too hard for you.”  That’s really a daunting statement, isn’t it?

Think about this.  If we have God’s Word, should we not be able to rationally decide right from wrong in every case?  Absolutely.  We all have logic within us.  We all can think rationally.  We all can make decisions.  God has given us the ability to make the right decision.

Yet, we know from experience that we do not.  We know from experience that we cannot.  I might have invested in God’s Word daily for the last four years, but that doesn’t mean that I’ve been able to stay sin free.  I still have sinful thoughts of arrogance, pride, lust, anger, etc.  Granted, most of the time I am able to restrict how I follow those thoughts, but even there I’m not perfect.  Do I still speak in anger?  Sure.  Do I still look lustfully through my eyes?  Of course.  Do I speak proudly from time to time?  Absolutely.  Do I focus on my glory and not God’s glory?  Yes.

We have what it takes to obey.  Yet we do not always do so.  But I can say one thing about the cycle of obedience and disobedience.  When I am focus on God – that is, getting my identity from God – I am always obedient.  My disobedience arises when my focus slips away from the Father and my identity slips away from God’s identity for me.

That’s what repentance is for.  Moses tells us as much in this chapter.  When we slip away, God loves us and wants us to come back to Him.  He doesn’t abandon us to our sin.  He continues to call us back.

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Year 4, Day 180: Deuteronomy 29

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Obedience

• Obedience: Genuine and satisfying obedience comes out of our identity.  Our true identity comes only from Father.

Deuteronomy 29 is like much of the rest of Deuteronomy.  Moses is laying out the rules for community before the people.  They have the ability to decide if they are going to listen and obey or not.  Everyone can choose to walk with God and obey.  But not all will.

As we would expect in any chapter that has much to say about obedience, it really does come back to identity.  Moses speaks at length in this chapter about the difference between those who will follow God and those who follow other gods or their own desires.  In order to truly obey God, we must be absolutely committed to our identity coming from Him.

What we see towards the end of this chapter is how contagious obedience is.  Moses begins speaking in verse 18 about a single person who chooses to not be obedient.  But by the time we get to verse 22 we hear about the whole community being affected.  Obedience to God is catchy and transferable from one person to another; the same is true for obedience to other things that are not God.

As the chapter ends, we come back to the fundamental question before us always.  Choose obedience and the Lord will be with us.  Choose obedience to something else and the Lord will not guarantee either His protection or His presence.  The sad thing is that by the end of the chapter we get the feeling that God and Moses know mankind all too well.  There is an assumption at the end of the chapter that the people will not be able to remain obedient.  Human beings will fall away.  Such is life in Moses’ day.  Such is life in the modern age.  We must take this concept of obedience seriously.

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Year 4, Day 179: Deuteronomy 28

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Character

• Character: Having the interior life that is necessary to support the work that God sets before a person.  It is hearing from God and obeying.  It is doing the right thing when nobody is looking.

A traditional “blessings and curses” chapter is an excellent chapter through which we can view the concept of character.  Do I have what it takes to live with God in His ways?

The text gives a default answer of “no.”  How do I know this?  Well, if the average human being is in a default setting to abide in God, then we wouldn’t have 14 verses of blessings and 54 verses of curses!  The fact that Moses spends almost four times as much space on curses instead of blessings tells me the real answer.  The truth is that by default, our character needs help.  We are going to make mistakes, mess up, and get things wrong.  Like any child, we need the parent to establish rules and structure in our life to help us succeed.

However, like any child there is hope that when we mess up we will learn that lesson and get it better the next time.  That’s why parents give rules, punishments, and consequences.  That’s why we have structure.  We want to give shape to success when it is not within our nature to do it ourselves.  What this shows us, then, is that while some character is innate, most character can be taught!  It can be modeled.  It can be assimilated.  It can be adopted.  The character that is not innately within us can still find a home within.  We just need the rules and structure to reinforce its presence in our life.

That is what this chapter is all about.  For the few people who are innately predisposed to obediently following God, there are the blessings.  Those words will be enough for them.  But for the rest of us people who tend to make life messy, we have the verses on the curses.  It is the structure to remind us why God’s way is better.  It is God’s means for helping us build character that may not already be present within us.

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Year 4, Day 178: Deuteronomy 27

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Imitation

• Imitation: This is the second over-arching step of the discipleship process.  First we gain information, then we imitate our spiritual mentor.  Imitation leads to innovation of spirituality in our own life.

The second half of this chapter is all about imitation.  Most of this book has been all about Moses speaking law to the people before he goes up the mountain to die.  But when we get to this chapter, the emphasis changes drastically.  In the second half of this chapter, Moses has the people stand up and speak the section of curses.

What’s Moses doing here?  Moses is taking the people from the information stage to the imitation stage.  Moses knows that if they only hear the curses there is a large chance that they’ll go in one ear and out the other.  Learning information is not the goal; it is merely the first step in the discipleship process!  For these people to really become God’s people, they need to learn the information and then have it become a part of their experience.

Moses has the people speak these curses themselves.  They will say these words.  They will place these words upon their lips.  These words will become a part of who they are.  Moses wants these people to live the words, not just know them.

NOTE: I could have easily spoken this day on “Up.”  If you’d like to put that one together yourself, take a look at my theological commentary from three years ago on the first half of this chapter regarding buildings and the altar Moses directs them to build.  You should be able to go from there.

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Year 4, Day 177: Deuteronomy 26

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Up

• Up: Up is the word we use for what we worship.  If we are following God’s will, God will occupy the Up position.  Our life, our identity, our mission, our family on mission is all derived from Up.  This is why God needs to be in our Up position.

This is an awesome chapter through which we can view the lens of up.  Any chapter in the Bible that talks about worship and our response to God is a great chapter through which we can view how we relate to God.  The fundamental question of this chapter and our own lives is this: how do we truly relate to God?

Many people in this world relate to God our of a fire-insurance mentality; they are simply afraid of Hell and judgment and want to avoid that.  Other people relate to God out of a guilt mindset; they do things they don’t like and beat themselves up because of it.  Other people relate to God out of an obligation mindset; they don’t really care about God, but the ritualistic response to God has been drilled into them so much that they can’t help but go through the motions.  None of these are the response that God desires out of us.

Rather, God desires that we genuinely worship Him.  He desires that we respond to Him because we genuinely love Him.  He desires that we recognize His grace and His wonderful provision and come to Him in response to His greatness.  He desires that we come to Him because we voluntarily want to give up ourselves and become more like Him because He is greater.  That’s what Up is all about.  Up isn’t about guilt, fire insurance, or obligation.  Up is about submitting to a merciful being because His character is better than ours and we can become like Him.

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Year 4, Day 176: Deuteronomy 25

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Forgiveness

• Forgiveness: Forgiveness is when our sins are absolved by God.  We do not deserve this forgiveness, but God grants it to us anyway.  We cannot earn forgiveness, but God gives it to us anyway.  As we are forgiven by God, He also asks us to forgive others.  In fact, Jesus Himself teaches us to pray for our forgiveness in the Lord’s Prayer when He says, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

At the beginning of this chapter we have some words about punishment for crimes.  These verses on punishment may not sound like a proper place to speak about forgiveness, but they really are.  Notice two things about the punishment verses.  First, they are about indicating that punishment is a natural step of the process.  Second, they are about limiting the punishment only to a level that is appropriate for the crime.

Both of these concepts are central to the idea of forgiveness.  Forgiveness is at the very heart of who we are as God’s people.  As God forgives, so should we.

However, we do know that there are consequences to our actions.  Jesus tells us that if we sin against our brother we should leave our gift at the altar, go make things right with him, and then come back.  Consequences and rectification are an important part of the forgiveness process.  Dealing with the results of our sinfulness is a part of life and an important part of what keeps us from doing it again.  In fact, we know that Jesus sent His own Son to the cross as a consequence of our sinfulness.

Yet, we must not forget God is a God of grace.  We all deserve condemnation and Hell; but we do not all receive final judgment into Hell.  We are all guilty of the condition of sin; but we do not all anticipate staying in that condition forever.  God has allowed us to live beyond our sinful nature.  The consequences of our actions are limited so that grace and restitution can occur.  That is the second part of forgiveness in our lives.  That is why in this passage we hear that a person should not be beaten too much, lest they cannot bear the punishment and never see the opportunity for restoration.

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Year 4, Day 175: Deuteronomy 24

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Provision

• Provision: God gives us what we truly need.  God knows our needs better than we can know them.  We learn to trust God to provide for us.

I’m going to look at the lens of provision through all of the miscellaneous laws regarding the poor and oppressed in this chapter.  Don’t take their millstone.  Don’t go into their house and claim payment for a debt.  Don’t take their cloak overnight.  Every single one of these laws – and the others – points us to provision.

After all, if a person has their means for grinding wheat into flour taken away, how will the access basic food?  If their cloak is taken away overnight, how will they keep warm?  If a person goes into the house of another, what’s to keep them from “taking too much?”  Who will provide life for the needy when their means of living is taken away from them?

This actually speaks to God’s provision and our attention to it.  What are we as human beings about: us or God?  Are we more interested in demonstrating God’s provision for the poor and oppressed or are we interested in preying on the poor and oppressed to take for ourselves what they cannot afford to give? 

If we respect the poor and the things that they need to live, are we not making an evangelistic claim that God’s provision over the poor is more important than growing our earthly wealth?  Is that not a testimony unto them?  With respect to the poor and the oppressed, how we look at provision can absolutely lead to mission and ministry and proclaiming God’s grace to them.

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Year 4, Day 174: Deuteronomy 23

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Character, Identity

• Up: Up is the word we use for what we worship.  If we are following God’s will, God will occupy the Up position.  Our life, our identity, our mission, our family on mission is all derived from Up.  This is why God needs to be in our Up position.

As I’ve found out all along in Deuteronomy, it would be easy to talk about either character or identity in this chapter.  Do we have what it takes to follow God?  Do we have what it takes to not charge interest, to desire proper sexuality, and to desire to keep our place of worship spiritually clean?  It is easy to look at character and identity as we look at this chapter.

But for today I want to take a small portion of this chapter and go deep with it.  The middle of this chapter has some verses regarding cult prostitution.  This was a very common practice in ancient cultures.  People – priests and priestesses, mostly – of ancient gods would often offer themselves up as sexual opportunities for people desiring to worship their particular god.  The belief was that sex with a cult prostitute was as close as a person could get with the god.  It was a practice intending to combine the human desire for sexual ecstasy with religious interest.

Which leads me to Up.  Of course we should be worshipping God.  But how do we engage in the relationship with Him?  Do we need to tap into our human sexuality to worship God?  Certainly not!  Our relationship with God comes through the study of His Word.  It comes through meditation about His ways.  It comes through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  God is telling His people that there is a difference between how worldly people attempt to get into relationship with their worldly gods and how spiritual people get in touch with a spiritual God.

So what is in your Up position?  Is it God?  How do you relate to Him?  Do the passions of your life give the same message as to what is in your Up position?

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Year 4, Day 173: Deuteronomy 22

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Character, Identity

• Character: Having the interior life that is necessary to support the work that God sets before a person.  It is hearing from God and obeying.  It is doing the right thing when nobody is looking.
• Identity: Our true identity comes from the Father.  Only when our identity comes from God can we be obedient in ways that satisfy our person to our core.

In Deuteronomy 22 we can see laws that primarily rotate around community.  Do we have the character that it takes to look after, protect, and even value our neighbor’s and our brother’s property?  Do we have the character to value the sexual purity of one another?  Do we have the character to value our relationship with God?  Do we have the character to reflect that relationship in our marriages and our society’s understanding of marriage?

Quite naturally, character questions often come back to identity.  Our character is a reflection of the things we worship.  Our character should be a reflection of God’s character.  Our identity should be developed out of the Father.

Do we see ourselves as having the identity of community caretakers?  Do we see ourselves as having the identity of protecting the sexual purity of those in our midst?  Do we see ourselves as people called to uphold God’s values – even in the face of worldly passion?

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Year 4, Day 172: Deuteronomy 21

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Competency

• Competency: Being able to accomplish what one is called to do.

I think this is another very good chapter to speak about competency.  It opens with an interesting passage about an unsolved murder.  But the passage isn’t about how to solve the murder; it is about how to resolve the guilt for the dead person’s blood that God bestows on creation.  The blood guilt must be absolved.  It falls to the elders of the nearest city to absolve the guilt.

This is easily done, mind you.  There is a sacrifice and then a confession before the Lord that they cannot determine who is responsible.  So we’re not talking about a difficult calling; just a necessary one.

The reason that this is an issue of competency is that the elders have to care.  It would be so easy to say, “Nobody knows how the person died, let’s just forget about it and move along.”  It’d be so easy to say, “It’s an unsolved death, just bury the person and move on with life.”  But that isn’t what God wants of his leaders.  God wants his leaders to stop and care and think about the blood guilt.  God wants his leaders to pay attention to guilt.  God wants His leaders to care about how God sees things.  We are to care about the details in life.

The same is true for captive wives, for parents who play favorites, etc.  God desires us to take seriously how we treat women and how we treat our children.  It is easy to throw away a marriage that is no longer interesting.  It is easy to play favorites among kids.  But God’s leaders are called to not do those things and care about the details and get things done right according to God’s standards.  That’s what we’re supposed to be about.  It takes competent people to lead, to care, and to get the job done right.

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Year 4, Day 171: Deuteronomy 20

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Competency

• Competency: Being able to accomplish what one is called to do.

As Moses gives the words of this chapter, I wonder how it was received.  God is giving some rather unique orders here.  If you are newlywed – or about to be a newlywed, you can’t go out to war.  If you just planted a vineyard and haven’t been able to enjoy its fruit, you can’t go out to war.  If you build a house and haven’t gotten a chance to enjoy it, you can’t go out to war.  I wonder how many people in Moses’ day thought these were ridiculous words.

After all, these words favor the young.  The young are most likely to be newlywed.  The young are the most likely to have new houses.  The young are the most likely to have new brides.  The young are the most likely to have new unestablished vineyards.  I wonder how many of the Hebrew people were competent enough to respect God’s wishes and let the older men go off to war while the younger men ensured the success of the next generation at home?

Or look at the passage about war with other people.  Sue for peaceful surrender first.  God tells us that we are to desire peace with our enemies before we are to seek their destruction.  I wonder how many of us are competent enough to seek peaceful surrender before we try to ruin one another?

Or take the trees.  God says to spare the fruit trees because their purpose is to provide food for creation – human beings included.    We can cut down the non-fruiting trees, but we are to leave the fruiting ones alone.  I wonder how many of us have the competency to listen to this point, too.

This chapter has some challenging points.  Only the competent in God will find success in His challenge.

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Year 4, Day 170: Deuteronomy 19

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Character

• Character: Having the interior life that is necessary to support the work that God sets before a person.  It is hearing from God and obeying.  It is doing the right thing when nobody is looking.

What an interesting chapter to come at the topic of character.  First, we hear about the cities of refuge.  The city of refuge is a concept based on character.  If a person had poor character and meant to kill someone, there was no safety.  If a person had good character – while being guilty of killing someone but not guilty of meaning to do so – then there was refuge for them.  The city of refuge is totally built upon the concept of character.

The next story we hear about is not moving a neighbor’s land markers.  Again, this is an issue of character.  Character is doing the right thing when nobody is looking.  What Moses is telling the people is that when it comes to neighbors, we need to do the right thing.  We need to respect their property and not try to steal it from them – especially if we want the same treatment back.

The last topic we hear about in this chapter is being a witness.  This is also a topic of character. Good witnesses provide honest truth and evaluation of what happened.  Bad witnesses lie and take bribes and say what other people want to be said. 

Certainly Moses is interested in the character of the people as he gives his farewell speech to them.

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Year 4, Day 169: Deuteronomy 18

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Identity

• Identity: Our true identity comes from the Father.  Only when our identity comes from God can we be obedient in ways that satisfy our person to our core.

As human beings, we ultimately have three choices.  We can reject Christ and follow something or someone else.  We can embrace Christ obediently and submissively.  Or we can try and hold onto both Christ and the world.

This third choice scares me – and in truth I think this is the path that is the most tempting to take.  There is high value in following Christ and believing in God.  The whole eternal life inheritance is a rather great benefit!  However, at the same time following Christ is hard.  It is difficult to sacrifice the things of this world so that we can live in obedience with God’s ways and Christ’s example.  We want the benefit of salvation, but do we really want the identity that God desires us to have?

This is a very important question, especially as we look into the world.  If we are living like the world but claiming to follow God, we send mixed messages to the world.  We are sending the message that there is nothing to following God.  We are sending the message that there is no point to following God because it doesn’t change anything.  If we claim to follow God but get our identity from the ways of the world, we do horrible damage to our testimony.

The Lord is our inheritance.  We need to live like it.  We need to learn how to make choices that demonstrate that we are about God’s work and not our own agenda.  We need to learn how to live in such a way that demonstrates the change that God is making in our life!

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Year 4, Day 168: Deuteronomy 17

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Provision

• Provision: God gives us what we truly need.  God knows our needs better than we can know them.  We learn to trust God to provide for us.

I seem to be in a mood lately to write much on the topic of provision.  But I really shouldn’t be surprised at this.  As Moses is given this farewell speech, it makes sense that he would focus on topics like provision.  The Hebrew people are about to go from wandering nomads to inheritors of a fertile land.  They need this advice or they will stumble and fall away from God.  Which, for the record, they do anyway.

The second half of this chapter is truly all about this idea of provision.  Moses tells people that the king should not acquire too many horses or too many women and that the king needs to write his own personal copy of the Law.  All of these speak to what drives our life.

You see, in order for a king to collect many horses, he’ll need to be wealthy.  He’ll have to make acquiring money a primary objective of his empire.  In order for a king to acquire more than one wife – or worse, a whole harem – they will need to have both wealth and lust for more than they need.  Kings with wealth and harems lead to societies where greed and hoarding are valued.  Such societies are corrupt and self-serving.  God does not want people who think only of themselves.

Rather, God wants us to trust in His provision.  God wants us to remember that all that we have comes from Him.  He wants us to remember that He can supply us of all our needs better than we can supply them to ourselves.  He doesn’t want us amassing wealth and creating corrupt societies of self-service.  When we keep ourselves lean we are far more likely to remember that God is the origin of a truly satisfying and sustaining life.

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Year 4, Day 167: Deuteronomy 16

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Character, Up

• Character: Having the interior life that is necessary to support the work that God sets before a person.  It is hearing from God and obeying.  It is doing the right thing when nobody is looking.
• Up: Up is the word we use for what we worship.  If we are following God’s will, God will occupy the Up position.  Our life, our identity, our mission, our family on mission is all derived from Up.  This is why God needs to be in our Up position.

The three major celebrations of the Jewish calendar are Passover, Pentecost, and Booths.  These celebrations are designed to remind of about God’s character.  Passover – both in the Jewish and Christian sense – reminds us of all that God has done in the past to free us from sin and the evil within this world.  Pentecost –both in the Jewish and Christian sense – reminds us of the new things that God is bringing about and how much we can look forward to as God continues His work through the present and into the future.  Booths – only in the Jewish sense as we don’t celebrate this in Christianity – is a time to look back into our own life and see that God has kept His word.  These three festivals are all about remembering God’s character.  It is about remembering that God does keep His word and He does provide for all that we need.

Looking at God’s character should naturally bring us to a conversation about Up.  When you think about God’s work in the past, do you not see a reason to worship Him and make sure that He is at the origin of everything in your life?  As you look forward to the future and see all that God can possibly do for you, is that not yet another reason to worship Him?  At the end of your life, when you can look back upon all that God did, is that not another time to worship God and realize the importance of having Him at the center of your life?

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Year 4, Day 166: Deuteronomy 15

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Provision

• Provision: God gives us what we truly need.  God knows our needs better than we can know them.  We learn to trust God to provide for us.

In Deuteronomy 15 we find two topics: slavery and the poor.  Ultimately, both of these topics are rooted in God’s provision.  Perhaps more importantly, both of these topics are rooted in how we understand God’s provision and how we live out our belief that God will provide.

For example, take slavery.  God does not approve of the type of slavery where one person dominates over the other, beats the other, doesn’t give them rights, and gives no opportunity for escape.  Such a system gives no hope for God’s provision.  But God does encourage a system where a person who has no ability to provide for his family can voluntarily enslave himself to a person who can provide for his family.  Such an arrangement can last at most 7 years until the slave is automatically released from his bondage.  Under this system God provides for the ability of the slave to find provision for his family, God provides the master with a work force, and God provides hope for the slave that there will come a day when the volunteer slavery terminates.  In this sense, the slavery is not much different than employment.  But it is a question of provision.  The to-be slave must ask if God is providing through the promise to serve the master.  The master must ask if God has provided him with enough means to cover his own family and the family of another.

In the case of the poor, we find that perspective of provision pushed even further.  God tells us that we shall always have the poor around us.  He also tells us that we should give freely to the poor. Which leads me to a meaningful but often trite question: who can out-give God?  If I give generously to the poor, can God not give generously back to me?  This is where the question of provision comes into play.  Giving to the poor is often a question of believing that God will replace what I voluntarily give away.  Sometimes that is a difficult choice.  But fundamentally that is always at the heart of the issue.  Am I willing to part with something that is within my possession because I believe enough in God’s provision that He will provide for me all that I need anyway?

Talking about provision is always a tricky topic, and it is a topic that many people would like to avoid.  But it absolutely is a topic that is rooted in God and our relationship with Him.

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Year 4, Day 165: Deuteronomy 14

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Up

• Up: Up is the word we use for what we worship.  If we are following God’s will, God will occupy the Up position.  Our life, our identity, our mission, our family on mission is all derived from Up.  This is why God needs to be in our Up position.

I really struggled with where to go in this particular devotion. We have a warning against mourning incorrectly.  We have discussions on what to eat.  We have discussions on tithing.  How does that all fit into discipleship?

Eventually, I decided to focus on Up.  After all, Moses’ issue with mourning is that we do so in a way that reminds us that God is God, the deceased person is not God, and they ultimately rest in God’s care.  So in the midst of our mourning, we need to remember who God is and why we are in relationship with Him.  As Moses says, we are children of God first and foremost.

Regarding foods to eat, this is also a distinction made by God.  God asks the Hebrew people to eat only certain foods as a way of separating them out from the world.  God wants to make them different.  There’s nothing inherently wrong with a pig or a camel, or any other “unclean” animal.  They were all created by God, after all!  Rather, the list of edible animals is about the people and their willingness to abide by God’s wishes because God is God.

The same can be said about tithing.  We tithe because of what God first gives to us.  We tithe because we are in a relationship with God.  We tithe because of our gratitude towards Him.  But ultimately our tithe is rooting in Him because He is the object of our worship.  He should be in our Up position so that all of life revolves around Him.

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Year 4, Day 164: Deuteronomy 13

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Father, Identity

• Father: This is the pinnacle of the Covenant Triangle.  God is the Father.  He is the creator.  He is love.  Our relationship with the Father is rooted in His love for us.  We get our identity through Him.
• Identity: Our true identity comes from the Father.  Only when our identity comes from God can we be obedient in ways that satisfy our person to our core.

Deuteronomy is absolutely another chapter where the covenant triangle can be seen very clearly.  This chapter is all about beginning with who is in our Up position.  Do we worship the Father?  Or do we let other people lead us away into the worship of other things?  Is our focus in life on looking for the hand of the Father working within us, through us, and in the world around us?  Do we stop and give God the glory when things go well?  When a person around us does an incredible job, do we give God the glory for equipping that person in the first place?  Essentially, this chapter causes us to pause and ask, do we really believe and live as though God is at the source of all life?

But this chapter goes beyond that point as well.  From where does our identity come?  When someone tries to pull us in a direction that is focused on other things besides God, do we follow?  Are we tempted to focus on the desires of our own heart and use God as the emergency backup crutch when things go wrong?  It is so easy to be pulled away from God.  That is all the more reason to make sure that our identity is truly coming from the Father and that we stay obedient to that identity.

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Year 4, Day 163: Deuteronomy 12

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Up

• Up: Up is the word we use for what we worship.  If we are following God’s will, God will occupy the Up position.  Our life, our identity, our mission, our family on mission is all derived from Up.  This is why God needs to be in our Up position.

The theological commentary that I wrote three years ago had a tremendous amount of influence upon this post.  In particular, see the challenging thoughts near the end.  As Moses prepares the people to go into the Promised Land, he speaks in a challenging way.  Hearing Moses speak I had to stop and ask myself, “Is God at work where I look for Him and expect Him to be?” Or, more negatively stated, “Is God at work where I’m not looking?”  The question isn’t whether or not God is at work.  The question is whether I am focused on being open to God and looking for Him or whether I am putting blinders on and only allowing myself to look for God where I expect Him to be.

This is a really challenging thought.  In my relationship with Christ, I’ve found that God is seldom at work where I expect Him to be at work.  Usually God is doing amazing things that catch me off guard.  So if I’m not open to God and only looking for Him where I expect Him to be found, how much of His work am I missing?

This is why Up is such an important part of this conversation.  If I recognize that that life begins with Up, then I won’t have preconceived ideas.  If I am turning to God for things like identity and power and authority, then I’ll be able to see Him and live into what He wants me to do.  However, if I am going to God with my own preconceived notions then is God really in my Up position at all?  If I’m going to God with my own preconceived notions, then am I not worshipping a god that I’ve made in my own image?

No, God must be in our Up.  He must be where life starts.  He must be the origin of identity and power.  I must be open to His fullness, not just where I think He should be found.

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Year 4, Day 162: Deuteronomy 11

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Guidance

• Guidance: God grants us His guidance.  Sometimes this guidance is God leading us away from temptation.  Sometimes this guidance is helping us to follow in a direction for which He has chosen.  Our default position should be to wait for God’s guidance and then follow when it comes.

Deuteronomy 11 could have easily been a chapter on obedience (Follow God’s ways).  Or it could have been a chapter on Up (God brought you out and set you in a place of honor).  Or it could be a chapter on King (God will drive the nations out before you).  But today I felt like speaking to the issue of guidance.

Moses is clearly acting in a role of guidance in this chapter.  As Moses is giving his farewell speech before going up the mountain to die, he is absolutely guiding the Hebrew people and exhorting them to walk with God.  Yes, the people have the free will to choose and historically we know where they will ultimately land within their choices.  But that doesn’t stop Moses from exhorting them.  He wants to guide them into the righteous choices.

What is that guidance?  What is that which will help us live and not perish?  What is that guidance away from temptation and into righteousness?

Moses says it plain and simple.  Obey God’s Word.  Bind His Word upon your heart.  Meditate upon it.  Do it.  Live it out.  Let God’s Word be the light unto your path.  Teach them to your children.  There are all kinds of guidance in the words and ideas of this chapter.  So hearing that guidance, how well do we follow it?  Are these just quaint words in a book we profess to follow?  Or are these words to live by?

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Year 4, Day 161: Deuteronomy 10

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Identity

• Identity: Our true identity comes from the Father.  Only when our identity comes from God can we be obedient in ways that satisfy our person to our core.

Deuteronomy 10:12-13 are a powerful pair of verses.  “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 Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which I am commanding you today for your good?”  If there are any better verses that speak to our identity as followers of God, I don’t know what they are.  There are other passages that give a similar message, and those are also awesome identity passages.

Fear the Lord and walk in His ways.  We are to hold God in such awe that we desire to be like Him.  We are to hold God in such awe that we are to follow Him and abandon our own ways.  We are to love Him because we should not be in relationship with Him but yet we are.

We are to serve Him because He is great and His ways are righteous.  But we are to serve Him with our heart.  Our service is supposed to be passionate.  We are to serve Him with our soul.  Our service is supposed to be from our identity.

And where does identity always lead?  Obedience.  Thus, Moses tells the people to keep the commandments and the statutes of the Lord.  If our identity is truly rooted in God, then we will follow His ways.

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Year 4, Day 160: Deuteronomy 9

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Up

• Up: Up is the word we use for what we worship.  If we are following God’s will, God will occupy the Up position.  Our life, our identity, our mission, our family on mission is all derived from Up.  This is why God needs to be in our Up position.

I find the first half of Deuteronomy 9 very humbling.  Moses reminds the Hebrew people to remember that it is God’s righteousness that allows them to have the Promised Land.  The Hebrew people are stiff-necked.  They are rebellious.  They are grumblers.  They are complainers.  They are all around undeserving.  Yet because God is righteous, the Hebrew people get to be in the land.

Moses reminds the people of this fact because He knows them.  Once they get in the land, they will become full of themselves.  When God should be in their Up position, they will replace God with themselves.  They will consider themselves righteous.  They will lust after the desires of their own hearts.  It is shameful.

What is in your Up position?  What do you worship?  Who is really the cause of your success?  Who is really the one who deserves the credit in your life?  How often do you desire to take the credit yourself?

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Year 4, Day 159: Deuteronomy 8

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Character

• Character: Having the interior life that is necessary to support the work that God sets before a person.  It is hearing from God and obeying.  It is doing the right thing when nobody is looking.

We can tell much about character when people are pressed.  When a person is squeezed, what comes out?  When I am squeezed hard, is it God that comes out or is it a reflection of myself?  By squeezed, I don’t just mean negative pressure.  We as human beings can be squeezed by negative pressure and by positive pressure.  We see both of these examples in the text before us today.

First, let’s take the negative pressure.  The Hebrew people wandered the wilderness.  There was little food, little water, and little reassurance.  They didn’t know how they would survive.  What came out of the people?  The Hebrew people grumbled, complained, and ultimately made life miserable for the leadership around them.  When these people were squeezed, they did not exude faith.

But that wasn’t the end of the story.  Moses reminds the people that God provided manna.  God provided clothing that didn’t wear out for 40 years.  God provided shoes that also didn’t wear out.  God cared for them in unbelievably supernatural ways!  And what came out?  The people grumbled against the monotony of the manna.  They no doubt grumbled about only have water – even if it was supernatural water from a rock!  They no doubt grumbled about having to wear the same clothes day in and day out.  When God blessed the people, they continued to grumble.

Can there be any doubt that Moses is worried for them?  They are about to go into a land of prosperity.  If the people cannot handle a relationship with God when they have nothing and God blesses them supernaturally, how will they have the character to have a relationship with God when the land can actually support their needs?  Reread that last sentence, but it should hit pretty close to home with our own modern western world, too.

Who are you when pressed with need?  Who are you when pressed with prosperity?  When squeezed by either need or abundance, do you exude God?  Or do you grumble, complain, and search for more for yourself?

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Year 4, Day 158: Deuteronomy 7

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Authority, Power

• Authority: Our calling.  This comes from God as king.  Because He calls us as His representatives, He gives us authority to go and do His will.
• Power: This is the natural outcome when we truly get our authority from the king.  When our authority is from God, we are equipped with His power to accomplish His will.  We act on His behalf in a world that He desperately loves.

In Deuteronomy 7 we hear several charges from the Lord.  However, the biggest charge is to be diligent about destroying the nations that currently inhabit the land.  Moses warns the people that if they are not diligent about this then they will become affected.  Their sons and daughters will intermarry.  Then they’ll find themselves worshipping other gods.  They’ll find their hearts turning from pursuing God to pursuing other things.

We know the history.  The Hebrew people are incapable of driving out the native people.  Because of this, they do turn from God.  They turn so much that eventually they are led into captivity once more under Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and then Rome.  They are led away from God.  We – or at least I – are no different.  Have I purged my life from the influences of the world that pull me away from God?  Certainly not.  Have I fallen into bondage and captivity because my focus is turned from the Lord?  Certainly.

The interesting part to this train of thought is to ask the question “why.”  Why have I not purged my life?  Is it because I have not fully embraced God’s authority to do so?  Is it because I believe that I am not powerful enough to do so?  Is it because I believe I’m not powerful enough to live in a place of more spiritual satisfaction than I currently do?  Is it because I feel I don’t have the authority to find victory in certain places in my life?

As we read through Joshua and Judges we’ll hear that the Hebrew people could not drive all the native people from the land because the native people were rooted in too deeply and it became too tough.  In the end, is this every bit as much of an authority and power issue as it is an identity and obedience issue?  Is sin allowed to stay in my life because it’s too tough and I’m not convinced I really have that power and authority anyway?

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