Saturday, June 14, 2014

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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