Keep the comments coming! Deuteronomy chapter 18.
Priests were to trust God to take care of them for they had no inheritance. The thought of God TAKING CARE OF US is not an easy concept. God tells us that he will take care of us and our needs. But I struggle with this during certain aspects of my life: God, will you take care of me??? I'm concerned about retirement. We don't have the greatest IRA nor the greatest retirement plan. We try and be careful with our spending and we budget our money. We have lived from paycheck to paycheck like a lot of people. Emergencies come up at times and hit us hard financially. We have sold personal items so that we could pay a bill. When things get tough I ask: God will you really take care of us?
Matthew 6:33 tells us to seek first God's kingdom and his righteousness and all of our needs will be taken care of.
I can't lose focus on what's important:
1. Always letting God use me to impact lives for the Kingdom of God, now and until the day I die.
2. Striving forward, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to be holy and righteous and not compromising with the world.
I need to make these two things most important in my life. And then trust God to take care of me and my family.
I mentioned how we have had hard times in our lives, but I never mentioned examples of how God intervened in tough times. For example:
1. Three different times in our marriage, Karin and I have had someone give us a car.
2. We had an inheritance come in unexpectedly which was a blessing.
3. We had a heating system breakdown in a house we lived in which cost a few thousand dollars to take care of. Someone stepped in and paid our bill.
I need to complain less and rejoice more for God loves us and wants to take care of our needs. I can't lose focus of that.
We read in chapter 18 how the people were told to not learn to follow abominable practices. This reminded me of how their first earthly king would one day break this in his desperation. Saul went to a medium at En-dor when he didn’t get an answer from the Lord in 1 Samuel 28. He found out that God would give Israel into the hand of the Philistines and that he would die the next day. This was devastating news! King Saul made some poor choices and there were consequences for his choices. Samuel was a prophet, but he had already died. Saul wanted answers, but instead of continuing to seek God, he went the wrong direction in attempting to hear from the dead.
Check out Luke 11:9-10. “And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.”
We read this in James 4:7-8. “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.”
Matthew 6:33 is another good verse to remember. We may not receive an answer right away or get the answer that we may want to hear, but we need to trust the Lord and His timing. God wants us to come to Him and not go after the ways of this world. God’s way is always the right way!
Thank you for the great examples Blair of the Lord meeting your needs in times of worry and financial fear. Jim, thank you for the great verses that relate so well!
I want to look at this verse:
10 Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, 11 or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. 12 Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord;”
Our society today has taken this verse too lightly I think… with popular TV shoes like “Long Island Medium” and tarot card readings being used as something to do for fun. In my past I have done both of these things, not realizing the gravity and serious sin that they are. One experience with a medium was after my grandma had passed away and my mom and aunts were looking for closure. They thought the woman they had found was associated with the church, but I’m just not sure it can be true. We have to trust God and we have to trust that our loved ones lived a life that led them to Heaven. To rely on another person to give us that information and that reassurance is to turn away from God and look towards something that is not God for answers. After both of these experiences I have prayed for forgiveness and have never returned to anything like this again.