Good morning everyone! Thanks for your continual comments!
Deuteronomy chapter 8
This chapter, as I feel every chapter, is going to be very similar. Moses continues to emphasize how important it is to make sure that we remember God our creator! We can't let anything interfere with our love and obedience for the Lord!
Moses wants them to be careful because once Life goes On for a while, and once things start to go good, that's when it becomes easy to forget God. We don't praise and thank him anymore and we begin to follow our own desires rather than God's desires.
We're told to praise him for his blessings in our lives. We're either going to praise him or praise ourselves. I do not want to ever become proud and self-confident that I begin to put confidence in my own abilities I forget that everything I have, including my abilities, are God-given! Thank you, Lord for every blessing that I have and thank you for trials and testings because they help me to be more like you!
Verse 3 of chapter 8 stood out to me today. Jesus quoted from this verse when He was tempted by Satan. We are not to live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord. God’s Word is so important. We can have victory over temptation by using the Word just like Jesus did! If we think about it, everything that exists actually came about originally from God speaking His Word. We read in John 1:1 that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. John 1:14 goes on to say that the Word became flesh. The Word is Jesus and He is also known as the bread of life. We read more about this in John 6:48-58.
Thank the Lord for giving us His Word, Jesus. We have life in Him and through Him.
It is interesting that all 3 times that Jesus dealt with Satan in Matthew 4, he quoted from Deuteronomy.
v 10 – this is why some people give thanks before and after a meal. I like that. We should let our table prayers serve as a constant reminder of the Lord’s goodness to us and our duty to those who are less fortunate.
Deuteronomy 8:5 “Thou shalt also consider in thine heart, that, as a man chasteneth his son, [so] the LORD thy God chasteneth thee.”
Those the LORD loves, He chastens
“And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord .”
Deuteronomy 8:2-3
I’ve seen a post on facebook lately that says something along the lines of, if you want to know what the person you’re with is really like sit with them in traffic for 2 hours. My brother-in-law also used to say something like that, that if you really wanted to know what a person is like get them angry. We can be good at wearing a mask or putting on a facade, saying the right things and doing the right things, but when things get tough or we’re pushed to our limits then you see what’s truly in your heart by the way you behave and the things you say. Just like the verses say, God led the Israelites through the wilderness to humble them and test them to see what was in their hearts. Were they going to choose to trust Him and obey Him or were they going to disobey and turn away from Him?
Matthew 12:34 says “Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”
And Matthew 15:18 says
“But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man.”
5 “Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you.”
How is God working towards disciplining our lives? Are we receptive of that discipline, or resentful to it? The trials we face help us to draw near to God and lean on our faith more than ourselves or those around us. Are we using those times to become more disciplined for the Lord?
I know when I have to discipline my son, it’s tough. He is only two and will cry and tantrum. He wants to do dangerous things sometimes like go in the street to be near cars which he loves. I have to keep him safe. It is my job as his mother to teach him, protect him, discipline him. It is not easy. It tears me up inside to hear him cry and scream, but I know what I am teaching him is important, sometimes a matter of life or death safety.
God is doing the same with us. He watches us time and time again make decisions either for Him or against Him. When we go through pain and hardship and sorrow, he is right there with us, helping us through it. I can’t imagine it is easy for the Lord to see our hearts breaking on Earth over the trials that we face. But He knows the lessons we are learning, the way He is working, and how we are changing is for our benefit. To be disciplined is not a bad thing, but something that is so important to live a healthy, happy life. To so extent we are disciplined in our diet and exercise habits. If we weren’t, we would become overweight, unhealthy, uncomfortable… some of us struggle with it.
Our faith life is similar. If we aren’t disciplined to read our bibles, pray, be in fellowship with others, our faith life starts to fade away.
I pray we can all do something in this upcoming week to work towards being more disciplined in some aspect for the Lord.