“The Lord Your God”
As I read through Deuteronomy, I was overwhelmed with the laws that were placed before the Israelites. They were given very exact commands for how to honor and follow “the Lord their God”. What if we still lived under these commands and laws? Here’s the thing…they all aren’t unreasonable and overwhelming.
– “Love the Lord your God and keep his requirements, his decrees, his laws and his commands always.” Deuteronomy 11:1
– “Be careful, or you will be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them.”
Deuteronomy 11:16 NIV
– “You must not worship the Lord your God in their way.”
Deuteronomy 12:4 NIV
– “You are not to do as we do here today, everyone doing as they see fit,”
Deuteronomy 12:8 NIV
The commands that God gave to the Israelites were all to bring them to Him, protect them, set them apart, demonstrate to them their need for God and provide for their holiness as they wait for their Savior. Here is our reality…our savior has come and we no longer live under the laws of the Old Testament but in their completion.
I’m still discovering what that means and what I do with that understanding today. However, we don’t have to throw out all the laws of the Old Testament. We don’t have to follow them as the Israelites did, but we can allow them to point us to Jesus and His completing work on earth.
“But God has helped me to this very day; so I stand here and testify to small and great alike. I am saying nothing beyond what the prophets and Moses said would happen— that the Messiah would suffer and, as the first to rise from the dead, would bring the message of light to his own people and to the Gentiles.”
Acts 26:22-23 NIV
Father, may we seek to draw closer to you.
May we, like Paul, testify to the small and great alike. Even while we don’t understand at times help us to testify to you and your message and your good work. Amen
Mandy Baldwin
Sixty-six books in a year 