Focus
As you quiet yourself for this brief time, be willing to be open to God in whatever way that may take place.
Read
Deuteronomy 8:1-10
8 This entire commandment that I command you today you must diligently observe, so that you may live and increase, and go in and occupy the land that the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors. 2 Remember the long way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments. 3 He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. 4 The clothes on your back did not wear out and your feet did not swell these forty years. 5 Know then in your heart that as a parent disciplines a child so the Lord your God disciplines you. 6 Therefore keep the commandments of the Lord your God, by walking in his ways and by fearing him. 7 For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with flowing streams, with springs and underground waters welling up in valleys and hills, 8 a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, 9 a land where you may eat bread without scarcity, where you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron and from whose hills you may mine copper. 10 You shall eat your fill and bless the Lord your God for the good land that he has given you.
Reflect
Most of you have enjoyed singing, When We All Get to Heaven. It’s good to have a destination. It’s assuring to know what the Lord has in store for us, or at least a glimpse of it.
We want to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, but we live moment-to-moment. In those moments we trust God or we don’t, we fear him only or we fear the world, we hunger or we are filled.
In those moments we desire the Lord’s ways but often adopt the patterns of the world. In our walk of faith, perhaps some like Paul might consider it a race, the Lord counsels us with his word, disciplines us because he loves us, and leads us to our own Promised Land.
Sometimes it may seem like we are in the wilderness, but we must know that God’s directives are for our own good. We should recognize those instances where our clothes are not worn and our feet are not swollen more than the days that we are hungry.
We should long for the word of God more than we hunger for physical food but we should bless the Lord in all we do for we have eaten and been satisfied. We have an eternal destination but live in God’s Kingdom now.
Pray
Lord,
Thank you for your love that sometimes we know as discipline.
That you for your provision that sometimes we see only in hindsight.
Thank you for the eternal destination and inheritance that you have given us.
Thank you for your law that was written in ancient times.
Thank you for your Word that came in the flesh.
Thank you for your Spirit that illuminates your counsel to us.
Help us to live now as you would have us to live eternally.
Help us to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus without be blind to the needs of our neighbor.
We long to be with you eternally. Help us to live now as if we are already there.
Amen.
Go with God!
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