Wednesday after Septuagesima Sunday
Posted on February 8, 2023 by under
Scripture: Deuteronomy 26:16-19 (NKJV)
26:16 “This day the Lord your God commands you to observe these statutes and judgments; therefore you shall be careful to observe them with all your heart and with all your soul. 17 Today you have proclaimed the Lord to be your God, and that you will walk in His ways and keep His statutes, His commandments, and His judgments, and that you will obey His voice. 18 Also today the Lord has proclaimed you to be His special people, just as He promised you, that you should keep all His commandments, 19 and that He will set you high above all nations which He has made, in praise, in name, and in honor, and that you may be a holy people to the Lord your God, just as He has spoken.”
Devotion
All the Israelites had to do was “observe these statutes and judgments.” Those were some big shoes to fill. How in the world were such sinful people supposed to fulfill these demands from God? That was the problem St. Paul also saw in himself when he wrote to the Romans, stating, “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find” (Rom. 7:18).
What Paul understood about himself helps us to understand how the Israelites were to “observe these statutes and judgments.” They would do so as God had just told them, in heart and in soul. Paul understood that through faith in Christ he could please God. Through faith in God’s promised Savior, an Israelite could please God.
In the Sacrament of Holy Baptism we have been given the Holy Spirit to lead us into daily repentance and forgiveness, to His gift of faith. Likewise, in the daily sacrifices the Old Testament faithful Israelites trusted in God’s forgiveness offered in connection with those sacrifices. Only through faith in God’s promised forgiveness could they with heart and soul fear, love, and trust in God above all things.
Prayer: O Lord, we beseech Thee favorably to hear the prayers of Thy people: that we, who are justly punished for our offenses, may be mercifully delivered by Thy goodness, for the glory of Thy Name; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
