Wednesday after Septuagesima Sunday
Posted on February 16, 2022 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
We have here today a wonderful pericope on the relationship of the Lord to the penitent sinner. Those who cling in faith to the Lord are affirmed to have been chosen by God to be His people. The Lord had already made clear that He had chosen the people of Israel to be His. He had sent Moses to deliver them from the bondage of slavery in Egypt. He rescued them from the armies of Pharaoh by providing dry land to walk through the midst of the Red Sea. He preserved them in the wilderness for forty years by providing water, quail, and manna.
He had also given them His Law—His Ten Commandments—on Mount Sinai, written with His own hand and presented to them by Moses. The Commandments showed how the Lord promised to protect those who feared, loved, and trusted in Him above all gods. The people of Israel, after forty years of wandering in the wilderness, were now ready to take possession of the promised land of Canaan. It was here, when Moses gave his final speech, that the Israelites confessed their faith in the Lord. He would be their God, and they would be His people.
This is how it is for us in the Church. We confess our faith in the Lord when we confess that we are unable to save ourselves by our own works. Through His grace and mercy He claims us as His own people.
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.
