Wednesday after the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Posted on October 2, 2024 by under
Scripture: Deuteronomy 30:11-20 (NKJV)
30:11 “For this commandment which I command you today is not too mysterious for you, nor is it far off. 12 It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will ascend into heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ 13 Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ 14 But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it.
15 “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil, 16 in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, His statutes, and His judgments, that you may live and multiply; and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess. 17 But if your heart turns away so that you do not hear, and are drawn away, and worship other gods and serve them, 18 I announce to you today that you shall surely perish; you shall not prolong your days in the land which you cross over the Jordan to go in and possess. 19 I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; 20 that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days; and that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.”
Devotion
By “choose life,” in verse 19, Moses doesn’t bid unbelievers to “choose Christ” and “give their hearts to Jesus.” He pleads with God’s people to continue as His. Moses recounts (Deut. 29-30) the mighty deeds of deliverance the Lord has worked for His people and asks whether they wish to remain spiritually alive and under His blessing, or will foolishly choose death by actions disowning Him. He even words it in terms of setting good and evil before them, so they think back to the serpent’s temptation to Adam and Eve: will they once again succumb, or will their lives be a rejoicing in their God’s gracious treaty with them?
As when he descended from Mt. Sinai, and again as Joshua will do later (Josh. 24:1-28), Moses makes it clear that the Lord is not simply ‘a god’, nor even simply ‘God’, but “your God”—the only true God, to be sure, but more, the true God who has made you His own by His deliverance! Will you love Him for what He has done for you and shown to you, so that you continue to receive His blessings, just as He promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, or would you rather perish? Jesus makes it clear in John 3:16-18 that God’s provision in Him is that no one is forced to perish, but can be grafted into His eternally-living people simply through His gift of faith in God the Son.
Collect: O God, forasmuch as without Thee we are not able to please Thee: Mercifully grant, that Thy Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; 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.
