February 13, 2023 - Deuteronomy 7-9

“When the Lord your God brings you into the land” (7:1). Israel is about to enter Canaan, the land God promised to give them. God has promised, and he is always good on his promises. Moses puts it like this: “It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations” (7:7-9).

A people so blessed by God! In turn, they are to live as a people blessed by God: “The whole commandment that I command you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers” (8:1). What parallels with us! Hear the apostle Peter who writes to us: “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. . . . Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God” (1 Peter 2:10-11,16).

Sweet are the promises,

Kind is the word,

Dearer far than any message man ever heard;

Pure was the mind of Christ,

Sinless I see;

He the great example is, and pattern for me.

Where He leads I’ll follow,

Follow all the way.

Where He leads I’ll follow,

Follow Jesus ev’ry day. --W. A. Ogden (1885)