Deuteronomy (3 and 4)

Lesson 3 (Know I am loved)

Deuteronomy 7:7 ‘The LORD did not set His love upon you, nor choose you, because you were more in number than any people, for you were the fewest of all people’.

Deuteronomy 7:8 a ‘But because the LORD loved you’,

We can move into, and claim our inheritance because of this verse of assurance. The children of Israel must have been apprehensive about moving into a land that was not theirs. I want us to consider that the claiming of the land is not about the physical landscape of the land of Israel but about us finding that place where God is and finding a God who we can be still with. ‘Be still and know that I am God‘. Psalm 46:10

We have been given the opportunity to explore the deep heart of God, to come into His presence and enjoy the freedom of “living in the promised land”. It is of great consolation that God has set His love on us not because we were anything special but just because He loved us. It is this love that compels us forward into the promised rest. Charles Wesley wrote “I believe a rest remains”. God wants to bring us to discover this rest for ourselves. It is because God loves us that we are able to confidently approach the throne of Grace and find all the help we need.

This love of God is so immense, so unfathomable and so unmeasurable that we can never fully appreciate it. This love is what makes us and transforms us into a person who is different. But God knows that we will fail and we will look at that later on in the chapter, but nevertheless it is the knowledge that we have a God who’s love transcends far beyond our wildest dreams and reaches us at our lowest point and stretches to our most exhilarated heights. It is because of this great love and our knowledge of this great love that we can live in hope and expectancy of entering into our rest, into our promised land. Remember God has gone before, He is in front. Deuteronomy 6:10 and Deuteronomy 7:1 Let us begin to find that REST in Almighty God and live a life that trust’s the community that is God and knows the fact that the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Deuteronomy 6:4 We are sustained by the completeness of God not by separate strands of His being. Know that we are loved and that God is committed to our well being and our safety. There is no better place to be than in the hands of the living God.

Lesson 4 (God’s Promise, He is Faithful)

Deuteronomy 7:8b ‘and because He would keep the oath which He had sworn to your fathers, the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you out of the house of slaves, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt’.

Deuteronomy 7:9 ‘Therefore, know that the LORD your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy with them that love Him and keep His commandments, to a thousand generations’.

Because God loves us He also sustains us. God is a being of faithfulness. A promise delivered to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was that this being (we call God) would be “A God to you” is also true for this generation.

There are many times in our lives when we struggle to recognise that we have a faithful God but that does not alter the fact that He is faithful.

To prove God’s faithfulness we have to obey His command and leading. He can say in scripture that He is faithful and will keep covenant but until we make an effort and move into that promise we will never know that He is faithful.

I believe God to be faithful, looking back over my life I can see that God has kept me and sustained me, even in the times of straying. That statement may seem a contradiction from the one above that says “He is faithful when we move”, yet in many ways God’s faithfulness is revealed both by His mercy and our obedience.

In our lesson today we have to learn what it is to know God, to know that He has redeemed us, it is He who sustains us and it is He who is God. Deuteronomy 7:9 ‘Therefore, know that the LORD your God, He is God, the faithful God.’

Lord help me to draw on your faithfulness, to know you are God in all your fullness whatever that may mean. Help me Lord to trust you implicitly and to know when to walk, know when to run and know when to stay. Time, Lord is not important to you just obedience and trust in you the timeless being, creator of all things.

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