Deuteronomy (7 and 8)
Lesson 7 (Remember what God has done)
Deuteronomy 8:2 ‘And you shall remember all the way which the LORD your God led you these forty years in the wilderness in order to humble you, to prove you, to know what is in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not’.
Why does God have to “prove us and to know what is in our hearts”?
It is not as if the writer is saying this is what it is like being a Christian, God spying on my life, it is the writer saying REMEMBER every where you went God went with you.
God deals with us all in different ways and at different times in our lives. It is not that He is trying to prove anything but that He wants us to learn how to trust Him. Remember, reflect on how God led you through the difficult times. Did He neglect you? It may have seemed like He had, yet the whole purpose was to know what was in our hearts. Whether we really meant what we said. “I will follow you all my days”, “I will serve you”.
Personally this post is very true for me at the moment. Whilst I can read the words of this text and say yes it is true “God has led me throughout my life”, sometimes it is hard to appreciate in the moment that God is still with me. I can read all the passages in the Bible which say that God loves, cares and watches over me etc etc. yet I can still be all at sea.
What I am learning and what I am asking God for is to teach me to live a life that reflects His steadfastness and His faithfulness.
Lesson 8 (Know who sustains us)
Deuteronomy 8:3 ‘And He humbled you and allowed you to hunger, and then He fed you with manna, which you did not know, neither did your fathers know it, so that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone. But by every word that comes out of the mouth of the LORD man shall live’.
God wants us to live for Him, to rely on Him and to live in Him. God deals with us to mould us and transform us into something that He is able to use. When I read this passage I find that it is not me who has to humble myself but God who humbles me. That is saying that every situation I find myself, almighty God has allowed it for my good and His purpose.
It is interesting to note that when we are hungry, when we are at our lowest, God feeds us (I am talking here about our whole being, not just an isolated part of us). He provides manna from heaven to sustain us. He wouldn’t do this if He had no purpose for us. God wants to bring us to the place where He provides for us and a place where we know He provides for us. Are we prepared to abide in that place and pick up the manna, the food and sustenance that God has loving provided for us? or are we going to waste lots of our energy rushing about in the wilderness, looking for something to satisfy us that doesn’t exist.
Lord help me to hear your voice and then apply the words from your mouth so that I may realise that “Man does not live by bread alone” Amen
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