Deuteronomy, An Intro

The next 4 posts following this intro are a re vamp of 8 posts that I originally posted on my old site and I thought they were worth re-posting here. The posts are a reflection on a few verses in Deuteronomy following the Israelites as God speaks through Moses to set out some standards, that if adhered to, would give them a better standard of life together with a less complicated one.
Lets recap. The Israelites have endured some 400 years as slaves in Egypt. They have been abused and mistreated beyond belief. They have crossed the red sea by means of a miracle, they were subjected to a diet of quails and manna for 40 years and now another generation have crossed over another river by yet another miracle and then God speaks.
God says to Moses, who in turn speaks to the escaped slaves of Egypt in Deuteronomy 6:23 “I have bought you out so I can bring you in“
My question is what have they been bought out of and what have they been bought into and can this have any application to our lives today? I believe it does, God wants to bring us out of bondage just like He bought the Israelites out of their bondage. Bondage to the Israelites was a place where their worth was measured by how many bricks they could make. It was a place where they were not free to live a life of their own. It was a life of forced labour to an onerous task master. A master who required every ounce of life so that all of their liberty was curtailed. It was from this backdrop that God acted to release a people He called His own from a hopeless and desperate situation to one of freedom and hope, to a place where they could be free to be themselves and be able to explore all that a life with Him had to offer.
God brought them out to a place where they were valued for who they were, with no expectations except that of pleasing a redeemer and king. In God we are measured for who we are and not by what we do for Him. The call of God on our lives is not about being put into a position that compels us to repay God for His gracious acts but one that brings us into a new found freedom with Him, that then enables us to claim and move into the freedom that God intended for us at the outset of creation.
If we look at Deuteronomy chapters 6 – 9 we will find some insight into being set free from sin and how God promises to equip us so that we can establish ourselves with Him through life’s circumstances.
Moses speaks to the people in Deuteronomy 7:1 and reminds them of God’s greatness, how that it was He who went before them and continues to go before them. God calls the people of Israel to go into the land, the promised land and claim it. Our position in God is that we claim what is rightfully ours, that of eternal life. We have to possess by faith the uninhabited places in our lives for God. God says “I will go before you and drive out“. Notice that when God called the people out of Egypt, He was in front and notice He says He will go before and drive out. So claiming the uninhabited places in our lives is not about what we can do in our own strength it is all about what God does on our behalf. Paul puts it this way in Colossians 1:27 “Christ in you the hope of Glory” So we need to learn about the greatness of God and what He does, not about what we think we are capable of. We need to begin to see God as Isaiah did in Isaiah 6:1 “high and lifted up with His train filled the temple“.
Lord help me to see how great you are and not to focus on my own limitations. Lord lead me into your promised land and help me to overcome and overthrow those places in my life that are not of you.