Today’s Podcast
Today’s Scriptures
Today’s Bible reading plans include:
Ready – Deuteronomy 1: 26-46
Set – Deuteronomy 1; Mark 12
Go! – Deuteronomy 1-2; Mark 12
Deuteronomy 1: 26-46
26 But even after all this encouragement, you still weren’t willing to go up and fight. You rebelled against what the Eternal your God told you to do. 27 In your homes, you complained to each other, “The Eternal hates us! That’s why He brought us out of the land of Egypt—so He could hand us over to the Amorites. They’re going to destroy us! 28 He tells us, ‘Go up,’ but go up where? The report of the rest of those we sent out was terrifying: ‘The people there are bigger and taller than we are. Their cities are huge, with walls as high as the sky! We even saw giants there—descendants of the Anakim.’”29 So I told you, “Don’t be scared! Don’t be afraid of them! 30 You won’t have to fight this battle yourselves; the Eternal your God, who always goes ahead of you, will fight for you just as He did in Egypt—you saw Him do it! 31 And here in this wilderness, all along the route you’ve traveled until you reached this place, haven’t you seen the Eternal, your True God, carrying you the way a parent carries a child? 32 But you still don’t trust the Eternal your God, 33 even though He always goes ahead of you as you travel and finds places for you to camp. In a pillar of fire by night and in a cloud by day, He always shows you the right way to go.”
34 When the Eternal heard your untrusting words, He angrily swore an oath: 35 “Not a single person in this wicked generation will see the good land I swore to give to your ancestors! 36 There’ll be only one exception: Caleb (Jephunneh’s son). He will see it. I’ll give the very land he walked through when he spied it out to him and his descendants because he remained completely loyal to the Eternal.” 37 And He was angry with me, too, because of the way you acted. He told me, “Not even you will go into the land! 38 It will be Joshua (Nun’s son), a man you’ve already entrusted with important responsibilities, who will enter it instead. Encourage him, because he will lead the people into the land and give it to Israel as their possession. 39 You said that if you fought, all your soldiers would be killed and your little ones would become plunder for your enemies. But it will be those children under age 20, who don’t know right from wrong yet, who will enter the land. I’ll give it to them, and it will belong to them. 40 But as for you, head back into the wilderness, toward the Red Sea.”
41 After God’s judgment you responded, “We’ve sinned against the Eternal! We’ll go up and fight now, just as the Eternal, our True God, commanded us.” So each of you strapped on your weapons and prepared to fight. You thought it would be easy to get up into the highlands. 42 The Eternal tried to warn you that it was too late by telling me, “Tell them not to go up and not to fight! I am not with them. They’ll be crushed by their enemies.” 43 I told you everything, but you wouldn’t listen. You rebelled against the Eternal’s command, and you went up arrogantly into the highlands. 44 The Amorites who lived there came out and attacked you, and you ran away from them as if they were a swarm of bees! They crushed more and more of your soldiers all the way from Seir to Hormah, until they gave up the chase. 45 You came back and wept before the Eternal. But He wouldn’t listen to a word you said. 46 So you just stayed in Kadesh and didn’t leave for a long time.
Today’s Devotional
From today’s background scripture God might say:
Moses gives a pretty good summary of the Israelites’ history at the edge of the promised land with one exception. He says I didn’t let him go into the promised land because of My anger with the Israelites. Do you notice the problem? Moses never wanted to own up to his own error. Moses was a great leader for Me, but I wasn’t angry with him over the rest of the nation’s reluctance to believe in Me. I was angry at them, not him. Moses tried to convince them I would win their battles for them. He tried to convince them to go on into the promised land. In fact, Moses didn’t want them to send spies into the land because he knew it might weaken their faith.
I didn’t keep Moses out of the promised land because of the Israelites’ failures. I kept him out of the promised land for two reasons. First, he disobeyed Me. He struck the rock to get water at Meribah when I told him to speak to the rock. It might seem a little thing to you, but Moses was with Me constantly. He knew I demanded obedience. He knew the consequences of disobedience. I gave him My commandments on the mountain and he understood My power more than any other person in the nation.
But there was a second reason Moses didn’t go into the promised land. Did you notice his blame game? He blamed the rest of the nation for Me blocking his entrance to the new land. He would do it again later in his discourse. He couldn’t take the blame for his disobedience. Like so many, he tried to point the finger somewhere else. He wanted to share his guilt. Like Adam in the garden when he blamed Eve for his failure to keep My command. Like Eve who then blamed the serpent for giving her the fruit from the tree. Like Cain who tried to shun the blame for his brother’s murder. Like so many, Moses tried to shed the blame for his disobedience.
Like all who have gone before him and all who have come after him, Moses could not shift the blame. As Paul wrote, “All have sinned and come short of My glory.” No one but Jesus ever walked the earth in a sinless state. So no matter how hard Moses might try to deflect the guilt, he couldn’t. No matter how many times he tried to tell the story and lay the blame elsewhere. He and I knew his failure to enter the promised land came as a result of his own failure.
Never forget what John says in his first letter to the churches of his day. “If you confess your sins, I am faithful and just and will forgive your sins and purify you from all unrighteousness.” Don’t hold back. Give Me a try.
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