When we feel a negative shadow and things just aren’t going right for us, a chapter like today’s can look pretty scary at first glance – that’s until you understand the true reasoning behind the word “curse”…
READ DEUTERONOMY 27 Make notes, if you’d like, of what stands out for you. Feel free to use the “Leave a Comment” box below to also write some of your thoughts.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
We live on the border of Scotland – home to the Border Reivers who seemed to be regularly victims of, or retaliating against, their marauding neighbour clans. By 1525, the region of the Reiver clans had become so volatile that the then Archbishop of Glasgow, Gavin Dunbar, formulated the longest curse ever written and with it, he cursed the families of the borderlands. Thankfully times have changed, and most followers of the Creator God will know that you shouldn’t be cursing anyone![a] So the question today is: What kind of a God would lay out a list of curses for warning his people?
To understand the nature of the word “curse”, as the Creator God understands it, is critical. Essentially, it is what the absence of Father God’s blessing would look like. But to explain more when one hasn’t experienced Father God or His divine promises/blessings, is difficult. It’s like the time I tried telling our son, Mikey (who was three-year-old at the time), not to poke his finger into an electrical socket or else he would die. But I could tell on his face that he didn’t know what “die” meant. He hadn’t experienced what it means to be permanently separated and lost to us. So, unlike that Bishop who had no personal relationship with the Border Reivers, Father God is trying to explain to His children a concept that they hadn’t yet experienced: what it feels like, and looks like, to miss out on His presence and abundant blessing due to willful disobedience…
“Keep all the commandments which I command you today. So it shall be on the day when you cross the Jordan to the land which the Lord your God gives you…you may enter the land which the Lord your God gives you, a land flowing with milk and honey, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, promised you. [v1-3]
Then in the context of great feasting and rejoicing over a having blessed relationship with their Maker in the first place [v7], they are then told what the opposite of blessing looks like. Read More… CLICK on “23 February – Additional Notes”
But what about your thoughts – can you tell me what today’s “breadcrumb” is? Leave a note in the “Comments” box below to tell me what you think of today’s chapter.
Wanting to speak directly with the God of Blessing? The rest of this webpage uses Jesus’ own prayer to help…[b]
THE LORD’S PRAYER:
1. Praise: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your Name. Your Kingdom come! Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven …”
You Lord are great and most worthy of praise! You’re to be feared above all gods. [Psalm 96:4]
2. Ask: “…Give us today our daily bread…”
The World: Pray for the government of Australia[c]
Your Country: Christian Education Institutions
Yourself: Fruit of the Spirit in you[d]
Your concerns for today
Lord, I want to forget the former things and dwelling on the past. I see that You’re doing a new thing! Now it springs up – a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. [Isaiah 43:18-19]
3. Admit: “…Forgive us our sin as we forgive those who sin against us…”
Father, in accordance with Your great love, forgive the sin of Your people, just as You’ve pardoned them from ancient times until now. [Numbers 14:19]
4. Protect: “…Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.”
Jesus said: “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. [John 15:15]
“For Yours Lord is the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory now and forever. Amen!”
When Jesus was questioned, tested, tricked or in His hour of great need, He always spoke things that were previously written in God’s Word.[e] Following these memory verses from ten topics, will help you learn 52 verses from the bible in a year! THIS WEEK’S MEMORY VERSE: Topic = The Creator’s Will
“The world and its desires will pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.” [1 John 2:17]
[a] Luke 6:27-28
[b] Matthew 6:5-15
[c] http://www.operationworld.org/country/aust/owtext.html
[d] Galatians 5:22
[e] Matthew 4:4,6,7,10; 11:10; 21:13; and 26:24,31