January 4, 2024

Passage Read: Deuteronomy 8-11
Meditation Verse: 8:16

Thought

The people of Israel were stubborn and resistant to the Lord's word and will. He planned to give them the land of Canaan, not because they were a righteous people, but because the Canaanites had so sinned against the Lord that He was ready to wipe them from the face of the earth, and because He had promised to give the land to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob's descendants. But He didn't want to replace the Canaanites with another rebellious people, so He had to spend forty years training the Israelites to walk in His ways. That required humbling them and testing them by feeding them manna, so that in the end He could bless them abundantly. The testing and humbling were so that He could eventually do good to them. Were they ready after forty years of testing? The second generation was better prepared than the first, but they failed to pass on their training to the third generation, so that they too feared the Lord and walked in His ways. Each successive generation became hit-or-miss in their faithfulness and obedience to the Lord. So each generation had to be tested and humbled anew, instead of learning well the lessons their fathers had received.

Application

There is an easy way and a hard way. We can learn from what has been recorded for us, to live and serve the Lord as He desires, or we can suffer humbling and testing until He prepares us to love and serve Him--if He takes us as His own. He did not choose the Canaanites, to humble and train them, though some had known Him even in Abraham's day. Instead, He gave them over to their sin and rebellion, that they might become objects of wrath even to destruction. It is a really bad idea to provoke the Lord to anger, especially if He has desired to bless us. But to be chosen by God that He might do good to us in the end means He must prepare us to receive what He has prepared for us. That requires humbling and testing, and I need to welcome those and be trained by them.