Blog

97 “I will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the latter rain…”

 Deuteronomy 11:14

 There are great rewards to those who follow the ways of the Lord and are obedient. He promises us the blessings of the early rains and the later rains. We experience the blessing of God in our early life and well as in old age. God is faithful and will not leave us unblessed as we stand by His word and please Him. We please Him in our faith.

“Without faith it is impossible to be well pleasing to him, for he who comes to God must believe that he exists, and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him.”

 Hebrews 11:6

 The rains of blessing will certainly be ours if we stay by the precepts of our Lord and God and live lives for His glory. We must not give way to fear and fall into worldly ways but holdfast to our confidence in faith that God will be honoured in our life. He has His ways of showing us His blessings through the view of spiritual eyes to see them. We believe Him and believe what He says to us and therefore we are strong. Faith in God will not fail if we are clinging to Him and are constantly rehearsing the promises of God in our mind.

 God blesses every season of life and will never leave us. His blessings are suitable for us and will yield a rich crop of fruit for His glory.

“Through him, then, let us offer up a sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of lips which make confession to his name.”

Hebrews 13:15

96 “He will love you, bless you, and multiply you.”

Deuteronomy 7:13

 There are deep blessings to be had for those who put God first and walk closely with Him. Those who put self to death find the blessed walk with God to be all they need. Our God is sufficient and we do not look to the things of this life or that are in the world. There are many and varied distractions that try to tempt us away from the presence of the Lord, but we say goodbye to them and focus on the Word, for there we find more great and precious promises to us to support us in all our circumstances.

 God will show us His love and power, and we will not desire anything else. God will prosper all our ways and lead us to straight paths for our feet. We will walk securely through life and find God to be our all in all.

“The Lord, is my strength. He makes my feet like deer’s feet, and enables me to go in high places.”

 Habakkuk 3:19

 This is a sure and certain promise that God will strengthen us and cause us to walk uprightly with Him. We obey because we love Him and want to know His power in our lives. How blessed it is to be loved by the Lord and how great is His good pleasure towards us. We should rest in it and find our security there. We will see and recognize His hand on our life, and we will find Him true.

 Let us walk uprightly and worthily with our God and not seeking other things besides Him. He is our dearly beloved and all other loves pale into shadow compared with Him.

95 “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.”

 Deuteronomy 6:5

 This Scripture is also found in Matthew 22:37, Mark 12:30, Luke 10:27. It is the complete summary of the first tablet of the ten commandments and reflects our devotion to the Lord and our Love and trust in Him. There are some who say we are not under law but under grace and so the commandments are out of date, but Jesus did not teach this. We show our love for God by our obedience to His commands, and we see this in 1 John also.

“God’s love has most certainly been perfected in whoever keeps his word.”

1 John 2:5

Love for God is not religious feelings or settled dispositions but in the obedience to God’s commandments and a regard for what He says. It is the desire and ability to fly to the Lord in times of weakness and trouble and to find in His precious promises a refuge for our soul. We must earnestly seek Him. Even when our emotions do not cooperate with our desire to have His comfort, we overcome by the spilt blood and the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit.

 Let us be devoted to the Lord our God and seek His good pleasure and blessing. Let us make sure we are comforted by the right things and not selfish human activities.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

Matthew 5:4

94 “When you are in oppression, and all these things have come on you, in the latter days you shall return to the Lord your God and listen to his voice.”

 Deuteronomy 4:30

 This scripture tells us what to do when we are in distress. Trouble comes to everyone and we are truly blessed if we can turn to the Lord our God and His word to us. Our Bible should be the sword of the Spirit which will enable us to fight the good fight and overcome all the moods and temperamental idiosyncrasies of our character. It should be our first port of call that we run to for comfort and enlightenment. When Satan comes to us with his powerful blame, we can find our refuge in the Lord. When this world comes to us with its temptations and would seek to draw us away from Christ, the Scripture is our first port of call. When we are drawn away by our own appetites and desires, we overcome through the power of the Word of God and the shed blood for us.

 We must practice this skill and not run to the comforts of this life for our peace. We must train ourselves to go to God and not just distract ourselves with activity. 

 We can also commend the Word of God to our memory for it is good to recount the promises of God even when we might not have access to a Bible. When we hit trouble God will bring the Scripture to our remembrance and we will be blessed.

“Your word is a lamp to my feet, and a light for my path.”

 Psalm 119:105

 Let us steep ourselves in the Words of God.

93 “You shall not add to the word which I command you…”

 Deuteronomy 4:2

 The Word of the Lord is complete, and we must be careful not to add to it or take away what God has said. We are also warned against this in the book of Revelation.

“If anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life, and out of the holy city, which are written in this book.”

 Revelation 22:19

 God has spoken and we are to hear and obey and not seek further words that are not from the Lord. All other so-called sacred writings are false and must not be adhered to. We have the Word of the Lord, fully and finally set down for us so that we are not lead astray be other false sects and religions. That Word should be so precious to us that we read it every day and even learn it by heart that we may call in it in times of trouble.

 The scribes of old who copied the Word so that other could read it were meticulous in their care to copy it accurately. They would not deviate from anything that we written down and so the Scriptures are preserved for us in all their beauty and correctness.

 Let us every day honour the Word of God as keep it close to our heart. Let us read, meditate and learn it all that we may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

 

 

92 “Today I will begin to put the dread of you and the fear of you on the peoples who are under the whole sky, who shall hear the report of you, and shall tremble and be in anguish because of you.”

 Deuteronomy 2:25

 The fear of God is in us all and we know that He exists and will carry our His sovereign will in all circumstances. The wicked hate Him and say they do not believe but all know the presence of the Lord and know that they are accountable. No one is without understanding and no one is without the fear of the Lord. The Lord our God will not be mocked and will hold us all accountable before His face. The wicked know this too, but in a kind of blind madness they reject Him and seek to live life without His presence and without His holy law. We are lawless without the Lord and will wander on through life at our own merit and fail to sort out our position before Him.

 In the same vein, the lawless reject the people of God and sideline them to a position on the outside of life. The wicked reject the words of the wise people of God and do not acknowledge the truth about God. They assign themselves to their own truth, which is no truth but the lies of the evil one. This is the way to a lost eternity and the sure and certain hope of hell forever. This should frighten anyone but the wicked rail at it and do not turn from their way to the ways of God. At the same time God puts the dread of His truth in their hearts so that they are not free and are not secure. They see this in the people of God and are left feeling on edge and outside the fold of God.

 Let us be wise and set our minds and hearts to the Lord and not to outside influences.

 

91 “It is a good land which the Lord our God gives to us.”

 Deuteronomy 1:25

 God gives His children good things and promises us a home that can never fade or be taken away from us. He has gone before to prepare the way and we can rely on Him, just as the Israelites of old.

“Don’t let your heart be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many homes. If it weren’t so, I would have told you. I am going to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will receive you to myself; that where I am, you may be there also.”

John 14:1-3 

We must take our eyes off the here and now and fix them on eternity. God provides us with homes in this life, but they are only temporary whereas the home in heaven is eternal. We are to eagerly desire it and look forward to it, taking our eyes off the temporal and place them on the eternal. All our troubles will melt away, and we will see the king in all his glory. This is the way to a victorious Christian life and the way to life in God and peace with God.

“For our light affliction, which is for the moment, works for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory, while we don’t look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”

2 Corinthians 4:17-18

 

90 “…wise and respected men…”

 Deuteronomy 1:15

 How blessed we are when we are governed by wise and knowledgeable men and women. The Lord looks for the wise and blesses His people by giving them good councilors and leaders. This is true in church and also in our national settings. It is a terrible day when the wicked get power and inflict all kinds of curses on the people they are responsible for. It is a reflection of our godliness as to the quality of our leaders for God lets us feel the consequences of wickedness and laziness.

“Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.”

Proverbs 14:34

We should be praying for our leaders that God will give us righteous men and women to govern over our nation and churches. God blessed the Old Testament saints with many godly leaders and they went from strength to strength. Weak leaders and evil men brought the nation down and the people ended up with idolatry and all kinds of sin. We must not pander to the desires of our sinful lives but seek the righteousness of God in all our dealings. We are to look to the righteous to lead us and to bring us into safe and secure living where the Word of God is revered and people are led to obedience to God and not to the desires of self.

“But whoever listens to me will dwell securely, and will be at ease, without fear of harm.”

Proverbs 1:33

Let us listen to the Lord our God and seek good leaders.

89 “…the children of Israel went out with a high hand in the sight of all the Egyptians..”

 Numbers 33:3

 When the children of Israel left slavery in the land of Egypt they went out with holy boldness. They plundered the Egyptians who gave them whatever they asked. God’s people do not leave the slavery of sin and the clutches of this world empty handed but go out with much riches that we plunder this world and use for God.

 Once we relinquish our desire for sin and self, we find that we have treasures that we did not know of before.

“For you shall go out with joy, and be led out with peace. The mountains and the hills will break out before you into singing; and all the trees of the fields will clap their hands.”

Isaiah 55:12 

 Though the people of God may be put upon and oppressed by this world, yet we are set free in Christ. He is our Lord and protector and we trust in Him. The things of this life fall away when we come before Him and we are mightily comforted. We have treasure that this world does not know and we take all the good things it offers and use them for the kingdom. All for the glory of the great name of our Saviour who will conquer all for us and lead us out with great joy. Do we know this kind of victory or are we wallowing in self pity and doubt?

 Let us put on the whole armour of God and fight that we might be victorious and all will see it.

 

88 “Shall your brothers go to war while you sit here?”

 Numbers 32:6

 Moses is chastising the tribe of Gad and Reuben that they are not putting their effort into the work of conquering the land of Canaan for God. The question comes forward to us also for we all need to put our work into the labouring for the kingdom of God. We don’t just pay our tithe and hope for the best, but we put in the tithe of our effort as well. God requires us to fight together and all pull our weight in the outreach and work of the local church.

 Shall we sit on our hands while others give their all for God?

“Am I a soldier of the cross,
a foll’wer of the Lamb,
and shall I fear to own His cause,
or blush to speak His name?

Must I be carried to the skies
on flow’ry beds of ease,
while others fought to win the prize,
and sailed thro’ bloody seas?” Isaac watts

This hymn sums up the sentiment exactly. Saints of the past worked so hard for the Lord and so many give their lives to God today to do His work, so why not I? God wants our whole self, for He knows it is the best thing for us and He will lead us into all good work and godly living. Let us give up ourselves and our self determination and give all our effort for our Lord and God.