June 2nd, 2016
Today’s reading from Encounter with God

Facing Reality

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Opening Prayer

Righteous Lord, You are merciful, but in Your holiness, You are also just. I praise You for all You are.

Read Deuteronomy 7:1-26

[1] When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations-the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you- [2] and when the LORD your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. [3] Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, [4] for they will turn your children away from following me to serve other gods, and the LORD’s anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. [5] This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire. [6] For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession. [7] The LORD did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. [8] But it was because the LORD loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. [9] Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments. [10] But those who hate him he will repay to their face by destruction; he will not be slow to repay to their face those who hate him. [11] Therefore, take care to follow the commands, decrees and laws I give you today. [12] If you pay attention to these laws and are careful to follow them, then the LORD your God will keep his covenant of love with you, as he swore to your ancestors. [13] He will love you and bless you and increase your numbers. He will bless the fruit of your womb, the crops of your land-your grain, new wine and olive oil-the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks in the land he swore to your ancestors to give you. [14] You will be blessed more than any other people; none of your men or women will be childless, nor will any of your livestock be without young. [15] The LORD will keep you free from every disease. He will not inflict on you the horrible diseases you knew in Egypt, but he will inflict them on all who hate you. [16] You must destroy all the peoples the LORD your God gives over to you. Do not look on them with pity and do not serve their gods, for that will be a snare to you. [17] You may say to yourselves, “These nations are stronger than we are. How can we drive them out?” [18] But do not be afraid of them; remember well what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt. [19] You saw with your own eyes the great trials, the signs and wonders, the mighty hand and outstretched arm, with which the LORD your God brought you out. The LORD your God will do the same to all the peoples you now fear. [20] Moreover, the LORD your God will send the hornet among them until even the survivors who hide from you have perished. [21] Do not be terrified by them, for the LORD your God, who is among you, is a great and awesome God. [22] The LORD your God will drive out those nations before you, little by little. You will not be allowed to eliminate them all at once, or the wild animals will multiply around you. [23] But the LORD your God will deliver them over to you, throwing them into great confusion until they are destroyed. [24] He will give their kings into your hand, and you will wipe out their names from under heaven. No one will be able to stand up against you; you will destroy them. [25] The images of their gods you are to burn in the fire. Do not covet the silver and gold on them, and do not take it for yourselves, or you will be ensnared by it, for it is detestable to the LORD your God. [26] Do not bring a detestable thing into your house or you, like it, will be set apart for destruction. Regard it as vile and utterly detest it, for it is set apart for destruction.

Scripture taken from the THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, NIV Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Meditate

“My song is love unknown, my Savior’s love to me; love to the loveless shown, that they might lovely be” (S. Crossman).

Think Further

As a single jewel becomes more brilliant when surrounded by contrasting stones, so here the wonder of God’s loving choice and blessing (6-15) is surrounded by commands to destroy (1-5,16-26). The central jewel is a delight even today, but what surrounds goes against modern sensitivities.

 

The people are reminded that they are “holy,” set apart for God’s purpose. While all the earth is his, God has “chosen you. . . to be his people, his treasured possession” (6; also Exod. 19:5,6; 1 Pet. 2:9,10). The word “treasure,” McConville writes, “refers elsewhere to a king’s private fortune” (1 Chron. 29:3; Eccl. 2:8) and outside Israel “describe[s] the king as the special possession of the god.” The people may look at the more numerous, powerful and wealthy nations around–Israel was the “fewest of all peoples” (7)–and ask why God chose them. The answer is God’s “love” and “affection” (6-8). As elsewhere throughout Scripture, God chooses people deemed unlikely and insignificant, a message that still runs counter to a power-glorifying and celebrity-saturated culture (1 Cor. 1:26-31).

 

How are God’s people to remain distinctive, belonging to him alone? The wiping out of the Canaanites is too complex an issue for this brief commentary! Here the attention is on God’s people. They are not to be overawed but to move forward (17-24), though in the long term there is danger that “you” will divert from worshipping the Lord alone (4,25). The warning is because the attractiveness of idolatry in all its forms and associated lifestyle is real. Contexts and safeguard solutions today may be different, but the warnings are still relevant! It is all the more reason to have central in one’s sight the contrasting bright jewel of the wonder and beauty of what God has done and wants to do with “his people,” committed solely to him and his mission.

Apply

What things of the culture around us are diverting you? Be purposeful to cut off from these things and center yourself again on Christ and the glories of God’s love and grace.

Closing prayer

Holy God, You have called us to be a people set apart so that we can be Your own special people and a light to the world around us. May my heart burn for this as Yours does.

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