TAKE IT, DON’T LEAVE IT!
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Opening Prayer
Thank you, Lord God, that, no matter how great my sin, whenever I repent, you offer pardon, bringing restoration and blessing.
Read DEUTERONOMY 30
For additional translations of the passage, use this link to Bible Gateway.
Prosperity After Turning to the Lord
30 When all these blessings and curses I have set before you come on you and you take them to heart wherever the Lord your God disperses you among the nations, 2 and when you and your children return to the Lord your God and obey him with all your heart and with all your soul according to everything I command you today, 3 then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes[a] and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you. 4 Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the Lord your God will gather you and bring you back. 5 He will bring you to the land that belonged to your ancestors, and you will take possession of it. He will make you more prosperous and numerous than your ancestors. 6 The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live. 7 The Lord your God will put all these curses on your enemies who hate and persecute you. 8 You will again obey the Lord and follow all his commands I am giving you today. 9 Then the Lord your God will make you most prosperous in all the work of your hands and in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your land. The Lord will again delight in you and make you prosperous, just as he delighted in your ancestors, 10 if you obey the Lord your God and keep his commands and decrees that are written in this Book of the Law and turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
The Offer of Life or Death
11 Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. 12 It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, “Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” 13 Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, “Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” 14 No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.
15 See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. 16 For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.
17 But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, 18 I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.
19 This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live 20 and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Footnotes
- Deuteronomy 30:3 Or will bring you back from captivity
New International Version (NIV)Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Reflect
Are there areas in your life where God is calling you to follow Jesus without compromise?
What an abundantly rich passage today’s reading is! Verses 1–10 contain promises of restoration for Israel after it has repented from what is suggested will be its inevitable fall. There is also clarification that a right relationship with God is based not on outward ritualism but on inner conviction by way of a transformed (circumcised) heart. Verses 11–20 show that keeping the covenant with God is not an impossible task—and they end with Moses’ exhortation to make the right choice. The apostle Paul quotes from this chapter, summing it up by stating that faith in Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of all that Moses says for both Jew and gentile.1
Moses’ plea about choosing rightly teaches us that God does not force his will on anyone. He made us in his image. We are able therefore to think consciously with our minds, feel with our hearts, and decide with our will. We were not created to be robots. Praise God, he has made his Word available to us for our guidance. We joyfully thank him for that—but are we concerned to share his Word with those who do not know it yet?
One final thought. Can you sense Moses’ passion as he pleads with Israel to choose life over death? We detect no indifferent ‘take it or leave it’ attitude here. Behind his passion, we feel the loving heart of God beating with the same compassion Jesus displayed when he saw the crowds ‘harassed and helpless’ in the places where he preached.2 Oh, that the fires of such passion/compassion were kindled more often in our pulpits, urging people to make the right choices in life!
Apply
Who are those God has brought into your life that do not yet understand their desperate need of Jesus?
Closing prayer
Father, renew my passion to pray for those I love who do not yet know Jesus. Help me to share with them who he is and what he offers to those who put their trust in him.
1 Rom 10:5–13 2 Matt 9:36
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