Verse of the week - Deuteronomy 8:3
A week ago I determined to spend a week away from my computer aside from email. I used this week to set boundaries to prevent this time from robbing God of my time, attention, and affections. During this week God challenged me over and over to surrender more of myself, more completely, more often. He's taught me so much that I cannot forget, that I must hold fast to. He must remain my everything.
Clearly this is a frequent cry of the Christian heart as many songs bear this message. Hymns, choruses, traditional and contemporary. You are my all in all. All to Jesus I surrender. When I come to the place that You're all I have, then I find You're all I need. Powerful words of surrender. We need to keep coming back to this because as the quote goes, "The problem with a living sacrifice is it keeps crawling off the altar."
My reading through the Bible in a year also brought me to the book of Deuteronomy. Here the nation of Israel stands, poised once again on the edge of the Promised Land. God holds a quick review. As they trace where they came from after leaving Horeb 40 years earlier the message repeats:
- Don't forget
- Obey
- Follow me
- Stay faithful
- Remember
- Pass it on
- Hold fast
- Know God
They had been here before, but they still had a few lessons to learn. They had left Mt. Sinai, traveled to this land, and turned their eyes away from God and onto the giants that filled the land. Moses had tried to tell them, "The LORD your God who goes before you will Himself fight on your behalf, just as He did for you in Egypt before your eyes." (Deuteronomy 1:30) They didn't really need to worry. Hadn't God already shown that He was bigger than any obstacle they might face?
They didn't listen and instead spent a generation wandering in the wilderness learning, still imperfectly, to rely on God.
Now Moses reminds them once again in Deuteronomy 8:3, "He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD." We let our mind wallow in the physical despair, but God is all we need in those times and all the time.
I need this reminder, too. God will nourish me. He will provide for my physical needs, but more than that, He will provide for my spiritual, emotional, psychological, and relational needs. He's got it all covered, I just need to keep my eyes on Him. And, when I don't even do that, He calls me back with His overwhelming graciousness.
Lord God, Help me to hold so tight to you that I must let go of everything else.
Clearly this is a frequent cry of the Christian heart as many songs bear this message. Hymns, choruses, traditional and contemporary. You are my all in all. All to Jesus I surrender. When I come to the place that You're all I have, then I find You're all I need. Powerful words of surrender. We need to keep coming back to this because as the quote goes, "The problem with a living sacrifice is it keeps crawling off the altar."
My reading through the Bible in a year also brought me to the book of Deuteronomy. Here the nation of Israel stands, poised once again on the edge of the Promised Land. God holds a quick review. As they trace where they came from after leaving Horeb 40 years earlier the message repeats:
- Don't forget
- Obey
- Follow me
- Stay faithful
- Remember
- Pass it on
- Hold fast
- Know God
They had been here before, but they still had a few lessons to learn. They had left Mt. Sinai, traveled to this land, and turned their eyes away from God and onto the giants that filled the land. Moses had tried to tell them, "The LORD your God who goes before you will Himself fight on your behalf, just as He did for you in Egypt before your eyes." (Deuteronomy 1:30) They didn't really need to worry. Hadn't God already shown that He was bigger than any obstacle they might face?
They didn't listen and instead spent a generation wandering in the wilderness learning, still imperfectly, to rely on God.
Now Moses reminds them once again in Deuteronomy 8:3, "He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD." We let our mind wallow in the physical despair, but God is all we need in those times and all the time.
I need this reminder, too. God will nourish me. He will provide for my physical needs, but more than that, He will provide for my spiritual, emotional, psychological, and relational needs. He's got it all covered, I just need to keep my eyes on Him. And, when I don't even do that, He calls me back with His overwhelming graciousness.
Lord God, Help me to hold so tight to you that I must let go of everything else.
He humbled you and let you be hungry,
and fed you with manna which you did not know,
nor did your fathers know,
that He might make you understand that
man does not live by bread alone,
but man lives by everything
that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD.
and fed you with manna which you did not know,
nor did your fathers know,
that He might make you understand that
man does not live by bread alone,
but man lives by everything
that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD.
~Deuteronomy 8:3~
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