FBC Daily Devotional – June 21, 2021

Well, here we are the First day of summer right right upon us today is the summer solstice

Longest day of the year. Isn't that isn't it? Great you get up you know, I usually get up about 530 or so in the morning and it's already light it's light enough to go outside and Sit on the patio do my devotions outside and then at nine o 'clock at night.

It's still You know still light enough out it's not dark yet Love those long days.

The only bad thing about summer solstice is it means After today the days start getting shorter.

I I hate even to think about that. But anyway that that's that's just me

So anyway, I hope you have a wonderful summer as summer kicks off today Well in our reading today

Read in Deuteronomy chapter 7 and 8 and right away when you begin reading in Deuteronomy 7 you may come across something that Perhaps disturbed you a little bit as the

Lord tells his people the the Israelites people of God That as they go into Canaan The the land that the

Lord promised to give them they are essentially to eliminate all of the people who are living there completely

And that That may disturb us a little quite a bit because we think well, you know, man, that's that's just inhumane that almost sounds like the

It almost sounds like the jihad or the genocide of evil nations today

Doing to other people, you know, and here's here's God, you know telling Israel to do this to the people of Canaan I mean, how can we?

How can we? Accept this. I mean this is what kind of a God is this? Well, there's a couple of things we have to keep in mind about that.

One of them is that this day of Israel coming into the into Canaan Has been a long time coming and the thing that has taken it so long in coming is the

Lord said he was waiting For the iniquity of the Canaanites to be full in other words by this point in time

It's kind of like Genesis chapter 6 every imagination of the thoughts of man's hearts only evil continually in Genesis 6

And it it seems that by the time Israel is about to take the land of Canaan That's the way it is among the

Canaanites. It is a land of Gross iniquity and debauchery and and all the rest of that stuff.

The other thing to keep in mind is that to to allow for the

Continuation of some of the these enemies within the land to continue Would be tantamount to Just allowing like in a put it in modern parlance

It'd be like allowing those jihad jihadi terrorists to to roam freely in our country with their

Deliberate hatred of us and their determination to destroy the country. I mean that that would not make sense

We know that they we know and identified them as enemies and they have engaged in enemy behavior

Then we deal with them as enemies. All right, so I think we need to realize that this relationship between God and Israel is not the same thing as his relationship between God in the

United States or any other nation for that matter and the other thing to keep in mind is just the the fullness of the iniquity of the land of Canaan at this particular time

So don't don't let that disturb you And it's and Israel's history is going to prove out the legitimacy of what

God exhorted them to do because The Lord warns them that if you allow

The Canaanites to exist to live if you allow their idolatry if you don't destroy the idolatry of the land

That's gonna be a snare to you You're gonna end up intermarrying with the people and that will bring you that will bring about your own demise your own

Destruction and that that's exactly what happened in the history of Israel So that's one thing to ponder and keep in mind and but but in terms of application what we want to consider is this if Israel needed to Devote the

Canaanite civilization to complete destruction destroy their idols destroy their worship centers

Make no covenant with them Show no mercy lest they be led astray

Then shall I do any less with the Canaanite idols of my heart

That would entice me these Canaanite ish influences of my life

That which would draw me away. No, I need to be as thorough if I seriously want to remove destructive

Influences in my life that will take me away from faithfulness to my

Lord. Oh may the Spirit of God Help us and to have that to have that desire to have that level of commitment that what as soon as I see something

I know is Leading me astray taking me away from the Lord that I just I just eliminate it.

I get it I get it out of my life. I would that we were faithful to do that The other thing I wanted to point out in chapter 7 is that The basis of the

Lord choosing this nation this people. Why did why did God choose Israel? Why did he choose the descendants of Abraham?

Well, he tells us and he explains in verses 7 and and 8 and and here's what

I want us to get from this you may ask, you know of the Billions of people on this planet if you have come to faith in Christ, why you

Why you why why me? Why has God seen fit to save me?

All right, listen to what he says He says the Lord did not set his love on you nor choose you

Because you were more in number than any other peoples for you were least of all the peoples

He said but because the Lord loved you. That's why he chose you in other words

He chose you because he chose to choose you and and that's it Nothing of any merit on your part.

Not that you are any more or I or any are any more virtuous or praiseworthy or Righteous than anyone else

God did not choose to save me because of me

He chose to save me and to choose chose to save you you've come to faith in Christ Because he wanted to because he chose to holy of his grace.

So therefore You and I have nothing to boast about Nothing whatsoever as we move forward into chapter 8 chapter 8 verse 11,

I just wanted to zero in on that verse for a moment and recognize how

Prone I am to the very thing that the Lord warns Israel about He he's telling the people is this is before they go into the land of Canaan He says when you go into that land, it's going to be a wonderful place.

It's there's gonna be houses ready for you There's gonna be land cultivated crops already there to to be harvested and ready to To go for the next season trees planted with fruitful of abundant fruitfulness and so on and so forth

It's going to be a land flowing with milk and honey. And so the Lord warns

Israel He says this he says beware When you go into that land that you do not forget the

Lord your God By not keeping his commandments his judgments and the statutes, which I command you today.

Here's the point it It becomes easy when life is easy to Neglect the things of the

Lord When everything's going well, I've got plenty of money in the bank I've got enough money to take care of all my needs and living pretty comfortably

Relatively good health no big problems in my life for my family. It's all good.

Life is good Life is good when life is good By the grace and blessing of God It's easy to forget the grace and blessing of God and it's easy to take him for granted

It's easy to neglect his will what he wants of us You know, we're we're in this life the

Christian life We're we need to find out what God is like and what God likes and we need to live accordingly we need to love him in response to what we learn and yet when

When everything's going okay, and we don't you know, it's so easy to neglect the Lord Not be interested in finding out what he's like Yeah Take or leave what he likes

The Lord says beware lest that happen And the simple reason is that it'll it'll be your demise

It'll bring your ruin so let's Let's take warning from that today

As we in our nation live in relative comfort compared to the rest of the world. Let's not allow that relative ease and relative comfort to Cause us to slide away

From the Lord. No, let's stay true to him even as he exhorts here in Deuteronomy chapter 8

All right Well, I hope your week gets off to a good start and I hope the Lord gives you a wonderful week as you serve him

And whatever you're calling wherever you find yourself this week Whatever your hand finds to do do it under the

Lord and do it with all your might. Let's pray Thank you Father for these challenging thoughts from your

Word today and We thank you for your grace what your amazing grace that in your in your desire of heart and your in your plan of eternity in Your grace you look down through the corridors of time and you looked upon Those of us who are

Christ's and you set your love upon us not because of anything good in us But just because you set your love on us.

Oh father. Thank you for that. Mercy. Thank you for that grace and May we respond to that?

Grace and that mercy with faithfulness faithfulness to keep out of our lives those idols that would destroy us and ruin us and take us away from you and This we pray in Jesus name.

Amen all right, well you have a good good rest of your Monday for a stay of summer and Just may