FBC Daily Devotional – June 23, 2021

A good Wednesday to you. Here we are in the middle of the week already, and I hope your week is going well and this first full week of summer and enjoying the summer climate.

Summer is one of my favorite times of the year. Yeah, sure, some of the hot days are a little difficult and challenging to deal with, but I like the hot better than I like the cold.

That's just me. I know everybody has their thing, but anyhow. So I hope you're reading in the

Bible reading plan, and if so, today you read in Deuteronomy or will read Deuteronomy chapters 9 and 10.

And I hope we see ourselves in Deuteronomy chapter 9, because here's the thing.

You and I, I'll speak for myself, I cannot claim merit whatsoever for any of the blessings that God gives to me.

I receive his blessing not because I deserve it. The Lord brings us out to the children of Israel here in Deuteronomy 9, because he says to them in verse 6, he says, understand that the

Lord your God is not giving you this land to possess because of your righteousness. In other words, you're not getting this land because you deserve it.

You're getting this land because he is gracious. In fact, he says, he goes on to say, you are a stiff -necked people.

Okay, so here's the deal. I'm receiving the blessings. I'm receiving the land because God is gracious.

I too often am rebellious and disobedient. Whether or not

I intend to be or want to be, I don't think necessarily that the children of Israel heard what

God said and said, okay, we're going to rebel against that. No, I think most of the time their stiff -neckedness was a matter of both forgetfulness and selfishness that resulted in expressions of rebellion and so forth.

And I think we can be the same way. We may not want to be a rebel.

We may not want to be a stiff -necked people. We may not intend to be, but yet we are, we are.

And what I deserve is what the children of Israel deserve.

They deserve God's wrath. I deserve the Lord's wrath. But if it weren't for, in Israel's case, if it weren't for the intercessory work of Moses, then the

Lord might very well have just written them off and wiped them out. The rest of chapter nine goes on to talk about this, that, you know,

Moses, Moses went up into the mountain in verse nine. He went up into the mountain and the

Lord gave him the two tablets again. And he said, in verse 12, the

Lord said, go down quickly because the people have acted corruptly and I'm going to, I'm going to wipe them out.

The Lord said, let me alone that I may destroy them and blot their name out from under heaven. In verse 14, and I will make you,

Moses, a nation mightier and greater than they. So he comes down the mountain, he sees what's going on and he gets aggravated.

He deals with the golden calf thing and so forth. But then in verse 26, it says,

I prayed to the Lord and said, oh, Lord God, do not destroy your people and your inheritance whom you've redeemed through your greatness.

Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Do not look on the stubbornness of this people or on their wickedness or their sin and so forth.

And he says at the beginning of verse, the beginning of verse 10, the Lord said to me, OK, get two more tablets of stone.

Come on back up in the mountain. And he heard his intercessory prayer. All right. Now here's the deal for you and me as New Testament believers.

I can't claim any merit for God's gracious blessings.

I receive them by his grace. I am too often like Israel, a rebellious and stiff necked person.

And I may not want to be, I may not intend to be, and yet I am. And because of that,

I deserve God's wrath. Why don't I experience the full brunt of his wrath?

Because I too have an intercessor. I don't experience and you don't experience the full brunt of God's wrath because God, in the person of Jesus Christ, intercedes in your behalf.

His wounds plead in your place. God, in his grace, forgives your iniquity, forgives your sin and your transgressions for Christ's sake.

He, your intercessor. Let's give thanks to the Lord today for our, excuse me, for our intercessor, the

Lord Jesus Christ. And when you go on into chapter 10, the

Lord lays out very succinctly what his basic requirements are for his people.

And those basic requirements are timeless. Let's just rehearse them in verses 12 and 13.

What does the Lord require of me? How many times have you heard that or thought that? What do you want of me, Lord? Alright, here's the basic summary of it.

What does he want of you? Verses 12 and 13. What does the Lord require of you but to fear the

Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep his commandments, the commandments of the

Lord and his statutes, which I command you today, for your good. For your good.

What are the basic requirements? The Lord wants me to fear him. To have a healthy respect of him.

To fear him as one who is almighty, all -powerful, who with the word of his mouth can obliterate me instantaneously.

Now, I don't fear him in that slavish sense of looking over my shoulder lest he hit me with the ball bat.

But I fear him in the sense that I recognize his power and his greatness.

And I respect that. He wants me to fear him. He wants me to walk in all of his ways.

Not to pick and choose and not to say, oh, I want this, I want to do that, I don't want to do this, I don't want to do that. No, walk in all his ways.

And to do so because I love him. Not because I have to. Not because I'm trying to earn something from him.

But because I love him. As a response to the love that he set on me. And he wants me to serve him with all of my heart, my mind, my desires, my choices.

He wants me to love him with all of my heart and my soul. And he wants me to keep his commandments.

What he said I am to do. Think of the Decalogue as a summary of those commandments.

The Ten Commandments as a summary of them. And note that last statement in verse 13.

That those commands are given for my good. They're given for my good. And I need to accept them as such.

Alright, well that's a quick summary. And I didn't want to belabor that and keep this going.

But just a good reminder for us. Of what our Lord desires. So our

Father and our God, we thank you for that succinct summary. Reminding us of what you desire.

When we, by your grace, have been the recipients of your bountiful blessing.

I pray that in response to the grace that we receive from you. And the ongoing intercessory work of Jesus, our great

High Priest. We would indeed live by these very basic, timeless requirements.

We pray in Jesus' name, Amen. Alright, well have a good rest of your

Wednesday. If you can make it to the midweek service tonight at 7 o 'clock. We're going through the

Torchlighters series. Looking at these different characters from church history. And their importance to the church.

And we're doing that on Wednesday night. So if you can make it, join us at 7 o 'clock this evening at church.