The Not So Hard, Hard Choice
Today we are headed to Denver to visit with some friends and to connect with family. This evening Debbie and I will be attending an event with one of the Jefferson County Republican clubs for an event. I will be giving the invocation. This will be the first time for me to be in a group meeting back in my “home turf” since my move the Fort Collins and my illness.
BIBLE VERSE FOR TODAY… “Obey the Lord your God so that all these blessings will come and stay with you…The Lord will make you like the head and not like the tail; you will be on top and not on bottom. But you must obey the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today, being careful to keep them.” Deuteronomy 28:2,13
As Moses prepares God’s people to enter the promised land, he lays out to them the path of success and blessing. He makes it clear the life of blessing and abundance that the Lord will provide as they put the Lord first in their life and honor and obey Him.
When you review the list of “blessings” and “curses” and then say, “make your choice” no one would say, “I think I will take the hardship, sickness, and poverty.” But they did!
That is because the issue was not a decision of the mind, but of the heart. The decision that was not hard to make, became hard to make. Moses told the people to “choose life” and then told them what that choice involved,
“I am offering you life or death, blessings or curses. Now, choose life! … To choose life is to love the Lord your God, obey him, and stay close to him. He is your life….” Deuteronomy 30:19,20
Moses told the Children of Israel that the wandering in the wilderness was a “heart exam.” “Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands.” (Deuteronomy 8:2)
This is why the first commandment is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart….” But we all have a heart problem, “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?” (Jeremiah 17:9 NLT) So, we see the condition of the heart determines the decisions of the mind.
That is why we see the promise of the Lord, “This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.” (Heb. 10:16)
This is why we use the word picture of “inviting the Lord into our heart” or “surrendering our heart to the Lord.” We can’t serve the Lord on our own strength we need help that only Jesus Christ can provide. The Apostle Paul recognized that when he wrote the Romans and said,
“I find then a law, that evil is present with me…For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:21-25 NLT)
So we find that the pathway to blessing is not just understanding our choices, it is a heart that directs our thoughts and our actions. That choice of life is to choose the life that Jesus Christ offers and makes available to all. “He is your life!”