Caution in the Calm (Deut. 6:10-12)

^{Deuteronomy 6:10-12}

¹⁰ “And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—with great and good cities ^jthat you did not build, ¹¹ and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant—and when you eat and are full, ¹² then take care lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

English standard version. (Dt 6:10-12).

Proverbs 30:8-9

⁸ Remove far from me falsehood and lying;

give me neither poverty nor riches;

feed me with the food that is needful for me,

⁹ lest I be ^full and deny you

and say, “Who is the Lord?”

or lest I be poor and steal

and profane the name of my God.

English standard version(Pr 30:8-9)

I am currently in transition between the end of school and an internship. This is a very easy place for me to be because I have no pressing responsibilities and I an in no particular strife or life challenge. Especially today it has been pressing on me how frustrating it has been this last week to stay on task and to stay diligent both the the tasks I should be doing while at home for these two weeks and in keeping my diligence in devotions and obedience to Christ. It escapes me how this passage came to mind, but it did so.

I am blessed with the ability to spend these two weeks between school and the internship at my parents house, but I believe as is stated in the passages above dangers come when we are in easy life circumstances and it is of utmost importance that we continue to press on in diligence during these times. Israel was warned that when they were brought into the land and were provided for, they were to 'take care' unless they forget God. When things are good, it is easiest to forget that we are dependent on God.

It seems that when I am in times of trial and challenge calling on God happens almost by itself because it is clear that I am not perfect and need Him. On the other hand when things are good and I have all that I 'need' it becomes all to easy to forget the one who gave the blessings. That is the very reason God told the Israelites to be careful and to constantly be remembering God and His promises (Deuteronomy 6:4-9, Joshua 1:8, Psalm 1:2).

I urge you, along with myself to take heed to this warning and to take care in both hard times and easy times to remember to be obedient and diligent to remember and dwell in the promises of God.

For the King,

~Andrew Voigt

5/24/10

Joshua's Promise: Part 1 (Joshua 1:8)

Today I had my graduation ceremony from College. I graduated with a B.A. in Pastoral Ministry. Over all I have had a great three years and God has richly blessed me. I deeply am grateful for both the training and the friends He has provided me with. Anyways, our class verse happened to be Joshua 1:9, which was actually complete coincidence, but it is a good excuse to start explaining my blog's name. This post is dedicated to my class and fellow graduates, especially Catherine, Collin, Kyle, Grant and Naomi.

I may get a little long this time, but please stay with me. My focus today will be on verse 8; verse 9 will come in more detail at a later date.

click for Joshua 1:1-9

These two verses are where I first got the name for Joshua's promise, especially verse 8. More properly it would be called the promise the God gave to Joshua, but thanks to the flexible use of the genitive (possessive) I could make it sound more slick :D. Anyways, I'll start with verse 8.

Joshua 1:8-9 (ESV)

⁸This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. ⁹Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go."

Trust God:

Before I go anywhere with this, I must mention that it is absolutely essential to trust God. What I mean by this is that you believe what he says is true in a manner that not only makes you obey it cognitively, but that you would also obey it in action deed and thought. If you truly trust God then you will believe that the blessings that He promises the faithful are better than anything you could ever receive or do on earth, thus you desire (and therefore will) to act in line with that belief. In short, belief and trust ALWAYS leads to action, if you don't believe a promise and don't trust God, you won't act in line with His promises. If you do believe and trust God you will act in line with His promises.

The People of Israel just got through reviewing the laws, commands and instructions God had given them throughout Deuteronomy ("second law"). So trusting God's promises meant living in obedience, so that they would receive the promises of blessings. God stated that obedience would bring blessing and disobedience would bring curse (Deut. 11:26-28). This happened before moses died, but Joshua opened with the death of Moses, and we find ourselves in the commissioning of Joshua (of which this entry is the closing lines of).

Now consider with me Joshua 1:8

Blessings and Prosperity:

I want to walk through the verse backwards, so we'll start with the last phrases "For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success." Here is where the part about trusting God comes it, do you trust Him that what He calls good, prosperous and successful is actually good and desirable?. In the immediate context this is referring to the conquering of the land, but we can apply this to every believer because the promise is repeated in the first Psalm. This psalm states that, "Blessed is the man... Whose delight is on the law of the Lord and on His law he meditates day and night... in all he does, he prospers...." If we trust God it is enough for to understand that God promises blessing, whether or not we know what that is. I think my shortest and most straightforward answer to this is Matthew 6:19-20 and 1 Timothy 6:17-19. God promises good for obedience, do you trust Him?

Do:

moving back, looking at what is the "for" there for. In other words, how do we make our way prosperous and have good success? well the next (previous) line of the verse is: "be careful to do according to all that is written in it." What brings about the blessings and success is the obedience to the Word. Oh... but isn't by faith through grace and not by works (Ephesians 2:8)? By all means yes! But that faith (trust) will result in the works, continue to the next verse (Ephesians 2:8-10) "for we are... created... for good works... that we should walk in them." This is faith and deeds, faith spurs on works (James 2:14-26).

The second note on this part is that we are called to do 'all'. In short we cannot pick and choose. God is God, He gives the blessings and curses, He makes the rules. It is similar to a institution saying that if you pass all our classes, they will give you the degree. A: you have to put for the effort B: they set the requirements. Now, we are human and sinful and are unable to be sinless (for we have already sinned),and thus we already fail the requirements. Thankfully by His grace God has made provision for us through Christ, but we are still required to strive for obedience (1 John 2:1-6).

How do we do?

Once again moving back a phrase with the question in our mind: "how can we do according to this law?" Well, the next clause is: "You shall meditate on [this book of the law] day and night so that you may..." (also see Psalm 1:2). We are called to meditate on the Word both day and night. This is a call not only to habitual study of the Word, but also memorization. Take note that when these words were originally spoken, the Israelites didn't all have their own copies with personalized leather bindings... not, actually they didn't, most of them would have heard it only on rare occasions (Deut 31:9-13). In order to be diligent they would have been intentional about bringing Scripture to mind on regular occasions. I encourage you to take advantage of the blessing you have of having the Scriptures so readily available and be intentional about taking the time to study and memorize Them. Now this was not a command to each individual, but it was a command to Israel as a whole, lets look at the last (really first) phrase in this verse...

Word up:

"This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night..." The 'but' here is important it implies that letting the Book depart from the mouth will prevent one from meditating on it day and night, which will prevent doing according to all that is written which will keep one from being prosperous and having good success. Here, my dear friends is my challenge to you today. Keeping the Book from 'departing' from the mouth implies talking, now this comes across in at least two ways. The first one is the form of meditating where you memorize and recite Scripture to yourself.

The other one is that we are to be in continual communication regarding the Word of God if we ever even hope to come closer to obedience to it. In fact this brings to mind the commands accompanying the "Shema" (Deut 6:4-9) mainly verse 7. Israel was commanded to talk of them when they sat at home, when the walked by the way, when they laid down, and when they rose. They were to speak of them when at home, and when away from home (always), and they were to speak of them when they went to bed and when they woke up (morning and night). We should strive to find ourselves doing likewise, especially if we trust God to be faithful of His promises of blessings (and curses).

I want to finish here with Joshua 1:9 (ESV)

"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

As we go our ways in life we will face challenges and confusing times. God's charge to Joshua (and us) to be strong and courageous is a call to trust and obedience. Joshua 1:7 points out that being strong and courageous is done by being careful to be obedient, do that. God promises blessing to those who trust Him even if life is hard and does not make sense. Do you trust Him? Then grasp Joshua's promise, because God gave it to you too. (Proverbs 3:5-6)

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Fellow graduates,

I have been blessed by the friendship of many of you, thank you. Please take to heart this promise of blessing and bring yourself to obedience to the Word no matter what life brings you in good time or bad. Be careful of the good times, for God warned the Israelites the same thing. (Deut 6:10-15) When we are blessed with pleasure and ease, we tend to think more of ourselves and forget God and His promises. Make the habit of keeping God and the Word in your mouth along with meditating on it day and night. It won't be easy, but I guarantee that if you trust God at His Word, He will prove Himself faithful and you will not regret a moment of the challenge. In fact when brought into eternal blessing you very well will find yourself asking why you ever doubted. Never forget to live for the King because He is worthy, He is faithful, His promises are true and His blessings are worth it.

Joshua 1:8-9 (ESV)

⁸This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. ⁹Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go."

5/16/2010

For the King,

~Andrew Voigt

Reader's Question Regarding Fear

This was a question in response to my post "Acting in Confidence of God's faithfulness" on 4/24/10.

From Tom T.

"Dude, I really like your note about having confidence because God is faithful. I and many other people struggle with having confidence even though we know that the Creator of the universe is with us. In the second to last paragraph you talk about repeated themes throughout the passages and mention "do not fear God because he is faithful". Did you mean to say, "do not fear your enemies/other people because God is faithful"? You know the English and I don't get along very well and I make typos all the time, so I just wanted to point that out for you."

Thanks again for the note!

Until the coming of the King,
Tom"

Hey Tom,

I'm glad to be an encouragement, thank you.

As for your question, Yes, in a way... :D

I suppose how I answer your question depends on what one would describe what it means to fear, on the other hand if one genuinely follows this out, they will neither fear nor fear [men or anything other than God that is]... let me explain.

It seems to me that there is the fear of emotion and the fear of action. For example, some things will give you a feeling of fear or fear of emotion, but you will still stand up against them, like public speaking, asking a girl out, the first time you drove on the freeway, moving away, resisting peer pressure or trying to slay a dragon. Sometimes that fear of emotion will overcome you and will become a fear of action so that you don't give your speech, you don't ask the girl out and never know what could have been, you never go on the freeway and thus never get your license, you become addicted to a destructive substance or habit, or you don't go slay the dragon and thus are never a 'hero' and don't get the girl (just to give us a medieval example :P ).

At the very least what I mean by 'do not fear' is that we are to let nothing produce in us a fear of action (besides God). I see I typed hastily and did not explain myself when I typed "Do not fear God because God is faithful, and trust God because He is trustworthy." because indeed the Bible does say to fear God and [thus] keep His commandments (Deut 6:2; 8:6). That would obviously be a fear of action, and what I meant by my previously quoted line was that our fearing God is actually our trusting God to be faithful to His promises (both of blessing and of curse).

Now, logical speaking if we fully trust God and have no ounce of doubt within us, then I doubt fear of emotion would arise. That is easier to talk about than to practice, but I wonder if David's knees weren't shaking a little when the lion jumped at his sheep, or the bear approached him, or as Goliath mocked him (whether or not was nervous I don't know, but i know I would've been). But then again, emotions are never logical even though mental alignments and perspectives to effect them. Once again, i would say without a doubt this is talking about at least the fear of action, so that the God of Joshua will be the determining factor in any and every action. This means to have 'strength and courage' is more to act than it is to feel.

To answer your question, what I meant by saying that would be closer to: "Do not fear (by actions) your enemies, other people, yourself, or your situation because God is faithful and worth trusting*.

This was a very good question for asking, thank you. Also I appreciate your feedback!

"So you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him." ~ Deuteronomy 8:6

For the King,
~Andrew Voigt

*I'm only mentioning trust here and not 'trusting and worth obeying' because I believe that is implied. What it means to genuinely trust God absolutely must cause action in line with that trust(consider James' 'faith and deeds'). The development of my understanding of this came strongly from Scott Hafemann's book "The God of Promise and the Life of Faith" and my personal studies in the book of Joshua. I strongly suggest both Hafemann's book and the book of Joshua :D.