Wednesday March 28, 2012

Read Deuteronomy 10:1-5

 

There are many many times in my life when I have felt the urge to just give up with some people. Have you ever been there? Have you ever been so frustrated that you just want to throw in the towel and walk away? God would have been completely justified if he walked away from the Israelites. In fact, He would have been completely justified if he blew them to smithereens with His heavenly bazooka.

 

But I’m amazed that God persevered with the people. He continued to love them and provide for them. When the Israelites had sinned by fashioning a golden calf and attributing to it the victory over Pharaoh and the deliverance from Egypt, God could have abandoned His people. Yet He continued to love them. Moses, in his anger broke the first two stone tablets but God, in His perseverance wrote on another two tablets. He sent Moses back down the mountain with the new tablets and they were put in the ark of the Testimony.

 

This symbolic act represents God persevering with His covenant with the people. The Ten Commandments and hence the tablets, were a representation of the Covenant with the people. Deuteronomy 4:13, 5:2, 9:9 show that the tablets represent a formalisation of the covenant, much like a contract in our own day.  By placing the Ten Commandments among the people a second time, God is showing that He will not abandon His people. He is revealing His persevering nature, His graciousness and love.

 

I often marvel at how God can be so persevering. I understand His faithfulness to Israel but then I look in the mirror and wonder and marvel at God’s faithfulness and perseverance with myself. Even though I continue to sin, God continues to persevere, to love, to give, to bless and to be exceedingly gracious. Though I am filled with the Holy Spirit I regularly make choices that displease God. Yet He perseveres! He perseveres! Though I push Him away and seek to hide from Him, He perseveres.

 

We will never praise and adore God from the heart while we continue to stand at a distance and look at God’s dealing with Israel. It is possible that this will always remain somewhat academic or theological. But when we stare at the mirror and reflect on God’s character, God’s perseverance to the person standing before us, praise and adoration well up. It’s hard not to sing hallelujah’s to God, to shed a tear of joy, to praise His name from the depths of one’s heart when you see how much grace and mercy and perseverance God has shared with that person in the mirror.

 

Prayer:

 

¥ Praise the Lord for His mercy, grace and perseverance. Praise God for being there with us through thick and thin. Praise God for His willingness to love us despite our sinfulness.

Praise God for His work in China. Through persecution and

¥ hardship He has grown the church to phenomenal proportions. Praise Him that He can do whatever He pleases.

¥ Pray for the believers in China. Pray that they will grow in unity and faith. Pray that western divisions will not invade the Christian church there. Pray that the Spirit will continue to work powerfully, maturing believers and bringing many people into the faith.