Freedom For Today

Take a moment to read Deuteronomy 16 before reading the devotional below.

This year I will see Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol performed at Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, Rhode Island for the thirtieth time.  I have seen it every Christmas season of my life (with the exception of one year when we went to see the Nutcracker and regretted it) since I was old enough to sit still.  It is one of many Christmas traditions that define the holiday season. It begins with putting up the Christmas decorations on the weekend after Thanksgiving. It ends with taking down the same decorations on the weekend after New Year’s.  It is the rhythm of those traditions that define the holiday season for me.

In Deuteronomy 16 God is creating annual rhythms of tradition for his people.  They don’t revolve around the holidays that many of us celebrate: Thanksgiving, Christmas or the 4th of July.  Instead, they are holidays that made sense for God’s people in that era – celebrating key events in their history and key aspects of the year like the harvest.  More importantly, however, God instituted these holidays for the Israelites not just so they could have a rhythm of holidays but so that their religious and spiritual lives could have a rhythm.  The intent was for these to be the spiritual high points of the year, constantly drawing God’s people to a deeper understanding of his love and faithfulness.

Some of these rhythms will be daily or weekly rhythms. However, annual rhythms are important too.  Let there be times throughout the year that you set aside especially to re-energize your relationship with God.  This might be a conference or a retreat. It might be a personal weekend alone set aside for prayer or it might be an annual gathering with a group of friends in which you seek God together.  The point is this: growth doesn’t happen by accident. We must develop the discipline of prior planning so that we can build opportunities for growth and intimacy into our schedules. If we don’t, our lives will simply get filled up and the spiritual rhythms that are so important will simply never happen.  

Take a moment to read Deuteronomy 15 before reading the devotional below.

Every family has heard children arguing with the shouted words, “Let it go!” and the return of “No!  You let it go!” It could be about a soccer ball, a teddy bear or a remote. Someone believes they should get the toy because they had it first.  The other person believes they should get the same toy because they “didn’t get to play with it at all last time.” On and on the argument goes, and it always seems possible that the argument could go on forever.  After all, there is only one way to end the stalemate. Someone has to let go.

In Deuteronomy 15 Moses is getting into practical details about how the Israelites need to live with God as their king.  God establishes this amazing rule that all debts are canceled every seven years. It is part of a package of rules that has one key idea at its heart: generosity.  God wants his people to live generously. The greatest challenge to true generosity is holding on too tightly to material possessions. God seeks to set his people free of this clutching, stingy spirit by challenging them to institutionalize generosity.  He also claims the first and best of all they have for himself. God has given them their land, the rain, the flocks and herds. God has given them everything. He has absolute right to claim the first and best of their animals.

Generosity begins with confidence in God’s generosity towards us.  How has God been generous towards you? Take time to celebrate God’s generosity.  Take time to express your gratitude to him. Then choose to pass that generosity along to those in your life.  Find ways to be generous to those who need help. In choosing to live generously you will be living a life that mirrors the character of God, our king.  

Take a moment to read Deuteronomy 14 before reading the devotional below.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said.  It wasn’t surprising. I was wearing a blindfold, and my teammate was navigating me through a field of obstacles.  Sometimes the directions were easy like when he said “Take four steps to the left.” Other times they made no sense, like the command to “Go forward fifty steps” when I was completely sure there was a tree in front of me.”  It turns out, however, that the teammate without the blindfold was the one to trust. It didn’t matter what I thought was in front of me. What mattered is what he could see.

Chapter 14 of Deuteronomy is just as much about trust as the game I was playing that day. The Israelites were given two odd sets of commands. The first were commands that split the animal kingdom into two seemingly arbitrary groups:  the ones the Israelites were allowed to eat and the ones they weren’t. With the benefits of modern science, many have speculated as to why certain animals were in which group.  The important fact, however, is that the Israelites who were given the command would not have understood it at all. They also might not have understood the commands about tithing: giving God the first 10% of our income.  God didn’t always try to explain. He did always expect trust expressed through obedience, however.

Sometimes you might be sure you do understand God’s voice, and it might seem that God’s commands run against everything that makes sense to you.  It’s okay to admit that you don’t understand. It’s ok to admit that you are confused. The challenge is to take that confusion and craft it into obedience.  Trust that God knows better than you. Trust that God is good. Trust that God loves you. Is trust hard for you? It is for most of us. Challenge yourself to begin trusting God a little.  Work your way up to trusting God in the biggest challenges of life. Learning trust will always make us uncomfortable. It will also make us safer.

Take a moment to read Deuteronomy 13 before reading the devotional below.

“That’s the worst!” I said and laughed.  I was on a date with my wife, and we had ordered a deep dish pizza.  Or at least we thought we had. Apparently the word “sicilian” doesn’t mean what I think it means.  The pizza was actually a very thin crust. My wife smiled. She had been prepared to endure the deep dish pizza for my sake, but she’d clearly prefer this one.  “Maybe not the worst,” she said. In that moment, my mind went to all the things that would really be “the worst.” Harm coming to my family was top of the list.  Then harm coming to my church. The pizza clearly wasn’t really the worst. It was only third.

As Moses continues this inspired teaching about how to live as the people of God, he addresses what God genuinely thinks is “the worst.” One might think of murder as the worst sin, or lying, perhaps.  Some might think of greed or adultery. God is very clear in this chapter: the worst thing is idolatry. There is nothing worse than putting something, anything, in the place that God Himself deserves.  In our lives, God is like the keystone of an arch. If a keystone isn’t placed correctly, all the stones fall out of the arch. In our lives, if God doesn’t have the place he deserves, the rest of our lives fall apart.

If you keep God in the proper place in your life, you have a far better chance of keeping everything else in the right place.  Guard his place in your life carefully, and he will guard the rest of your life. He promises to care for you, to protect you, to bless you.  Why would you ever want to live apart from that?

Take a moment to read Deuteronomy 12 before reading the devotional below.

I’ve already picked out my project for next summer.  There is a kit you can buy on Amazon that gives you the plans and all the pieces you need to build an entire shed out of just two-by-fours.  I’m not very good at doing construction projects, so the idea of being able to follow a set of directions, so the idea of being able to build myself a shed is really exciting. The one thing I know, though, is that if I buy the kit I need to be careful to follow the directions. Projects like that always fail when you don’t carefully study and follow the plans.

Chapter 12 of Deuteronomy continues to instruct the Israelites on how they should live once they enter into the land God promised them.  The previous chapters reminded the Israelites that God chose them because of his own character, not because of theirs. This chapter now specifically teaches them how to relate to him once they have arrived in the promised land.  Specifically, the message is this: worship God in the ways that he teaches you rather than making up ideas on your own. This involved two key elements. The first was sacrifices. God had instituted a series of sacrifices as the heart of worship for his people.  Sacrifice was an object lesson that God regularly used to help his people understand the seriousness of sin and the significance of devotion to God. The second element was celebration. God was the greater provider for his people, so he instructs them to eat celebratory meals, meals specifically emphasizing meat which was a luxury.  

God wants to guide us in worshiping him in ways that he finds to be the most pleasing. Learning how God likes to be worshiped is somewhat like learning how a spouse likes to be complimented or what kinds of gifts a particular friend likes to receive.  God shows us in this passage that he likes to be worshiped through celebration and sacrifice. Worship is the humble act of celebration and sacrifice. Celebration helps us cultivate gratitude toward God. Sacrifice is a way of giving back to God a portion of what he has provided us.  That ensures that we will always remember that it is God we are dependent on, not the gifts we have received. Today, give yourself the gift of freedom: celebrate and sacrifice as ways of worshiping God.