{"id":21803,"date":"2022-05-30T22:00:25","date_gmt":"2022-05-31T05:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/deuteronomy_1_19-33-copy\/"},"modified":"2022-05-24T13:26:23","modified_gmt":"2022-05-24T20:26:23","slug":"deuteronomy_1_34-46","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/deuteronomy_1_34-46\/","title":{"rendered":"The Far Less Painful Way to Prosper"},"content":{"rendered":"

Deuteronomy 1:34-46 \u00a0Click here for Bible Verses<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hi\u00a0 GAMErs!<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is Deuteronomy 1:34-46.<\/p>\n

Deuteronomy 1:34-36 (NIV)<\/strong>
\n34\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0When the\u00a0LORD\u00a0heard what you said, he was angry and solemnly swore:
\n35\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0“Not a man of this evil generation shall see the good land I swore to give your forefathers,
\n36\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0except Caleb son of Jephunneh. He will see it, and I will give him and his descendants the land he set his feet on, because he followed the\u00a0LORD\u00a0wholeheartedly.”
\n<\/em>
\nOn verses 34-36:\u00a0 Caleb\u2019s story shows us that just because the people around you are not responding to God with faith, that doesn\u2019t mean you have to follow their lead.\u00a0\u00a0Like Caleb you can choose a unique path of responding to God with faith, even when those around you are not.\u00a0 Dare to be different in a good way, and you will be uniquely blessed in the process.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Caleb\u2019s story also shows us that\u00a0when we follow God wholeheartedly, not only are we blessed, but those who come after us will be blessed as well<\/strong>.\u00a0 There\u2019s a generational blessing that comes when a person decides to respond to God in faith.<\/p>\n

Deuteronomy 1:37-46 (NIV)<\/strong>
\n37\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Because of you the\u00a0LORD\u00a0became angry with me also and said, “You shall not enter it, either.
\n38\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0But your assistant, Joshua son of Nun, will enter it. Encourage him, because he will lead Israel to inherit it.
\n39\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0And the little ones that you said would be taken captive, your children who do not yet know good from bad–they will enter the land. I will give it to them and they will take possession of it.
\n40\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0But as for you, turn around and set out toward the desert along the route to the Red Sea.”\u00a041\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Then you replied, “We have sinned against the\u00a0LORD. We will go up and fight, as the\u00a0LORD\u00a0our God commanded us.” So every one of you put on his weapons, thinking it easy to go up into the hill country.
\n42\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0But the\u00a0LORD\u00a0said to me, “Tell them, ‘Do not go up and fight, because I will not be with you. You will be defeated by your enemies.'”
\n43\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0So I told you, but you would not listen. You rebelled against the\u00a0LORD’s command and in your arrogance you marched up into the hill country.
\n44\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0The Amorites who lived in those hills came out against you; they chased you like a swarm of bees and beat you down from Seir all the way to Hormah.
\n45\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0You came back and wept before the\u00a0LORD, but he paid no attention to your weeping and turned a deaf ear to you.
\n46\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0And so you stayed in Kadesh many days–all the time you spent there.
\n<\/em>
\nOn verses 37-46:\u00a0 After refusing to trust God\u2019s leading about going to the Promised Land the first time, the Israelites refuse again to listen to God\u2019s instructions when God tells them to turn around and set out toward the desert.\u00a0 While sounding very spiritual after their first mistake and saying, \u201cWe have sinned against the Lord\u2026we will obey now\u201d (v41), they were actually refusing to listen to do what God was now saying to them.\u00a0 They refused to believe what God was now saying to them, which is that if they try to go and conquer the Promised Land now, God\u2019s blessing would not be with them and they would fail.\u00a0 Refusing to listen to God, the Israelites nevertheless go ahead anyway and are beaten down badly.\u00a0 What can we learn from this?\u00a0\u00a0We can sound very spiritual and humble in the words we use toward God and others, claiming that we\u2019ve learned and grown up so much, but if our hearts are still bent on doing our own thing rather than listening to God\u2019s specific and current instructions for our lives, then we haven\u2019t learned anything and we\u2019ll miss God\u2019s biggest blessings for our lives.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Also, keep in mind that when Moses is speaking to the Israelites in\u00a0Deuteronomy\u00a01\u00a0and recounting their history in the wilderness, don’t be fooled by the fact that Moses keeps using the word “you” \u00a0(e.g. “you did this” and “you didn’t do that”).\u00a0 Actually, the people Moses is talking to in\u00a0Deuteronomy\u00a01\u00a0are the current generation of Israelites, many of whom were very young or not even yet born when the events Moses describes in\u00a0Deuteronomy\u00a01\u00a0took place.<\/p>\n

So what’s going on?\u00a0 Moses is talking to the current generation of Israelites about their parents’ and grandparents’ biggest mistakes, mistakes made by previous generations. He’s doing it not to put down the previous generations but so that the current generation of leaders can learn.\u00a0 For to prepare the current generation of Israelites to conquer the Promised Land, it was especially important for Moses to tell the current generation of Israelites how the previous generation of Israelites responded poorly to similar challenges.\u00a0 That way the current generation would not repeat the mistakes of the previous generations.<\/p>\n

What’s the lesson here?\u00a0 We should appreciate and thank God for the generations that came before us.\u00a0 We should honour them and preserve their legacy for future generations.\u00a0 At the same, if people in the generations before us made mistakes (and every generation makes mistakes), we must learn from them and be careful not to repeat them.\u00a0\u00a0It is far less painful to learn from other people’s mistakes than to learn from our own mistakes.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Also, since we have all made mistakes, may we be like Moses and not be afraid to share our mistakes and the lessons we learned from those mistakes with those coming after us<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

What are some lessons you have learned from the successes and failures, victories and mistakes of the generations that came before you?<\/p>\n

What are some lessons you have learned from your own successes, failures, victories and mistakes that are worth sharing with those coming after you?<\/p>\n

Father, no matter what the people around me are doing, I pray that like Caleb I would follow You wholeheartedly, knowing that special blessing will follow me when I do. I also pray for wisdom to learn from the mistakes of those who went before me and for the courage and humility to share my mistakes and the lessons you taught me from my mistakes with those coming after me.\u00a0 In Jesus\u2019 name, AMEN!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi\u00a0 GAMErs!<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is Deuteronomy 1:34-46.
\n\u00a0
\nDeuteronomy 1:34-36 (NIV)
\n34\u00a0\u00a0When the\u00a0LORD\u00a0heard what you said, he was angry and solemnly swore:
\n35\u00a0\u00a0“Not a man of this evil generation shall see the good land I swore to give your forefathers,
\n36\u00a0\u00a0except Caleb son of Jephunneh. He will see it, and I will give him and his descendants the land he set his feet on, because he followed the\u00a0LORD\u00a0wholeheartedly.”
\n\u00a0
\nOn verses 34-36:\u00a0 Caleb\u2019s story shows us that just because the people around you are not responding to God with faith, that doesn\u2019t mean you have to follow their lead.\u00a0\u00a0Like Caleb you can choose a unique path of responding to God with faith, even when those around you are not.\u00a0 Dare to be different in a good way, and you will be uniquely blessed in the process.
\n\u00a0
\nCaleb\u2019s story also shows us that\u00a0when we follow God wholeheartedly, not only are we blessed, but those who come after us will be blessed as well.\u00a0 There\u2019s a generational blessing that comes when a person decides to respond to God in faith.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21805,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gametime-sharing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21803"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21806,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21803\/revisions\/21806"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}