Moses finishes up his discourse by passing the torch on to Joshua, who would be the one to actually take God’s people into the Promised Land. Moses is not allowed to enter in, although God grants him the opportunity to see all the land His people would inherit. Back some time before, Moses has disobeyed God in front of the whole congregation and forfeited this privilege. You see, when the leader disobeys God, what can be expected from the rest of the group? It is a very serious thing to accept the role of a influencer. There are so many athletes and actors and politicians who should think twice about their high positions. James especially cautions Bible teachers, “Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.” (Jas 3:1) With position comes responsibility. Others are watching. Others are expecting to see something different in leaders. Others will be encouraged to imitate those out in front, either for good or bad. Moses has this one last struggle with his temper and misses out on the earthly Promised Land, but after dealing with these wayward Israelites for 40 years, he does get the reward of going into The Heavenly Promised Land, praise God!
Nothing we do or do not do can take away our Salvation once we have sincerely received it. While this is between you and God, many times other born again Christians can get a sense of who is real and who is pretending. And if we truly love them, then we do what Moses did here in Dt, we remind them of the past, what went wrong and what went right. We point them to the God Who guides and provides. Who has given us His Law then fulfilled it for us. Who has promised us Eternity, then gets us there in one piece. My Friends, just like our Salvation is in God’s hands, so too is the rest of our lives. What we did to receive Heaven is what we do to grow in God’s Love and Grace, just trust Him. As we trust Him, we will see His faithfulness, then we will continue to fall deeper and deeper in love with this most amazing God. And when we love God, we will obey His commands. (Jn 14:15 ESV) Let us not focus on obeying God, but rather center all our heart and soul on loving Him. Then our actions will match this growing love and we will be obeying the greatest of all commands: to love God with all we’ve got and love our neighbor as ourselves…and we will teach others to do likewise, by example.
2023’s Got A Minute? Book Club
January: The Bible
<>< Peace, Diane
