When I looked up the word “twisted” I got the following references; warped, perverse, sick, bitter, cruel, perverted, and abnormal. I looked up the word “twisted” because it was the first word that came to my mind when I read Deut. 9:2-6. After reading that passage I thought, “how screwed up I am” and how many years I have based actions on a false foundation. I also became somewhat ashamed of how little I know of the love of God and how much I live in self-love.
Right now, as I type this I am feeling lost. How much of my life have I based on a false favoritism from God? In how many other areas of my life, of living do I have a bad foundation? I need a good saving. As you read the passage below understand that "driving them out" is not based on the "goodness of God's people, but on the need for justice in the earth.
Deut 9:2-6
3 "Know therefore today that it is the LORD your God who
is crossing over before you as a consuming fire. He will destroy them and He
will subdue them before you, so that you may drive them out and destroy them
quickly, just as the LORD has spoken to you. 4 Do not say in your heart when the
LORD your God has driven them out before you, 'Because of my righteousness the
LORD has brought me in to possess this land,' but it is because of the
wickedness of these nations that the LORD is dispossessing them before you. 5 It
is not for your righteousness or for the uprightness of your heart that you are
going to possess their land, but it is because of the wickedness of these
nations that the LORD your God is driving them out before you, in order to
confirm the oath which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob. 6 Know, then, it is not because of your righteousness that the LORD your
God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stubborn people.
NAS
Three times in this short passage the Lord speaks to tell us that God was bringing justice on the earth because justice was needed, not because the people of God were favored above the other people. Once I think about it God used “pagan” nations to do the same thing to the people of God when injustice among the people of God reached His limit.
What urks me is that I know so little or the real love of God. I long to be favored more than others, especially more than people who do not serve God. How can I live if God’s love for me is the same as His love for people who don’t even try to serve Him? I have built a whole system in my heart of being loved based on how I live. Don’t get me wrong, I want to live a life worthy of the Lord; but I want to know the true love of God. To truly know the love of God it looks like I need to have a heart for other people on a level I am not comfortable with. I need to realize how God even loves His enemies like He loves me. I need to surrender my need to be special and embrace His love that goes beyond comprehension. How twisted I am when I think His love for me equates Him loving others less.
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