Scripture Passage
Scripture Focus
“For the land you are about to enter and take over is not like the land of Egypt from which you came, where you planted your seed and made irrigation ditches with your foot as in a vegetable garden. Rather, the land you will soon take over is a land of hills and valleys with plenty of rain—a land that the LORD your God cares for. He watches over it through each season of the year!” (Deuteronomy 11:10-12 NLT)
Observation
Have you ever thought about the difference between Egypt (the land from which Israel was delivered) and Canaan (the land God was giving the Israelites) as it’s described in today’s “verse of choice”?
In Egypt, where Israel lived an oppressed existence as a slave population, the whole land was dependent upon the annual flooding of the Nile for irrigation—and even then, such a narrow strip of land was actually flooded that the Egyptians devised complex systems for irrigating additional lands…systems that required the backbreaking labor of the Hebrew slave population.
Now, God was taking Israel from Egypt to Canaan…a land “with plenty of rain—a land that the Lord your God cares for” (Deuteronomy 11:11-12 NLT). No more artificial irrigation…no more backbreaking labor. God would supply what was required by sending the rains—former and latter—to water the crops of the Israelites with the dew of heaven!
What was required to enjoy this automated irrigation?
“If you carefully obey all the commands I am giving you today, and if you love the LORD your God and serve him with all your heart and soul, then he will send the rains in their proper seasons—the early and late rains—so you can bring in your harvests of grain, new wine, and olive oil. He will give you lush pastureland for your livestock, and you yourselves will have all you want to eat” (Deuteronomy 11:13-15 NLT).
Kind of simple, isn’t it? Love God. Obey God. He’ll supply the rains that bring abundant nourishment.
The same is true for us. So often we chase what we can’t control, working feverishly with man-made methodologies to irrigate our parched souls when, if we’d embrace the posture of wholehearted love and obedience called for here, we’d discover that God is ready to send “the former and the latter rains” that supply all we need. The challenge—and promise—of Acts 3:19 comes to mind. Perhaps it is a word for you today…
“Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord…” (Acts 3:19 NIV).
2 comments:
I like that God supplies the rain and His ways are more wonderful then the parched lands of the desert and He will supply all our needs if only we will obay and trust which I am working to do everyday to trust my Lord I will try to put this in action today and the rest of my life Praise God and thank you Pastor for your thoughts they really help.
Even when we fall, he is there to catch us and bring us back up again!
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