Today's Reading:Leviticus 26:3-46
"Rewards and Punishments"
Focus Verses: Lev. 26:3-4,14-16
3 "If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, 4 I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees of the field their fruit. --- 14 But if you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands, 15 and if you reject my decrees and abhor my laws and fail to carry out all my commands and so violate my covenant, 16 then I will do this to you: I will bring upon you sudden terror, wasting diseases and fever that will destroy your sight and drain away your life. You will plant seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it."
Insight:
After the tragic Golden Calf incident, Moses went back up on Mount Sinai for another forty days and renewed the commitment of the Israelites to follow and obey God. While he was on Sinai he received much more than the Ten Commandments. God revealed the design for the Tabernacle (the portable precursor of the Temple), instructions about special feasts and worship observances, and the sacrifice and offering rituals.
After God gave all these to Moses, he gave solemn promises and warnings. They can be summed up like this: "If you do what I say, you will be blessed. If you turn away from me and disregard my guidance and commands, you will suffer the consequences."
Response and Action:
God is my maker. Therefore, his instruction and commands for are best for me. To walk in his ways is to walk toward blessing. To turn away from his ways is to walk toward disaster and destruction. It is not enough to know his ways, I need God's help to walk in them. I have failed to follow God's commands, but Jesus' sacrifice on the cross has atoned for my sin and made forgiveness and restoration possible. By the power of the Holy Spirit, God is purifying my heart and transforming my will to turn away from sin and to delight in his ways.
O God, show me your ways. Guide me in your truth and teach me. Only you can save me from sin; my hope is in you all day long. Thank you for Jesus who loved me gave himself for me as a sacrifice to atone for my sin. Thank you for the Holy Spirit who is changing my heart, drawing me closer to you, and helping me to live a life that honors you. Help me to walk in your ways that I might enjoy the blessing and reward you have promised me. Through Christ, I pray. Amen.
Proverb for Today: Prov.16:6
"Through love and faithfulness sin is atoned for; through the fear of the LORD a man avoids evil."
New Testament for Today: Romans 8:3-4
3 For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, 4 in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.
In Context: Romans 8:1-11
Resources:
Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ
by Dallas Willard
