Deuteronomy 2

"Remember!"

The entire book of Deuteronomy carries with it a weight of calling Israel to take heed to the words of the covenant spoken over them. In restating the Covenant over Israel God wants his people to see that the consequences of forgetting his Law are dire. God calls them to remember his word in their lives… to write it on their hearts… to never forget… to lay up the words of God in their hearts and minds and souls. God is the one true God and life and death is contingent on whether Israel lives in the reality of who He is. They are God’s people and he has life for them… life and death for them is contingent upon the Truth of who they are according to who God is. Everything… absolutely everything… depends on Israel walking in TRUTH… according to what God desires for them. This is life and death, heaven and hell… this is the greater reality amidst the distractions and normalcy of life and immediate circumstances.

For Israel they would see the gravity of these words being spoken by Moses with all emotion. They know what has happened to their Fathers… they had seen first hand God’s wrath and power against Egypt and the nations that they have already conquered. They know God’s mighty hand… they have witnessed it. They don’t want to make the same mistakes their father’s made and indeed do remember what they have been brought out of. While many of them might not necessarily remember exactly what went on in Egypt and in the wilderness too terribly well they would know from their fathers… and they certainly knew the wilderness. The knew that God meant serious business and saw every day the cloud over the tabernacle… God’s glorious presence in their immediate midst. They knew they did not want to forget that God was the one true God with almighty power to utterly blot out whatever he desires. They got it… they realized the imperative for their own selves and for future generations of Israel to walk in right relationship with the LORD their God. They saw the weight of God being worthy of glory. They saw that he was to be worshipped and honored, they knew to fear God and would hold to the warnings… they would surely do all they could to remember.

For the church today it seems like we have lost sight of the REALITY of who God is. We nod our head to the stories of the Old Testament and go to church and feel good about ourselves. We read God’s word looking for a few good verses to make us feel better about ourselves or laugh at. We journal the good things in our life but fail to realize the gravity of what God hates and what he loves because we are too busy looking at ourselves and our future. We are far too busy with the present and the future to ever look back at where we have come from. This is a sad reality… that only one out of every ten Christians has ever read the entirety of their bible. We do not know where we have come from and we really don’t seem to care. For the church today life and death, heaven and hell… is still contingent on TRUTH. How can we know truth if we do not know where we have come from… if we fail to even desire to remember where we have come from. The REALITY for today’s church is that each and every believer was a hell bound, death deserving, wicked to the core, altogether enemy of God, sinner… This is TRUTH. The beautiful thing about remembering is that it brings great gratitude when we look at who we are now. Now… every Christian is alive in Christ, and will indeed be home with God for eternity with him. This is the REALITY that God’s people live in. Today’s church must look at who we were that we might know the gravity and REALITY of who we indeed are. In remembering we will see the life we have been given… we will see the wonder of all that we have to be thankful for… and we will desire life for others.