Links for today’s readings:
Read: Deuteronomy 30 Listen: (3:12) Read: Romans 10 Listen: (3:21)
Scripture Focus: Deuteronomy 30:19
19 … I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life…”
Reflection: Choosing Life—A Recap of Deuteronomy
By Erin Newton
Choosing life means choosing God. It is both a singular choice to change one’s identity forever and a perpetual choice to choose godliness every day.
God set before his people (within arm’s reach, he adds in vv. 11-14) the guidelines to follow. How does a person choose life? Let’s recap what Deuteronomy has said.
Choosing life means…
- Following him, even in the land of “giants” (1.22-33).
- Being kind to your brothers and sisters, even if they are (by definition), a different people (2.2-6).
- Knowing when God has told you no (3.26-29).
- Obeying the commands from God without adding your own ideas or ignoring the ones you dislike (4.2).
- Memorizing the core summary of godliness in ten commandments (chapter 5).
- Loving God with the entirety of our being—all strength and soul (6.4).
- Remembering that God’s grace is given to those he loves, not those who deem themselves worthy (7.7-8).
- Not forgetting God—who he is and what he has done (chapter 8).
- Remembering the lure of temptation and your weaknesses (9.7-21).
- Circumcising your heart by adopting the identity of God’s people, becoming like him in the process (10.16)
- Seeing the creation become fruitful and plentiful, and working with creation in an interdependent relationship: God, humanity, and creation (11.13-15).
- Worshipping God (chapter 12).
- Being aware of false prophets and the temptation to worship someone (or something) else (13.1-8).
- Providing for God’s people and his church financially (14.22-29).
- Being purposefully and committedly gracious—granting freedom physically and financially to those around you (15.1-18).
- Remembering the holy days with feasts and festivals and worship (16.1-17).
- Enacting justice in the community (17.1-13).
- Testing prophets and those who speak in the name of God (18.14-22).
- Providing spaces for grace and mercy (19.1-10).
- Choosing peace before conflict (20.10).
- Seeking justice and closure when answers are elusive (21.1-9).
- Being wise in your judgment of others, especially when one party is likely abused (22.26-27).
- Welcoming the foreigner who chooses to live among God’s people (23.15-16).
- Not exploiting your neighbors (24.14-18).
- Finding wisdom in cross-cultural spaces and gleaning its truth for today (25.4).
- Living sacrificially (26.1-15).
- Remembering what God has prohibited (27.15-26).
- Remembering the blessings God has in store (28.1-14).
- Remaining content in what God has revealed to us and the knowledge he withholds for himself (29.29).
Each chapter has highlighted one or more ways of choosing God—choosing life. Let us also choose life each day, fulfilling the calls from Deuteronomy.
Divine Hours Prayer: The Greeting
Your way, O God, is holy; who is as great as our God? — Psalm 77,13
– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summer
by Phyllis Tickle
Read more: The Stretching Arm of Salvation
We pray for those in need of salvation…a prayer for those suffering oppression, injustice, and persecution.
Read The Bible With Us
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