Josh1Eight

Scripture: Deuteronomy 11:8, 16, 22, 26, 32 8 “Therefore, be careful to obey every command I am giving you today...“If you carefully obey all the commands I am giving you today...then he will send the rains in their proper seasons...16 “But be careful. Don’t let your heart be deceived...22“Be careful to obey all these commands I am giving you....26 “Look, today I am giving you the choice between a blessing and a curse!... 32 you must be careful to obey all the decrees and regulations I am giving you today." Observations: In the Bible when God says something more than once He does so to help us understand the significance behind what He's saying. Here he repeats the phrase "be careful" 5 times in a single chapter to stress His great concern over the Israelites' obedience to His commands. As if He hadn't already warned them enough in the first 10 chapters of the book, now He feels compelled to repeat Himself over and over again. Why? Because He understood that ...

Scripture: Deuteronomy 10:12-13 12 “And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you? He requires only that you fear the Lord your God, and live in a way that pleases him, and love him and serve him with all your heart and soul. 13 And you must always obey the Lord’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good." Observations: God asked of the Israelites only one simlple thing that wa required if they desired a relationship with Him: obey my commands. If they would just obey God's Word it would produce all the necessary elements God wanted out of their relationship (vs. 12). He also pointed out that it was for their own good that they made obedience to God's Word a priority. Why? Because apart from a right relationship with God they would not succeed, and success was God's plan for them (Deut. 8:18). Application: A relationship with God is not complicated. Simply put, God wants us as His people to demonstrate each day our love and respe...

Scripture: Luke 10:1-2 "The Lord now chose seventy-two other disciples and sent them ahead in pairs to all the towns and places he planned to visit. 2 These were his instructions to them: “The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields." Observations: It's unusual that as Jesus began commissioning His followers to go out into the world and spread His message, before He ever talked strategy with His team He first instructed them to pray. You'd think with such a huge task at hand He'd have given a lot more direction about how to develop new methods to reach people and how to become the largest group of disiciples in the area, but instead He simply asked them to pray. What's also strange is that He didn't direct them to pray for people to respond to their message, rather they prayed for God to send out more workers! No doubt those workers would receive the same ...