November 30, 2024 -- Deuteronomy 32:16-21 -- A heart check and spiritual health inventory
/16 “You know how we lived in the land of Egypt, and how we came through the midst of the nations through which you passed. 17 And you have seen their detestable things, their idols of wood and stone, of silver and gold, which were among them. 18 Beware lest there be among you a man or woman or clan or tribe whose heart is turning away today from the Lord our God to go and serve the gods of those nations. Beware lest there be among you a root bearing poisonous and bitter fruit, 19 one who, when he hears the words of this sworn covenant, blesses himself in his heart, saying, ‘I shall be safe, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart.’ This will lead to the sweeping away of moist and dry alike. 20 The Lord will not be willing to forgive him, but rather the anger of the Lord and his jealousy will smoke against that man, and the curses written in this book will settle upon him, and the Lord will blot out his name from under heaven. 21 And the Lord will single him out from all the tribes of Israel for calamity, in accordance with all the curses of the covenant written in this Book of the Law.
Deuteronomy 29:16-21 ESV
When Israel was set free from her slavery in Egypt and brough to the Promised Land, those forty years of wandering in the wilderness were both instruction and warning. Instruction because God rescued His people. He gave them food. In the dry places He gave them water. He protected them from their enemies (though they were a slave nation and not an army and the people whose lands they passed through had well-equipped soldiers and armies). He proved Himself faithful. He proved Himself to be patient with His people. He proved He Who started the good work of salvation would see it to completion, being them to the Promised Land. That is instruction.
The warning. People will become bitter. It is possible an Israelite, or a family, or a tribe, or even the whole nation would resent all the Egyptians who were freed with Israel. I grew up in a predominantly Dutch community in the 1960’s. That’s just 20 years after World War II. In that community were men and women who’d experienced hardships and terrors perpetrated by the Germans and those Dutch people hated, with a white-hot rage, anyone or anything German. It was a bitter root that they carried and passed on to their children. The LORD warned His people against bitterness. He warned them they’d have to avoid the traps of the cultures, peoples and false gods around them. It is a vital warning today. How many Christians have statues of Buddha, or observe Halloween toying with sin, rather than devoting themselves completely to the Living God? How many Christians are bitter, and giving themselves excuses to be bitter, as if they had just cause for it. They don’t. The torrents of God’s redeeming love in Jesus Christ wash away any claims or rights you have to bitterness.
Believers are called to examine their hearts each and every day. Where there are steps leading the believer to wander from God, that must be recognized and immediately repented of, confessed and the hardened heart softened by the Spirit of God. Bitterness is poison easily ingested. Against governments and policies. Against fellow Christians. Against preachers. Against neighbours. Against spouses or former spouses. Parents against children. Citizens against foreigners. Against former friends. Against those who seem to be doing well while you struggle. The list goes on and on.
Believers who examine their hearts daily, carefully inspecting their actions and attitudes, in view of Who Jesus Is and how in Him the Father rescued them from the kingdom of darkness and brought them into the light of Christ, will learn to hate evil. They will realize how even a tiny bit of evil lodged in them will be a portal for the poison of bitterness to take hold and allow ever more toxins to flow in. This threatens their whole existence as believers.
When you find bitterness, confess it. When you encounter wells of anger against others, bring it to Jesus and ask that He Who healed you from all your sins and brought you, purified, to the Father, will enable you to love others so that your words and attitudes will make you a soul-winner for Jesus. Where find bitterness, know this, you will have to dig at it, pull it out. It is a regular, daily task until every trace of its root is gone.
This is more than you can do alone. Jesus commanded: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you (Matthew 5:44). Such obedience to Jesus Christ destroys the root of bitterness. Such prayers are the spiritual battle which will win the world to our Savior. Such prayer and action will result in personal victories, where someone you were deeply bitter against, becomes once again, a human, not a caricature. This is the hard work and the heart work of the Gospel of Jesus.
Father in heaven it is amazing that You love me. Thank You for the work of Your Spirit Who has applied the salvation of Jesus to my heart and mind, attitudes and life. Patient Father, by Your Spirit, tend the garden of my heart so that all bitterness, malice, envy and spite will be rooted out and removed allowing that the seeds of the Gospel will have good soil to grow fuller, broader, and deeper into every area of life. Where I have been nurturing bitterness and hatred towards others, expose that to me. Show my sin to me as the ugly, perverse and nasty pustules of poison it really is. Then, drained and emptied, restore to me the joy of Your salvation. Fill me with the love, hope, and faith of accompany new life in Christ. Renew a right spirit within me. Help me to teach sinners the way of salvation so that the good work You began in me will be brought to completion at the day of Christ. Amen.
https://youtu.be/px-eU1QjQiU?si=9WFEh4H2odi9Ktto Psalm 51 (Wisdom in the Secret Place)
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