Hebrews 1 -- Explaining Jesus To Jews

The writer of Hebrews faced the task of developing a presentation to those who’d been raised as Jews, but who had embraced the Christian faith.  In their minds, it was almost sacrilege to give up all that God had, for centuries, been telling Jews to do for their worship.  What better way to start than to use the verses from their own Scriptures.

They’d known that disobedience led to punishment.  Now he wrote to convince them that Jesus was the One mentioned in many verses of their Scriptures, and therefore He must be obeyed to avoid punishment.

After opening the door about Jesus, he said, “God is the One who made all things, and all things are for His glory.  He wanted to have many children share His glory, so He made the One who leads people to salvation perfect through suffering.  (They equated suffering with punishment from God, not something to perfect someone)  Jesus, who makes people holy, and those who are made holy are from the same family … Jesus Himself became like them.  He did this so that, by dying, He could destroy the one who has the power of death – the devil – and free those who were like slaves all their lives because of their fear of death … Jesus had to be made like His brothers in every way so He could be their merciful and faithful high priest in service to God.  Then Jesus could bring forgiveness for their sins.”

They had to understand that He wasn’t just a man, for no man could die for their past, current, and future sins.  They needed to see that He was first of all God – Yahweh – who, seeing their plight, had taken pity on them, come down from heaven Himself, and offered Himself as a ransom for those who could not save themselves.

Father, they had trouble believing that their Sovereign God would become a man.  Our trouble today seems to be believing that something so simple could be so true.  Please help all mankind to understand that Jesus was who He said, and that the only way to You is through Him.

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Deuteronomy 33-34 Getting Blessed By God

Moses spoke blessings to the people before God took him away from them to die.  Moses had seen God as no other man had.  He said, “He showed His greatness … He came with a thousand angels … The Lord surely loves His people and takes care of all those who belong to Him … They are taught by Him.”  He then blessed individual tribes, and some of those blessings we could wish for ourselves:

“Lord, make them strong; be pleased with the work they do.  Defeat those who attack them, and don’t let their enemies rise up again … The Lord’s loved ones will lie down in safety, because He protects them all day long.  The ones He loves rest with Him … The everlasting God is your place of safety, and His arms will hold you up forever.  He will force your enemy out ahead of you … You are blessed!  No one else is like you, because you are a people saved by the Lord.  He is your shield and helper, your glorious sword.”

Father, thank You for being my blessing and my defender and my Savior.  You bless me so freely and yet I deserve nothing.  You are such a great a Holy God!

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Deuteronomy 32 -- Did They KNOW What They Were Hearing?

I wonder how much God let Moses understand about what he was saying.  God was foreshadowing so much about the people of Israel and the surrounding area.  I wonder if the people listening were sitting there listening well or thinking, “Hurry up, old man!  Get done!  We’ve got land to take!”

I’m sure they were excited and perhaps a little frightened by the prospect of what the next several years would hold.  So just how did they listen to what he was saying?

Up through verse 12, Moses was reciting history.  Thereafter, it was prophecy.  Did they know he was talking about them, or did they think, in their pride, that he was proclaiming the sin of the inhabitants He was about to drive out of the Promised Land?

What an incredible thing in verse 13, telling of God “bringing oil from the solid rock.”  Were they thinking he meant olive oil?  What an amazing blessing they’d miss because of their sin by not inhabiting and controlling all of the land in the region.  Israel would have been producing all of the oil in the Middle East!

As Moses described Israel’s future rebellion, did the people hear and say, “Wow, I didn’t know that part of our history!”  Or did they think, “That’s just the worst case.  We’ll be sure not to let that happen!”

In 34-35 God says, “I have been saving this, and I have it locked in my storehouses.  I will punish those who do wrong; I will repay them.  Soon their foot will slip, because their day of trouble is near, and their punishment will come quickly.”  I’ll bet the Israelites cheered, thinking God was about to put it to the Canaanites, while all along He was talking about them.  They just couldn’t imagine it happening.

Nor can we.

Father, how our nation needs to turn from the path we’ve been on, loosening the laws on immorality and what is and is not acceptable.  We’ve taken individual rights to the limit and thrown You into the ditch.  Forgive us.  Help us see.  Cause us to seek after You with all of our hearts.  Bring us back to You.

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Deuteronomy 31 -- NOT A Good Meeting

I would have hated to have been a part of this meeting.  Moses knows that it’s time.  He’s old, they’re at the Jordan River, and God’s told him that he will soon die.  Joshua is taking the reins of leadership, and God tells him several times not to be afraid.  That must mean some trials are ahead.  Joshua heard God say, “Then these people will not be loyal to Me but will worship the foreign gods of the land they are entering.  They will leave me, breaking the agreement I made with them.  Then I will become very angry at them, and I will leave them.  I will turn away from them, and they will be destroyed.”

I can just hear Joshua thinking, “Oh, GREAT!  It would happen on my watch…”

Moses wrote down all of God’s laws and put them into a book and said that it would be “a witness against you.”  That’s what the law is for – to show us that we are sinners in God’s sight and that we need a Savior.  Left on our own, we resemble all too well what Moses said:  “You will become completely evil.  You will turn away from the commands I have given you.”

Despite our very best efforts, we’re hell-bent on our own destruction.  Thank God that we have a Savior who died for us and who offers to live FOR us, enabling us to please God.

Father, You made us, knowing that we would fail, yet You loved us anyway, enough to send Your own Son to die for us.  Thank You for such incredible love!

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Deuteronomy 29-30 -- An Amazing Gift From God If We'll Only USE It

Another agreement between God and His people, signed in Moab, just before crossing over into the Promised Land.  God is now giving them a mind that is capable of finally understanding and seeing all that He’s done for them.

The people were led to understand that their individual and national sins would affect the land.  He gave them a mandate to ensure that no one left Him for idol worship.  There would be no room to tolerate individual choices to disobey this command.

God also described how He would disperse them among other nations once this did happen.  But He also said that a remnant would return to Him and obey with their whole being.  It would be at that point that God says He will give them back their freedom.

Most in the world see God’s laws as restrictive and stifling.  But here, God guarantees that following those laws doesn’t stifle but instead does bring freedom.  That’s the part I think He was giving them (and us) a mind to understand.  We need to be able to see that there is indeed freedom to be gained by following Him.  And the world doesn’t believe it.

Father, You’ve given me a mind that understands that now.  You’ve placed Your Holy Spirit inside me, helping me to have a heart that desires You.  Yet my stubborn will always seems to want to rebel, despite knowing all of this!  Please turn up the volume on the understanding whenever I do.  I need a boost when I feel most likely to sin.

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Deuteronomy 28 -- Blessings For Obedience, Curses For Disobedience -- No Middle Ground?

God wanted to bless Israel beyond measure.  As they waited to enter the Promised Land for the first time, God enumerated all of His planned blessings – more than any other nation could ever hope for!  They included not only prosperity, but also His hedge of protection.

Yet God left no middle ground.  100% obedience would bring about those incredible blessings.  Anything less than 100% obedience would result in the exact opposite.  They wouldn’t simply revert to “normal living”.  They’d be cursed with abnormal conditions.

It’s uncanny hearing all of this information from this side of time.  Those proud Israelites probably couldn’t imagine all of this ever happening (the curses), even as they stood there with Egyptian idols in their pockets!  Yet Moses’ words would exactly describe the later fall of their nation.  God knew, because He is outside of time, and He is not bound by it.

In the middle of the curses, I read, “The Lord will give you madness, blindness, and a confused mind … You will fail in everything you do.”  I think we as a nation are coming to that point right now.  Our individual and national sins have led us to the point of having confused minds, to the point that we can no longer rightly decide the correct thing to do.  

Verse 47 should be cast in bronze and installed in the entrance foyers to the House and Senate buildings in Washington, DC:  “You have plenty of everything, but you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and a pure heart.”

It didn’t use to be that way.  And if we need someone to blame, we can blame ourselves for letting it all happen.  I just began to read a book call The Harbinger, and it is eerie hearing the same message from a fiction book.

Father, this must be important enough that You’re doubling up on the message.  I hate to think that we might be headed down the same path that Israel was forced to take for its disobedience.  Turn our nation around, Father.  Bring us back to You.

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Deuteronomy 26-27 Getting By Giving

They’d been wanderers for 40 years and now they were to settle down in homes in the land the Lord their God was giving them and become farmers.  Moses tells them here that when they harvest that first crop, they were to gather up the very first of what they’d harvested and take it to God where He’d chosen to be worshiped.

Besides that initial basket, they were to give a tenth of everything produced on their land, not to operate a church, but to feed the Levites, foreigners, orphans, and widows in their land – those who did not own land and had no way of providing for themselves.  These tithes were the minimum contribution.  Malachi mentioned tithes AND OFFERINGS, which would indicate giving more than 10%.

One thing we’ll discover when we do give more than 10% is that we cannot outgive God.  He takes our faithfulness and blesses us for it, for in so giving we are trusting him to provide for us.

Father, how special it would have been to have heard Your words in 27:9 – “Today you have become the people of the Lord your God.”  It wasn’t by buying their way in through offerings.  It was solely because of Your will and Your love for them.  Remind me often that I am Your child and help me willingly to give to help Your other children in need.

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford