Today Deuteronomy 11

Scripture selections are taken from the Rock Church Daily Bread Reading schedule for each month. “Lena’s Journalin’” are Lena’s comments on the specific passages from her Daily Journal.

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Deuteronomy 11:1-32 -
1"You must love the LORD your God and obey all his requirements, laws, regulations, and commands. 2Listen! I am not talking now to your children, who have never experienced the discipline of the LORD your God or seen his greatness and awesome power. 3They weren't there to see the miraculous signs and wonders he performed in Egypt against Pharaoh and all his land. 4They didn't see what the LORD did to the armies of Egypt and to their horses and chariots—how he drowned them in the Red Sea F26 as they were chasing you, and how he has kept them devastated to this very day! 5They didn't see how the LORD cared for you in the wilderness until you arrived here. 6They weren't there to see what he did to Dathan and Abiram (the sons of Eliab, a descendant of Reuben) when the earth opened up and swallowed them, along with their households and tents and every living thing that belonged to them. 7But you have seen all the LORD's mighty deeds with your own eyes!
The Blessings of Obedience
8"Therefore, be careful to obey every command I am giving you today, so you may have strength to go in and occupy the land you are about to enter. 9If you obey, you will enjoy a long life in the land the LORD swore to give to your ancestors and to you, their descendants—a land flowing with milk and honey! 10For the land you are about to enter and occupy is not like the land of Egypt from which you came, where you planted your seed and dug out irrigation ditches with your foot as in a vegetable garden. 11It is a land of hills and valleys with plenty of rain—12a land that the LORD your God cares for. He watches over it day after day throughout the year!
13"If you carefully obey all the commands I am giving you today, and if you love the LORD your God with all your heart and soul, and if you worship him, 14then he will send the rains in their proper seasons so you can harvest crops of grain, grapes for wine, and olives for oil. 15He will give you lush pastureland for your cattle to graze in, and you yourselves will have plenty to eat.
16"But do not let your heart turn away from the LORD to worship other gods. 17If you do, the LORD's anger will burn against you. He will shut up the sky and hold back the rain, and your harvests will fail. Then you will quickly die in that good land the LORD is now giving you. 18So commit yourselves completely to these words of mine. Tie them to your hands as a reminder, and wear them on your forehead. 19Teach them to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are away on a journey, when you are lying down and when you are getting up again. 20Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, 21so that as long as the sky remains above the earth, you and your children may flourish in the land the LORD swore to give your ancestors.
22"Be careful to obey all the commands I give you; show love to the LORD your God by walking in his ways and clinging to him. 23Then the LORD will drive out all the nations in your land, though they are much greater and stronger than you. 24Wherever you set your feet, the land will be yours. Your frontiers will stretch from the wilderness in the south to Lebanon in the north, and from the Euphrates River in the east to the Mediterranean Sea in the west. F27 25No one will be able to stand against you, for the LORD your God will send fear and dread ahead of you, as he promised you, wherever you go in the whole land.
26"Today I am giving you the choice between a blessing and a curse! 27You will be blessed if you obey the commands of the LORD your God that I am giving you today. 28You will receive a curse if you reject the commands of the LORD your God and turn from his way by worshiping foreign gods.
29"When the LORD your God brings you into the land to possess it, you must pronounce a blessing from Mount Gerizim and a curse from Mount Ebal. 30(These two mountains are west of the Jordan River in the land of the Canaanites who live in the Jordan Valley, F28 near the town of Gilgal. They are located toward the west, not far from the oaks of Moreh.) 31For you are about to cross the Jordan to occupy the land the LORD your God is giving you. When you are living in that land, 32you must be careful to obey all the laws and regulations I am giving you today.
FOOTNOTES:F26: Hebrew sea of reeds. F27: Hebrew to the western sea. F28: Hebrew the Arabah.
Copyright Statement: Holy Bible, The New Living TranslationCopyright © 1996 by Tyndale Charitable Trust. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers. All rights reserved.


~ Lena’s Journalin’ ~
Obedience is the key to blessing or cursing. It unlocks or locks the doors of opportunity and looses blessings or cursings into our lives.
We must take responsibility for what God has given to us. He’s given us His word and how is it we feel we have so much liberty that we can take it or leave it or pick it up whenever we please to? That’s the liberty of the will. In America we have the liberty of the will in full gamut. Though we have that liberty it does not mean we should take the liberty we’ve been allotted.
Think about other liberties in America, yes we’ve been given them by our government, but should we take them? If we do we move in on the respected space of others, and for what, to show we are free?
We are so much more responsible than we think. We are not responsible only to what we choose to be, no we are responsible to what God requires, known or unknown.
A question to ask ourselves is, could we know? Yes we can, especially in America, where we can read, have resources galore, and the way has been paved and provided for us to know. The knowledge is for the taker, as much as any would like to have they can, at just about any time of day or night. That increases the responsibility greatly, which is wonderful, until accountability time.
Don’t be deceived into thinking we have the liberty of choice. Choice was given us that we’d love Him freely as He chose to love us, enough to go to hell to rescue us from the consequences of choice.
How great, how wide, how deep how high is the love of God for us? John 3:16: He sent His only begotten Son that whoever believes in the Son, will not choose be doomed to hell, but rather will choose his destiny to live in eternal life! Have we ever loved like that? Enough to change our minds and choose life, then extend ourselves even to our own hurt for the eternal sake of others?
We wonder why we’re not so blessed. Blessing lies in choosing. Choosing life!
We cannot blame God for not blessing us, or making things hard on us, we have chosen a harder road when we do not love and obey God’s words. The consequences of right choices, and righteous living, are blessings.
Some of us give up hope of ever being able to choose right and live righteously for God, so we say something like, “I hope my children, or those who come after me, will choose righteously”. That is a good thing to hope, but what example have we left for them to follow? It is a false hope to think they’ll do better if we quit.
The power of the word lies in our witness. Have we received the Lord and witnessed the goodness of God to save a soul? Yes, and so we must not quit, we must press in and press on and pass on life and blessing to all of those who are watching for our godly examples now.
It is a cop out to think that it would be better for those after us if we quit. The betterment comes when we go all the way and leave a legacy, a pathway of blessing for them to follow after and go beyond our expectations.
We can’t expect to reap a harvest of blessings where we did not sow towards one. That can happen by the grace of God, but there is a godly principle in order, we reap what we sow, good, bad or otherwise! Christians and non-Christians alike, reap what they sow. How can we expect to reap blessing in the hope for our seed, when we’ve not shown them the way of blessing through obedience?
Hope deferred makes the heart sick. Don’t live on misguided hope. Put faith and action to the hope that it will be better for your seed. Be the blessing, be the fathers, be the mothers of faith to the next generations. Naturally and spiritually speaking! THAT would not be God’s fault that our hope is deferred. We can change the outcome, right now. Making a turn around is the best way ever, a fresh new start can happen when we will just turn and walk in another direction. God gives us the liberty to do so.
The teaching of the word to our children and people we befriend and influence is not in words given or preached to them, it is in living proof. Prove the word to people, to your children by your life, that means change! Don’t be deceived into thinking that if you say words to people you’ll be setting them free. The word is powerful, BUT the power lies inside of a changed life willing to be the proof. The proof is in the pudding? Guess what? You’re the pudding!

Daily Repetitive Verses:

Isaiah 58:12 – in multiple translations….
The Amplified Bible
And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of [buildings that have laid waste for] many generations; and you shall be called Repairer of the Breach, Restorer of Streets to Dwell In.
The Holy Bible, New International Version®
Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.
THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language
You'll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, rebuild the foundations from out of your past. You'll be known as those who can fix anything, restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate, make the community livable again.
The New King James Version
Those from among you Shall build the old waste places; You shall raise up the foundations of many generations; And you shall be called the Repairer of the Breach, The Restorer of Streets to Dwell In.
GOD'S WORD
Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the foundations of past generations. You will be called the Rebuilder of Broken Walls and the Restorer of Streets Where People Live.
New Life Bible
And your cities which were destroyed long ago will be built again. You will set up the stones of the bases of the old buildings. You will be called the one who builds again the broken walls, and who makes the streets on which people live like new.