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Jun 05, 2023 06:00am

The Bible Recap: Days 78-84

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(The following are reflections from the writer’s personal journey through The Bible Recap by Tara-Leigh Cobble – a Bible reading plan to read the Bible chronologically in one year. To learn more about The Bible Recap, visit thebiblerecap.com. Find more posts from this series at lifeword.org/thebiblerecap.)

Day 78: Read Deuteronomy Chapters 24-27

My Takeaways:

Today was one of the final readings of Deuteronomy! The last of Moses’ speech reveals much about God’s character: He has a heart for His people and has laws that protect them.

laws for divorce and remarriage and taking care of your family when there is a death
laws on kidnapping
laws on skin disease
laws for people in need
laws on flogging
laws against dishonesty
laws on firstfruit offerings

My God Shot today came from this theme we have seen of Moses: remember.

When they get into the promised land and harvest their crops, they are to give God the firstfruits, and not only that, they were to recount their history before God. They were to say their history: remember that they were once slaves, that God saved them with His strong hand and outstretched arm, and gave them this promised land, a land of milk and honey. After that, they were to celebrate before the Lord!

They also did something similar with the tenth of their produce in the third year.

And, after they crossed the Jordan river, they were to get stones from the middle of the river, and set them up on the other side, where they would cover them with plaster and write their law upon them… these stones would serve as reminders of what God has done for them.

These Israelites have a history of not remembering their past… Moses has spent 27 chapters reminding them. They have everything they need to now walk out in obedience!

Psalm 77 also reiterates this theme of remembering… the Psalmist said when we feel distressed, sad, overwhelmed, or troubled, remember the past—remember what God has done for you! Remember God’s protection and holiness. Remember how He saved you from slavery. He did not forget you! He led you in the wildness and the valley. He carried you through it!

And, if He did it then, He will do it again. Trust Him. Walk in His ways. Obey Him. He will show up!

Day 79: Read Deuteronomy Chapters 28-29

My Takeaways:

Blessings and Curses.

I loved reading about all the blessings! Give me all the words of life and prosperity and peace and victory and happiness! Promises of being the head, and not the tail, moving up and not down. Love.

What I don’t love is all the curses! Wowza. I completely understand they are punishments for turning away from God, but what Tara-Leigh said about covenant language helped so much—these are reversals of the blessings. More time is spent here because Moses knows they will rebel. Moses knows their hearts.

Have you gotten Moses’ sense of urgency and petition in this book? His love for his people and his longing that they obey?

By now, they know God. They have experienced Him and they are held accountable for this knowledge. So, when they hear things about cannibalism, that should be enough to leave them shaking in their sandals…for life! And to pass on that respect and fear to their kids!

And yet, we will find out they don’t.

These people, and even us today, are one generation from losing God’s blessing. We must not only pass on our knowledge of God but live out our fear of God to our kids. We want God’s blessing! And though there is much grace in our rebellion, there is also discipline and consequences. I have been there too many times over years.

My God Shot was this line:

“I led you, 40 years in the wilderness. Your clothes and the sandals on your feet did not wear out. You did not eat food or drink wine or beer so that you may know I am the Lord.”

All of the trials in their life have led to one thing: so that they would know God.

Oh friends, it’s so easy to hold on to anger and bitterness over trials and hard times…but what if God allowed them so that you could come to know Him in a deeper way? So that you would rely upon Him? So that you would know that He is God?

Kinda gives a different perspective, doesn’t it?

Day 80: Read Deuteronomy Chapters 30-31

My Takeaways:

Oh, this reading! Can you just sense the heaviness on Moses? Can you feel the love and concern for his people? He knows! He knows what will happen to them once they overtake the land—and like a parent who knows the consequences our child will experience if they cross that boundary, he preaches and preaches hoping that they will listen! And he is hoping that when they do rebel and all those consequences come down on them, they will remember the Lord.

Don’t we want the same for our kids when they cross boundaries, too? That they would return to the Lord?

I love how he says, “When these things happen to you—the blessings and the curses I have set before you—and you come to your senses…. you and your children return to the Lord your God, and obey Him with all your heart and all your soul. By doing everything I am commanding today, then He will restore your fortunes, have compassion on you, and gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord has scattered you.”

After they have disobeyed God and realized that they messed up, God will bless them if they turn to Him with all their hearts and souls! He will circumcise their hearts so that they, and their kids, are prone to love the Lord with all their heart and soul!

He never gives up on these wandering, rebellious hearts.

And then, Moses has to do what I think is one of the hardest things to do: commission Joshua to take his place. He tells Joshua and he tells the people: “Be strong and courageous; don’t be terrified, or afraid of them for the Lord your God is the one who will go with you. He will not leave you or abandon you.”

This verse! This promise! What comfort! How many of us need to hear it today? Foresight scares us but hindsight always reminds that God was with us every step of the way—He’s faithful! We can trust Him to fight for us! (Perhaps Joshua needed to hear this twice…he has been with Moses since the beginning, and he has seen how rebellious these people are. He has a big assignment in front of him and probably needed to have his mentor look him in the eyes and tell him these words.)

Can you remember a time you needed someone to speak life into your heart…and it changed you? That was Joshua in this moment.

Oh, new chapters in life can be scary. New challenges can be overwhelming. Experiencing consequences can hurt. But, they can also circumcise our hearts in a way nothing else could—in a way that compels us to turn to the Lord wholeheartedly and fear Him.

Because we know our God blesses that. It’s not easy…but is is worth it. Joshua and the Israelites will find out soon enough.

Day 81: Read Deuteronomy Chapters 32-34, Psalm 91

My Takeaways:

We knew it was coming, but when Moses died, it was kind of like saying goodbye to an old friend! We have been traveling with Moses since he was an insecure man who had murdered an Egyptian and run away from home!

You guys—how far has he come as a leader, writer, speaker, and teacher to over a million people?! Like Deuteronomy 34:10 said, “No prophet has arisen again in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face.”

Moses shows us what intimacy with the Lord looks like. He also shows us that God doesn’t have “favorites”—-God still held him accountable for his sin for striking the rock at Meribah. I gotta admit, friends, I feel like Moses definitely earned grace to go into the promised land!

But maybe, just maybe, God holding Moses accountable for this moment showed the Israelites something deeper: They may be God’s people, but He will hold them accountable, just as He did with Moses.

Moses’ ministry was to help rescue God’s people, teach them about God, teach them to live holy as God’s special possession, establish tribes and order, show them what worship was, and teach them some songs to remember God when they rebelled.

And, when he finished his job, God took Moses home.

As long as we are breathing air on planet Earth, friends, we have a ministry as well. Not only is God refining us to do our ministry, but He will use our words and actions to reach others in our sphere of influence…never underestimate your current season of life! I am sure Moses never thought millions and millions of people would be reading about him walking in that dirty, dusty, hot desert thousands and thousands of years later!

God uses your mountaintop moments as much as He uses the darkest of valleys you’ve been through. Moses is proof of that.

Day 82: Read Joshua Chapters 1-4

My Takeaways:

Acts of faith…this is what these chapters could be titled!

Joshua had to trust God and take courage in Him. The courage would come from knowing that God was with them!

I love the pep talk God gives Joshua in Joshua 1:5-9! How many of us need that pep talk every day? I would challenge you to memorize Joshua 1:9 – it is a great reminder that sometimes, strength and courage come from obedience to the Lord.

Another act of faith was from Rahab. She had heard of these peoples’ journey. (God had sent fear and panic into them and they were shaking in their sandals!) She had heard of their God. Interestingly, she called Him Lord! She recognized that God is God in heaven and on earth—wowza! This was from a woman who wasn’t an Israelite, but showed the faith of one.

Another act of faith was of the priests…they had to walk into the water with the ark of the covenant, trusting God would do what He did years ago—part the waters of the waters of the Jordan! (It was at flood stage here and very much overflowing and swift!) As soon as they did, the water stopped and a wall of water built up as these priests stood firmly on dry ground as the men crossed!

And once again, we see a theme of remembering. They were to get 12 stones (these were big) from the middle of the Jordan, take them to the other side, set them up, so that when people came to their area, they would see the stones and remember that God was with them, He had performed another miracle by parting the waters of the Jordan, and He would be with them to take this land. They were to tell their children what had just happened—these stones, whenever travelers passed by, would serve as proof this happened.

Day 83: Read Joshua Chapters 5-8

My Takeaways:

Victory, defeat, and victory!

Today, we read about many things!

Joshua circumcised the men before battle — this had not been done yet for this generation. It was a sign that God had rolled away the disgrace from their ancestors in the past and was ready to start new. This was a deeply symbolic act of starting new with God, getting a second chance to be obedient to Him!

God even visits Joshua at the camp right before the battle with Jericho. How do I know it was God? (Or Jesus?) The command given to Joshua was the same given to Moses in the desert: “Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy.” Wowza!

Then, Joshua and the Israelites took down the heavily fortified city of Jericho through obeying the Lord’s commands. Could you imagine how jaw-dropping and awe-inspiring this would have been?

After defeating this heavily fortified city, this gave Joshua and the Israelites the confidence they needed to defeat the city of Ai…. but something went wrong: they were defeated instead!

God revealed some disobedience in the camp—someone had taken plunder from Jericho and hidden it under his tent… that man and his entire family were punished! After that, the Israelites got a second chance with Ai… they set up a plan to trap them, and fight them, and overcome them. This time, they won!

We end our reading with Joshua building an altar to the Lord, copying down the law of Moses, and reading it to the Israelites. He was living out the Lord’s commands in Joshua 1.

My God Shot encompassed a few things….

We are not always guaranteed victory with the Lord… but it’s in our failures, when we turn to Him, when He can show us what we need to be able to go back, face that fear, and overcome it!

Something else that grabbed my heart with this: Rahab, the prostitute. God used a woman, an outcast, to show us an all-powerful lesson about His character: He can take the worst of our mess ups, our lifestyles, our sins, and use it to tender our hearts to turn to Him… and when we turn to Him, wholeheartedly, He can rewrite our story.

Rahab was in the lineage of Jesus Christ! What a story of redemption, and a great example of how the Lord cares for those who turn to Him, amid their sin, and circumcises their hearts in such a way, they make history! They shatter any preconceived ideas we have about “godly” people! Jesus didn’t come for the healthy—He came for the sick….that is all of us! We are all sin-sick. Some of our sins are on the outside, like Rahab’s, while many of us struggle with more private sins that aren’t so visible. Either way, they, and we, are powerful examples of what God can do with a willing heart!

Day 84: Read Joshua Chapters 9-11

My Takeaways:

Today, we see why Joshua was Moses’ predecessor—he turned into warrior Joshua and took care of business in the land of Canaan!

You guys, he obeyed God and had victory! He feared God and followed God every step of the way!

Now, there was that one incident with the Gibeonites where they didn’t consult with God and ended up being deceived by them (well played, Gibeon!)…not only did they make a treaty with them, they had to come to their rescue a few days later. But, you know what? God used this to bring 5 kings together, and all their armies, to defeat them in the most unique way ever!

God hurled hailstones at them—in fact, more were killed by God’s hailstones than by the sword! WOWZA!

And not only that, Joshua needed more daylight to defeat them, so he asked something that probably had never been ask before and hasn’t been asked since, “God, make that sun stand still!”

And you know what? God listened to him! That sun stood still for almost a full day!

Friends, that is faith—daring faith!

I wonder—do you have a daring faith like Joshua’s that asks the impossible?! This shows us that all things are possible when it’s in God’s will!

After this, Joshua took care of business and conquered the land—and here’s the best line: “…the land had rest from war.”

You guys, they finally get the promised land! This is God fulfilling His promise to Abraham in Genesis! This is the children learning from their parents’ mistakes 40 years earlier! This is answered prayer!

Our timetable may not be God’s timetable, but make no mistake, He is the Promise Keeper!