Deuteronomy 9:1-29


Pride is a very dangerous condition that seems to easily inflict many aspects of our lives.  The only reason that we are saved, able to serve and walk with God at any level of obedience is purely by the grace of God.  We have a hard time with grace.  In our hearts and minds we would like to think that we have earned our position before God.  The truth is that the only position before God that have earned is the position of condemnation.  We are all deserving of death and eternal damnation because of our actions, thoughts and motives.  Anything besides death is pure grace and we must never forget that reality in our lives.  Moses wants to make this truth very clear to the children of Israel before they enter the Promised Land because he knows that pride is an extremely dangerous companion and one that will bring the people under God’s judgment if it is not prevented.  In order to protect the people from pride, Moses gives them a few reminders.
REMEMBER WHY YOU WILL OVERTHROW THESE NATIONS: Moses makes it abundantly clear that the reason they are going to e able to overthrow these nations was not their own righteousness.  The reality is that these nations are being judged by God through them.  It is the wickedness of the other nations that is the reason for the victory of Israel.  It was not about how good Israel was but it was about how bad the nations were.  The most the children of Israel could say was that these nations were more rebellious than they had been.  It is hard to be proud about something like that.  The truth is that in the future God will judge Israel because they have become worse than these nations.  That is the time were the grace of God becomes truly evident.
REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE IN YOUR HEART AND MIND:  Moses states very clearly that the nation of Israel had been a rebellious and stiff necked people.  He reminds them of their rebellious attitudes and how they had repeatedly complained and disobeyed throughout their relatively brief history.  Their actions clearly showed that their hearts were not very much different from the other nations.  The biggest difference was that the other nations had been at their rebellion for a longer period of time than they had been.  Moses points to several instances where they had been disobedient and walked far from the commandments of the Lord.  It can be a dangerous thing for us to live in the past, but it can be a very humbling thing to remember the failures of the past.  It can be hard to find a balance in this area but  humility is always a welcome companion that is made ever richer by the grace of God.

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