Now choose life, so that you and your children may live. Deuteronomy 30:19
Nathan grew up in a Christ-believing household, but he started to stray from his childhood faith as a college student into things like drinking and partying. “God brought me back to Himself when I didn’t deserve it,” he said. In time, Nathan spent a summer sharing Jesus with strangers on the streets of major US cities, and is now completing a residency in youth ministry at his church. Nathan’s goal is to help young people avoid wasting time not living for Christ.
Like Nathan, the Israelite leader Moses had a heart for the next generation. Knowing he would soon relinquish leadership, Moses delivered God’s good regulations to the people and then lists the results of either obedience or disobedience: blessing and life for obedience, cursing and death for disobedience. “Now choose life, so that you and your children may live,” he told them, “for the Lord is your life” (Deuteronomy 30:19-20). Moses urged them to love God, “listen to His voice, and hold fast to Him” (v. 20).
Choosing sin brings consequences. But when we surrender our lives to God again, He’ll surely have mercy (vv. 2-3) and restore us (v. 4). This promise was fulfilled throughout the people of Israel’s history, but also by Jesus’ final work on the cross to bring us into fellowship with God. We too have a choice today and are free to choose life.
In what area of your life is it most difficult to follow God’s way? How can you encourage the next generation to choose life?
Dear Jesus, thank You for making a way to bring me back into fellowship with You.
INSIGHT
The generation that stood on the threshold of the promised land wasn’t present at Mount Sinai when the mountain shook and God called Israel to be His covenant people. The giving of the law, which showed how the Israelites were to relate to God and one another, had been given to an earlier generation (Exodus 19-20). So before entering the land, Moses repeated the law so that the new generation could likewise learn what God had revealed. That second giving of the law is the book of Deuteronomy, which means “second law.”