majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of
him in Deuteronomy 30:19-20,
"This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have
set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life,
so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord
your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is
your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to
give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob."
Here Moses calls as his witnesses heaven and earth, that he has warned
Israel, if the Israelites obey the Lord they will inherit the many
blessings the Lord promised them and give them many years in the land.
If not, they will inherit the curses Moses warned them of. It will be
up to the Israelites own choosing. Moses urges them, "Now choose
life...".
Here we see the wonderful interplay between God's decree and mankind's
responsibility before the Lord. Israel has the opportunity to
determine their future. They are told if they obey God they will
receive his blessings. On the other hand, they are told if they don't,
they will receive God's curses. Man gets to choose, but God has
decreed what the stakes are and the criteria upon which the outcome
man receives will be based. Who is in charge here? God. Who gets to
determine the outcome? God has decided to leave that in the hands of
the Israelites.
One time Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the great British Baptist preacher
of the nineteenth century, was asked how he reconciled God's
sovereignty with mankind's free will as an apparent contradiction in
theology. His reply was that he never reconciled friends. His point
was the two are not in contradiction at all. God, in his sovereignty,
has decided to endow mankind with the freedom to make choices within
the confines God has set. Those choices mankind makes bring a result
that God himself determines.
To me, this manifests the wonder of God's marvelous interaction with
his creation. He has not created us as automatons within a closed
fatalistic existence where he has pre-scripted all that will happen
himself. He has provided us with the means to live lives that have
purpose and meaning by allowing us to make choices and those choices
have eternal consequences as God himself has determined. This provides
for real opportunity for us to demonstrate our love for our wonderful
Creator and provide the context for which we can truly worship him: we
have a choice to do so!
Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share
your thoughts of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We'd
love to hear from you!
Trevor Fisk
trevor.fisk@gmail.com
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