What Next?

We are nearing the end of our study of the book of Deuteronomy. Which books of the Bible are you interested in and of which you want to do study?

Ends and Means: A 2 Samuel 4 Devotional

Focal verses: 2 Sam. 4:5-8

 ⁵“So the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, Rechab and Baanah, departed and came to the house of Ish-bosheth in the heat of the day while he was taking his midday rest. ⁶They came to the middle of the house as if to get wheat, and they struck him in the belly; and Rechab and Baanah his brother escaped. ⁷Now when they came into the house, as he was lying on his bed in his bedroom, they struck him and killed him and beheaded him. And they took his head and traveled by way of the Arabah all night. ⁸Then they brought the head of Ish-bosheth to David at Hebron and said to the king, “Behold, the head of Ish-bosheth the son of Saul, your enemy, who sought your life; thus the LORD has given my lord the king vengeance this day on Saul and his descendants.” [NASB]

Rechab and Baanah were commanders of troops in Saul’s army, which Ish-bosheth inherited from his father, Saul. When Joab, the commander of David’s army, killed Abner, the commander of Saul’s army, in revenge for killing his brother, Rechab and Baanah took matters into their own hands. Before we go further in this study, I find it interesting that the Hebrew meanings of the names Rechab and Baanah. Rechab means “rider” and Baanah means “affliction.” They enacted their names when they killed Ish-bosheth.

Back to your story. Why would Rechab and Baanah decide to kill their king, Ish-bosheth? That is an interesting question. Immediately prior to the time of Ish-bosheth’s murder, Abner began encouraging the Israelites to give their allegiance to David. He did this out of spite when Ish-bosheth reprimanded him for lying down with one of Saul’s (his father) concubines. Abner did not like being called-out and reprimanded so he swore he would change allegiances and take Israel with him. Later in 2 Samuel 3, Joab killed Abner.

Back to our question: Why did these two men kill Ish-bosheth? Two possible answers come to mind. The first is they wanted to finish what Abner tried to do before his death. They wanted to make David king of all Israel. The means of it did not matter to them. For Rechab and Baanah, the ends justified the means. They did not ask David or God how to make David king of all Israel; they decided for themselves. By taking the head to David, they wanted recognition as loyal followers of David and consideration as men of worth.

The other possible answer to this question could be Rechab and Baanah were loyal to Abner in life and so wanted to be loyal to him in his death. They decided to finish what Abner began. Again, Rechab and Baanah did not consider how Abner wanted to make David king over Israel and Judah; they just acted upon their impulses. In this answer, they perhaps sought the approval and applause of their fellow Israelite army and civilians. Faithful even after death. Once again, they considered the ends justified the means.

Rechab and Baanah were not commanders of armies, but of troops. There is a reason they were not higher commanders and it probably hinges upon their wisdom and maturity about purposes, actions, wisdom, and maturity. When a goal reaches into the future, the best course of action is not necessarily the most expedient one. Rechab and Baanah were both a part of the nation of Israel God created. Their father and rabbis taught them about Yahweh. Each of these men knew to seek the Lord’s will before acting. Yet they are like people nowadays, too. They wanted to reach a goal and took whatever means they felt most necessary to bring about a quick result. They did not consult with God, a rabbi, another military leader, or an elder. Rechab and Baanah heard God anointed David. They wanted to follow the command of their leader who was murdered, but they wanted to do it the way they wanted and for the desired intent of their own good. They wanted recognition by the new king who ruled over them.

In life, we believe we know God’s plan and want to make it happen. We immediately begin to make plans to make God’s results happen. Then we wonder why we are experiencing difficulties. When we do this, we become like Rechab and Baanah. We get too concerned with reaching the goal and consider all costs necessary to get to the end. The goal becomes our focus and not God. Our commendation of “good servant” becomes more important than continuing to listen to God. Teachers and preachers expressed in the past, “God is more concerned with the journey than with the destination.” Our walk with Him here on earth is about becoming closer to God and becoming more like Him. It is not about getting to the goal, heaven. If that were the case, then we would all just kill ourselves now. God, though, created us for relationship with Him and He put us on this earth to begin and develop that relationship. He put us on earth to enjoy His creation, too. If the goal were merely to get to the end result and be with God in heaven, then He would not have created the universe and placed us on earth to live.

God anointed David to be king over all Israel over fifteen years before he actually began his reign. He had a plan, but it would happen in His time. Things needed to happen. David needed to grow and mature. Rechab and Baanah did not wait on nor ask God what He wanted them to do when Abner died. They aimed to accomplish the goal no matter how they had to do it. These commanders of troops killed the God-appointed king of Israel then. David, as God’s instrument, administered punishment to them for killing God’s appointed king for Israel.

God cherishes our lives. He created us to love us and have a relationship with us. This takes time to grow and know. All relationships take time to be built. Our lives are about the journey as well as the end. The journey is the time we need to know God and grow more like Him. The end is the place we will forever be with God in His heavens if we accept Him and His gift of salvation.

Those teachers and preachers were right. Life is about the journey. It is also about the destination – heaven. Do you work doggedly to get the job done and forget to ask God how He wants it done? Do you spend too much time working for God instead of getting to know Him His heart, and His plans? Maybe it is time for you and me to turn to God and consider His plans and timing. Maybe you have walked about from God in your process of doing His work.

Do not be like Rechab and Baanah. Seek God first when trying to help Him bring about His will. Seek God so you can know Him and be known by Him. Seek God so you can have life through the salvation He provided through the death and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ. Now is the time to turn around and seek God first (Matthew 6:33).

What Does the Lord Require: A Micah 6:8 Devotional

“He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?” Micah 6:8 [NASB]

Micah was a prophet of God during king Ahaz’s reign about 730-700BC. During the reign Ahaz, worship of false gods became popular and accepted in the southern kingdom. Ahaz required the priests of Yahweh to offer sacrifices to the false gods, too . By the leading of the rulers, priests, and prophets, the people of Judah walked away from the LORD God to serve other gods. Micah entered this scene and proclaimed deliverance for the people who would go into captivity to Babylon and exhorted them to destroy the nations who came against her.

In today’s passage, Micah summarized in one verse what God required of His people, Israel. Micah proclaimed God wanted justice and loyalty from His people. In verses six and seven, Micah spoke for the people and asked if the LORD wanted burnt offerings, rivers of oil, or their firstborn children as sacrifice for the sins they committed against God. He told the people what God desired.

Micah told them what Moses told the Israelites in Deuteronomy as they walked to the Promised Land. Deuteronomy 10:12 explained the LORD wants people to live a manner of life that represents Him, to love Him, to serve Him, and to fear Him with reverence and awe. Moses added to this in Deuteronomy 30:15 by telling what the blessing would be for love and obedience to the LORD and what the curse would be for unfaithfulness to the LORD and their covenant with Him. Obedience and faithfulness brought life and prosperity. Disobedience and unfaithfulness brought death and adversity. The priests of God to Israel knew this. He commanded them to teach it to the people so they would not forget.

When Micah spoke up for the LORD in his time, the people of God as a whole had forgotten these things and walked away from Him. Micah called them back and reminded them what God requires. He told them to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God.

By walking with God following closely in obedience and awe, the characteristics of God would become part of their own lives. God is righteous and just. The people of Israel would become just and do justice. Isaiah 56:1 and Jeremiah 22:3 give commands to be just and preserve justice in their lives and to the powerless.

The kindness Micah spoke of is goodness and faithfulness to God and other people. As God is the author of goodness, their lives lived in faithfulness to Him would show goodness to other people. Hosea 6:6 says God delights in faithfulness/loyalty rather than sacrifice and knowledge of Him rather than burnt offerings. Knowing and being faithful to God develops a person who is like God and lives out His kindness and goodness.

Last, Micah told the people God requires them to walk humbly with Him. He meant they were to live lives of humility to Him, worshipping and obeying Him as their LORD. When people decide to set up other things as their god, they decide they know better than Yahweh. Those people make themselves greater than the LORD God when they decide they know better than Him. Isaiah spoke for God in Isaiah 57:15 when he said God lives on a high and holy place and the contrite and lowly of spirit live with Him. Besides this, in Isaiah 66:2, God spoke through Isaiah and said He would look to the humble and contrite of spirit. Humility before God is what God required of the Israelites. By the time Micah became a prophet of the LORD, most Israelites no longer revered the LORD and came before Him humbly. God was just another god to them among the multitude of other gods they served.

Micah came to the Israelites calling them to return to exclusive worship of the one God, Yahweh God. He told them what the LORD required – justice, kindness, humility, and loyalty to Him alone.  As the Israelites lived their lives in this way, they would take on the characteristics of God once again. Following the LORD requires humility in recognizing He is greater than they. By following Him and obeying Him in their daily lives, they would begin to love other people, which would manifest itself in goodness, kindness, and justice.

One step at a time to return to God requires the first step of acknowledging God is God of all including your life. He is greater than you or anything you think is better. As you make these steps one at a time, eventually you become more like God, more like Christ. The Israelites ended up captives of Babylon, but they listened to God and returned to their home land eventually. They returned to God and walked in His ways.

We can do that, too. We acknowledge God is supreme and the only God. We are nothing compared to Him. Next we accept that Jesus Christ is His Son who died for the death penalty to our sins. We ask forgiveness for our sins and give our lives to Him to be Lord – leader of our lives.

Whether you are already a Christian or not, we each are human and turn away from God. We tend to choose to make our own decisions and make ourselves god of our lives, which usurps God’s role as the Lord of our lives. God is waiting for us to turn back to Him. He promised He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins (1 John 1:9). He waits for each of us to accept His gift of grace through Jesus Christ’s death on the cross. Each time we sin after accept His grace gift, God waits for us to turn back to Him, asking for forgiveness, and giving our lives back to Him to lead.

We can be just and live justly, giving kindness, and live humbly with the Lord. Just decide to give Him your life, ask forgiveness, and walk one day at a time with Him as your Lord. This is what Micah told the Israelites. It is what God continues to call us to do. What will you decide?

Who is like God: A Deuteronomy 33 Devotional

                                                          Focus verses: Deuteronomy 33:2-5 & 26-29

When studying Deuteronomy 33, it is easy to get consumed by studying the blessing of the tribes of Israel by Moses. Yet when we step back and look at the scope of the chapter not just the minutiae, we find the chapter begins and ends with statements about God. When writing a letter, memo, report, or essay, what one says first and last are what is most important. The middle parts of these reports are carried by the thematic opening and conclusion.

We need to understand that in this chapter of Deuteronomy 33, too. It should not be read and studied to understand the blessings by Moses – what they were, did they fit the tribe, were they accurate based on the tribes’ history. What we must see is God is the One from whom all blessings come. Our focus should rather be on God and not the tribe.

From this understanding then, what does Moses say about God in these nine verses? First, Moses reminded them of who God is and what He did for the Israelites. He told them wherever they were, God was already there – Sinai, Seir, Paran. He is omnipresent – everywhere present at the same time. Moses continued by stating His holiness based on coming from His ten thousand holy ones. He stated, too, God is majestic and powerful. He displayed flashing lightning from His right hand. Moses reminded the Israelites God loves them and made them righteous when he said, “All your holy ones are in Your hand” (vs. 3). God is supreme and gave laws that His holy ones followed (vs. 3). Besides these, in verse five, Moses told the Israelites, “He was king of Jeshurun, when the heads of the people were gathered, the tribes of Israel together.” Jeshurun is the symbolic name for the ideal character of Israel. It means “upright one.”

In the final four verses of this chapter, Moses returned to the important point – God. He spent twenty verses blessing the tribes, but returned to the Creator, Protector, Provider, and Redeemer. In these last four verses, Moses reminded the Israelites God is the God of the upright (Jeshurun). He cannot be the God of the unrighteous since He is righteous. Moses said God is powerful and majestic One as we understand when we read He rides the heavens and skies (vs. 26). He reminded the Israelites God is eternal, their protector, their commander, and the victor for them. He is the one who defeated their enemies (vs. 27). Because of this, Israel dwelled and dwells in security and are secluded from other nations so they will not be influenced by the pagan practices of the people (vs. 28). In the land God provides, the Israelites would experience abundant and prosperous life with grain and wine because His storehouses brought the dew and rain. These three verses expanded what Moses said about God’s attributes in verses two through five. Through them Moses reminded the Israelites how God took care of, loved, and cherished them.

The final verse, twenty-nine, is a synopsis and recap of what God did for the Israelites and who He is. Moses declared a blessing over Israel in this verse and said they would be blessed, happy, when they remembered Who God is, who they were, what God has done and will do, and how the nations around them perceive God. He reminded them God is powerful and majestic. He saved/redeemed the Israelites. God helps and cares for them in all their needs. His power and might makes the Israelites’ enemies afraid. God makes them strong to destroy their places of worship to false gods. In each of these things, God is the originator for the actions.

Moses blessed the Israelite tribes, but his blessing came from God - from His desire to have them follow Him and be faithful to their covenant. Remember, “blessed” comes from the Hebrew word barak and means to kneel, praise, bless, and salute. It requires kneeling before the one who blesses. In these nine verses, Moses reminded the people God is the One who blessed them in the past and who blesses them now and in the future. He is able to do this as they saw in His actions and know because of who He is – eternal, holy, righteous, majestic, omnipresent, powerful and loving. That is the main point of this chapter – God is the blesser – not the blessing of the tribes. They did not deserve to be blessed, just as none of us deserves God’s blessings, but because God loves us and wants to see us live abundant lives, He blesses. When we recognize God is great, majestic, and awesome and we seek to be in relationship with Him, we are blessed in our spiritual lives and in our physical lives. It requires our kneeling before Him and acknowledging who He is. That is blessing. Kneeling before and praising the Blesser. Moses reminded the Israelites of that and reminds us today of it, too.

Will you choose to acknowledge who God is? Will you choose to accept Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord? When you do, then God’s love flows to you as blessings – spiritual and physical. Jesus said, “Come follow me.” Will you answer His call?

Zebulun, “Anyman”: A Deuteronomy 33:18-19 Devotional

“Of Zebulun he said, ‘Rejoice, Zebulun, in your going forth and Issachar in your tents. They will call peoples to the mountain. There they will offer righteous sacrifices; for they will draw out the abundance of the seas and the hidden treasures of the sand.’” Deuteronomy 33:18-19 [NASB]

In Deuteronomy 33, Moses blessed the twelve tribes of Israel before he died and they crossed the Jordan River to take possession of the Promised Land. Verses eighteen and nineteen are the record of Zebulun’s and Issachar’s blessing. Zebulun was Jacob’s tenth son who was born by Leah, his first wife. Zebulun was her sixth son. She named him Zebulun, which means exalted, hoping Jacob would look upon her with favor and exalt her as his favorite wife since she gave him six sons.

The tribe of Zebulun participated in the life of the nation of Israel is a couple significant ways. First, though, we must understand that tribes’ settlement of their part of the Promised Land. Joshua gave them their part of land in the northern part of Israel in the area that would later be called Galilee. Asher’s territory was between them and the Mediterranean Sea. Naphtali was to their north and Issachar was to their southeast. Josephus, from his studies, concludes the northeastern border of Zebulun’s land touched the Sea of Galilee or Sea of Chinnereth.

Remember the LORD’s command to the Israelites when they entered the Promised Land. He told them to kill and destroy completely the people who lived in Canaan – the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites (Deuteronomy 20:16-17). When Zebulun’s men entered this land, they failed to obey the LORD completely in this. Judges 1:30 recorded, “Neither did Zebulun drive out the Canaanites living in Kitron or Nahalol, who remained among them, but they did subject them to forced labor.” They were like the other tribes of Israel who did not drive out completely the inhabitants of Canaan. Like all humankind, his tribe was not one hundred percent faithful to God. We can relate to Zebulun’s tribe.

We must note, though, that Zebulun returned to the LORD. Judges 4:6 and 5:18 show they returned to do the work of the LORD. Deborah, the priestess, told Barak to get the men of Zebulun and Naphtali to make an army to fight Sisera for the Israelites who Jabin, king of Canaan, took as captives. Later in Israel’s history, after King Saul died, David aimed to transfer Saul’s kingdom to himself. He asked the different tribes to send men to battle for him during that transition. Zebulun sent 50,000 men (1 Chronicles 12:33). When King Hezekiah ascended to reign over Israel two hundred ninety four years after David’s reign began, he called the tribes of Israel to join him in keeping the Passover in the LORD’s temple as a way to atone for the sins of his father, Ahaz. Zebulun’s men went to Jerusalem, destroyed the idols, and participated in the Passover (2 Chronicles 30:10-23. These latter two instances can be seen as fulfillments of the blessing Moses gave over that tribe about calling people to the mountain - Mount Moriah, where God’s temple was, and Mount Zion, where David’s palace was. Besides this, the blessing stated, “they will offer righteous sacrifices” (vs. 19). They did this with Hezekiah and probably at other times in their history.

As noted, Zebulun, as a tribe, was not beyond redemption. They were unfaithful to God and His covenant, but later returned to Him and obeyed Him. God told the Israelites in Deuteronomy 30 if they repented and returned to Him, He would hear them and return them to their land. The LORD said he would circumcise their hearts and their descendant’s hearts so they would love him with all their heart and soul and live. God said the Israelites would again obey the Him and follow His commands (Deuteronomy 30:1-8).

We are not unlike Zebulun or the other tribes of Israel. God calls to each of us to turn to Him. Whether we have never believed in His Son, Jesus Christ, as our Lord and Savior and so have never turned to God or if we are Christians, but have turned away from God’s ways, God will forgive and accept us if we repent of our sins. He wants to be our God and bless us. We can be like the Zebulunites who call people to the mountain (to God’s house) and offer righteous sacrifices to God (Deut. 33:19). God loves us and calls us to Him. We must decide for ourselves whether we will hear, listen, and heed His call. That is shamar.

What will you decide to do today?