The events of a day in the life of Jesus brought many different responses.  Luke 8 records quite a variety.  After watching Jesus awake in a boat to calm a storm, the disciples were “fearful and amazed, asking one another, ‘Who can this be?’…”  That’s an appropriate response.  A demon possessed man with superhuman strength responded in the following manner as Jesus approached – “…he cried out, fell down before Him, and said in a loud voice, ‘What do You have to do with me, Jesus, You Son of the Most High God? I beg You, don’t torment me!’”  Another appropriate response.  The next encounter is shocking.  Upon hearing of the man’s healing, the town folk come out to witness it for themselves.  The Bible says they were afraid and rightly so.  Jesus had just commanded possibly thousands of demons to flee from this man.  And then they make this horrible request.  Verse 37 says, “Then all the people of the Gerasene region asked Him to leave them, because they were gripped by great fear.  So getting into the boat, He returned.”  The long anticipated Savior of the world comes to your hometown and you ask Him to leave.  And He respects your decision to reject Him.  How horrible and how haunting.  Here’s the challenge for me.  Are there areas of my life, where I am in essence asking Jesus to leave?  As He walks into my finances, do I ask Him to leave?  Does he step into my dreams and hobbies and plans and I ask Him to leave?  Jesus wants to be feared, marveled at, and trembled before.  But to ask Him to leave – this seems to me the worse request you could make to Jesus.

⁴ When the LORD your God drives them out before you, do not say to yourself, ‘The LORD brought me in to take possession of this land because of my righteousness.’ Instead, the LORD will drive out these nations before you because of their wickedness. ⁵ You are not going to take possession of their land because of your righteousness or your integrity. Instead, the LORD your God will drive out these nations before you because of their wickedness, in order to keep the promise He swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. ⁶ Understand that the LORD your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people.  (Deuteronomy 9:4-6)

As Moses is saying his last words to the people of Israel before he dies and they enter the promised land, he wants to make one thing perfectly clear:  The promised land is exactly that.  A promise that God will keep.  The promise is not based on the “righteousness” or “integrity” of the Israelites.  It is not based on their ability to win battles or have the largest army.  It’s not based on their possessions or livestock or population size.

Everything that the Israelites (and us) have or will have, is based on God’s grace and generosity, not our own ability to provide for ourselves.  Let’s all remember this when we are “counting our blessings”.

The LORD was devoted to you and chose you, not because you were more numerous than all peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. 8 But because the LORD loved you and kept the oath He swore to your fathers, He brought you out with a strong hand and redeemed you from the place of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9 Know that Yahweh your God is God, the faithful God who keeps His gracious covenant loyalty for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commands. 10 But He directly pays back and destroys those who hate Him. He will not hesitate to directly pay back the one who hates Him. 11 So keep the command—the statutes and ordinances—that I am giving you to follow today. (Deuteronomy 7:7-11)

In today’s reading we see God making the case for why his people should live in obedience to Him. There are a few points to consider as we take a look at the Deuteronomy text. First, God is devoted to us and has chosen us. This should be something that makes us celebrate God in all His goodness. He chose us in order to make us his people. It reminds me of Colossians 3:12 “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience” which let’s us know that we are a chosen people.

Secondly, God chose us not for what we have done, but for what he can do through us. The great numbers of the Israelites was not the  reason for God’s choice. It was also not because of their moral or ethical behavior. It was due to the fact that God could be glorified through them.  The reason He instructs them to “keep the commands” is so that their behavior will be known as Godly, or that of people who glorify Go with their lives. When we follow God in obedience it shows our appreciation to Him.

Lastly, God is loyal. Even though we might step away, He will not. He is in constant pursuit of us, even when we aren’t of Him. Let that be a reminder to us that daily repentance is necessary. In order to fully appreciate who God is, we must submit ourselves to Him daily. Let us pray today that our actions demonstrate our appreciation of God’s choosing us.

Many times in the psalms we read a portion of a prayer and notice that it is followed by a word in the text – Selah.  People have different ideas of what that word means.  It could  have been a cue for the congregation to sing or to fall prostrate on the ground.  Or it could simply mean to be silent before God.  So the idea could be to read these prayers and then to hit a place and fall silent before God to listen or reflect or simply meditate on what you just read.  Listen to the verse I read this morning right before I hit a “Selah”

Psalms 68:19 HCSB

“May the Lord be praised! Day after day He bears our burdens; God is our salvation. Selah”

Just stop and think about that.  Day after day God bears our burdens.  He carries them.  He carries us through them.  He cares.  All of them.  Family, finances, sadness – all of it.  He is aware.  He is over them, in them, and under them, carrying them for us.  Our God is not merely transcendent, but immanent.  Praise God for His intimate care.