March 10 - Deuteronomy 32-34: Cultivate God-Confidence

The final chapters of Deuteronomy mark the end of an era. Moses teaches the Israelites a song, blesses them, and then dies in the land of Moab where God buried him. After 40 years of wandering, the People of Israel will have a new leader, Joshua, but there will never be another prophet like Moses, whom God knew face-to-face. (34:10)

"By all human accounting, [Moses] died a failure. He even died knowing that he was a failure, knowing that everything he had worked for in leading, training, and praying for this community would unravel as soon as the people entered Canaan.

It's a familiar story for readers of Scripture, though frequently suppressed. What does it mean? It means that we have to revise our ideas of the holy community to conform to what is revealed in Scripture. It means that we cannot impose our Pollyanna visions of hanging out with lovely, upbeat, beautiful people when we enter a Christian congregation. It means that God's way of working with us in community has virtually nothing to do with the world's idea of getting things done, or of what "works" and what doesn't. It means that God hasn't changed his method of choosing "the lowly things of this world and the despised" to form his community (1 Corinthians 1:28). It means that we who want to get in on what God is doing and the way God is doing it will have to give up pretensions of shaping a community that the world will think is wonderful."  Eugene Peterson, Conversations, pg. 305

I confess that I have been disappointed by church and church people, in large and small ways. Rather than recognizing that church is the place for people to work out their salvation - and all of the junk that goes along with it - I've wanted to walk away and find strangers to worship with, people whose sin I wasn't so intimately acquainted with. Or, I've gotten irritated and just wanted people to get their acts together. A lot of it has to do with my own selfishness, not wanting other peoples' problems to have such a big impact on me, or at least to have some (perceived) parity in our messiness.

I've bought into our culture's belief (including much of the church culture) that followers of Christ should look pretty good. At times, I've felt reluctant to tell my "church friends" what's really going on in my life, for fear of what they'll think of me. In fact, it's often easier to tell my unbelieving friends the truth about the sin in my life. At least they won't judge me or throw verses at me (pet peeve).

But the more I understand of Scripture, I see that failure is both inevitable and the path to real freedom. When I give up the idea that I have the power to behave properly or obey God or love others well, only then do I truly experience my need for a savior. That's when I know with all my heart that I can't do this life on my own. I need Jesus.

So as we're on the brink of the Israelites entering the Promised Land, knowing that they're going to fail, listen to the words of Paul in his first letter to the church at Corinth, as he warns them (and us) of the purpose of understanding the history of the People of God:

These are all warning markers - DANGER! - in our history books, written down that we don't repeat their mistakes. Our positions in the story are parallel - they at the beginning, we at the end - and we are just as capable of messing up as they were. Don't be so naive and self-confident. You're not exempt. You could fall flat on your face as easily as anyone else. Forget about self-confidence; it's useless. Cultivate God-confidence. 1 Corinthians 10:11-12

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Goodbye, Moses and Deuteronomy. And with that, we're also transitioning from the Books of Moses to the History Books (Joshua - Esther).

Eugene Peterson's commentary in The Message - Introduction was helpful in understanding the significance of what we've just completed:

"The Books of Moses are foundational to the sixty-one books that follow in our Bibles. A foundation, though, is not a complete building but the anticipation of one. An elaborate moral infrastructure is provided here for what is yet to come. Each book that follows, in one way or another, picks up and develops some aspect of the messianic salvation involved in becoming the People of God, but it is always on this foundation. This foundation of stories and signposts has proved over and over to be solid and enduring."

So what about you? What is sticking with you from Deuteronomy or the Books of Moses? We'd love to hear what God is doing in your heart through His Word.