Who's Listening?

Deuteronomy 6:4-  (NLT) 4 “Listen, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. 5 And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. 6 And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. 7 Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. 8 Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders. 9 Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates."

As Moses began to lay out the Lord's decrees as he was directed and to stress the importance of them to a waiting Israel, he began with what was the most important imperatives on the Lord's own heart and mind. And among those things was this...

Deuteronomy 6:14 (NLT) “You must not worship any of the gods of neighboring nations, 15 for the LORD your God, who lives among you, is a jealous God. His anger will flare up against you, and he will wipe you from the face of the earth."

For those who believed God, this was nothing to be taken lightly - in fact, it was a most certain matter of life and death. Israel had already seen the Lord's power in action. And for them in that moment, there was no question as to whether or not the Lord had the power to do what He had so clearly declared. But even among those believers, some may have wondered why was this so important to Him and why our God would be jealous. They were important core questions that needed to be answered and understood then... and they're just as critical for us in this day to understand now.

Even though these edicts of the Lord were uttered so many hundreds of years ago, we know that the Lord our God never changes. So if the issues contained in His declaration back then were so intensely important to Him, what about their importance now? How would that same God that spoke those harsh words so long ago to the children of Israel judge our own lives if He were to do so? Knowing that we have the ability to turn so many things in our lives into idols - competing for His rightful place, I wonder how would He react to the socially accepted norms, celebrations, goals and preoccupations that He finds us engaging in. Would He be rightly jealous? 

The answers and reasons are simple and He's written about them extensively. In this day we have an advantage - we have the written history of what God's said to man to make clear the answers to those that have a thirst for God and a hunger to know...

Reading the word of the Lord through from beginning to end - not assuming immediate understanding, but prayerfully looking to the Holy Spirit for the revelation of understanding - that deeper impartation of living and life giving meaning, makes things begin to become clear and real to us.  Life begins to have an intended depth of meaning that escapes those living a cursory life and walk with our Lord. Throughout scripture there's a common theme that relates an invitation to the object of the Lord's desire (an object that He created for Himself) to engage in a holy romance. The record of that invitation enveloped within a love letter starts with the words "In the beginning" and is signed off at the end with "The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen."

As the digestion of food gives life to the body and strength to the bones, digesting the word of the Lord in submission to the revelation of the Holy Spirit gives life and strength to the spirits of men. In itself, digesting it represents an act of submission to seek the Lord and a willingness toward the living relationship with Him that He desires - the one purpose that He who created us, created us for - He created us for Himself. 

The Lord repeatedly referred to Israel as His own "special possession".  And as the Apostle Paul teaches us in the 11th chapter of Romans, we gentiles are "grafted in" through Christ. Therefore WE - each one of us, are now a unique and very special part of His own special possession. We are highly valued... and loved jealously.

Act 17 24-28 (NLT)
24 “He is the God who made the world and everything in it. Since he is Lord of heaven and earth, he doesn’t live in man-made temples, 25 and human hands can’t serve his needs—for he has no needs. He himself gives life and breath to everything, and he satisfies every need. 26 From one man he created all the nations throughout the whole earth. He decided beforehand when they should rise and fall, and he determined their boundaries. 27 “His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us. 28 For in him we live and move and exist. As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ "

The past and present, the temporary physical and eternal spiritual sometimes mirror each other in certain aspects. Israel once found itself being sent into a foreign land with the warnings and passionate concern of a Fatherly heart...

Deuteronomy 4:28-29 (NLT) 28 "There, in a foreign land, you will worship idols made from wood and stone—gods that neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell. 29 But from there you will search again for the LORD your God. And if you search for him with all your heart and soul, you will find him."

We're essentially living in a foreign land - one separated from His constant, immediate presence - a land that tests and tries us. At times, the Lord found it necessary to punish Israel to bring their attention and devotion back to Himself. After all, Israel belongs to Him alone. We belong to Him alone. Will His involvement and interaction with us be any different? Would the perfect parent abdicate His duty to His children? 


Jeremiah 31:20 “Is not Israel still my son, my darling child?” says the LORD. “I often have to punish him, but I still love him. That’s why I long for him and surely will have mercy on him.

How we respond to Him is everything...

He's seeking His children, who love and obey like children - innocently, passionately, sincerely and trustingly - Because however we might measure ourselves in the world of mankind, we the Redeemed... ARE His children. However we may wander, wherever we might go and however we may respond, He's actively parenting us through this life daily whether we choose to stop and see it or not. He's watching and interacting with us continually. We have the same choice as any child, to respond in a number of ways and to reap the consequences of our response. But the God who loves us so deeply, so passionately and so jealously, holds the dearest hope that our response will be equally as deep, as passionate and as jealous for Him... 

2 Corinthians 6:14-18 (NLT)
14 "Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? 15 What harmony is there between Christ and Belial ? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.” 17 Therefore, “Come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.” 18 And, “I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”"

Who will honestly seek Him? Who's listening?