A New Devotion - In the Den

Here's a new devotion that I wrote. It's based on the passage below. You can find a recording of this devotion at the bottom of the page.

Deuteronomy 7:12-15 [Contemporary English Version]

Moses said to Israel:

If you completely obey these laws, the Lord your God will be loyal and keep the agreement he made with you, just as he promised our ancestors. The Lord will love you and bless you by giving you many children and plenty of food, wine, and olive oil. Your herds of cattle will have many calves, and your flocks of sheep will have many lambs. God will bless you more than any other nation—your families will grow and your livestock increase. You will no longer suffer with the same horrible diseases that you sometimes had in Egypt. You will be healthy, but the Lord will make your enemies suffer from those diseases.

In the Den

I really enjoy the British television show, Dragons Den. Of course I recognize that it’s almost exactly like Shark Tank, another program I like, but as an American, well, I just find the way the British communicate with one another both interesting and refreshing. But I’ll tell you, what I find most entertaining is when those who have the money to invest, the Dragons, try to convince the entrepreneurs to accept their offers. It’s wonderful. These very rich and powerful men and women will go on and on about what they can do for both the person and the product. And although this kind of interaction doesn’t happen a lot, when it does, in my humble opinion, it’s very entertaining.

And I think it’s interesting; that’s really what we’re looking at in the passage from Deuteronomy. You see, the writer goes on and on about all the stuff the Lord will do for them, listing everything from blessing their soil to healing their sick. Now this is what God brings to the table. And all he wants in return is that the people do what he commanded them to do, something that he summed up neatly when he said,  “So love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength” [Deuteronomy 6:5, CEV] and  “I am the Lord, and I command you to love others as much as you love yourself.” [Leviticus 19:18b, CEV] You see, in exchange for their decision to love him and others, God was prepared to do incredible things for his people.

And you know, I think the deal is still available to us. In other words, when we make the decision as individuals and communities and nations to focus on what God wants us to do and then to actually do it, I believe our vision of both the present and the future changes. I mean, instead of being ignorant about or judgmental toward people we don’t know, I think we’ll spend our time and energy thinking about how we might be loving and kind to them. And rather than looking to the future with fear, we can move forward with all kinds of hope, confident that the one whom we love also loves us. You see, I believe this will happen, all because of the deal made in the den.