The Children of Israel had reached the Promised Land after forty years in the wilderness. The generation of people that had witnessed the Hand of God in their deliverance from Egypt were all gone. A new generation was standing at the border waiting to cross the Jordan. Moses takes this opportunity to teach this new generation the uniqueness and worthiness of the God of Israel.
One of the things Moses puts before them that always resounds in my heart is found in Deuteronomy, chapter 30. “I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him.” [vs 19-20 NIV]
Choose. What an amazing word. Our Creator, who has every right to force complete obedience and loyalty from His creation instead give us the right to “choose” Him or reject Him. We can choose life, or we can choose to ignore His invitation to life and have death instead. We can choose to embrace His blessings that come with surrender and obedience, or we can relinquish those and allow the curse of sin and death to reign in us.
Life often does not allow us to choose, it chooses for us. We can do everything possible to stay healthy, and yet find that a disease or disability has “chosen” us. We can be careful with our finances, and still suffer loss when an economic depression “chooses” to manifest in our world. We can find our lives turned upside down when someone we love “chooses” to leave. We can obey every law and then suffer when another “chooses” to run a stop light.
Those very facts make it all the more amazing that the God of this Universe, the Creator of All Things gives us the opportunity … the right … to make the most important of all decisions. He allows us to “choose” life and blessings by choosing Him, or death and curses by rejecting Him.
Right now, today, where I live, I cannot even “choose” to go to a salon and get a haircut – that choice has been removed. Yet the Living LORD of Life allows you to “choose” to follow Him. Think about that.
