Deuteronomy 7 & 8; Deuteronomy 9; Mark 15

Ok this is just weird and ….just weird. Last December a group of us from my church made food for 150 people in a program in KC called Restart….We planned a menu, bought food and prepared it but I missed the going to serve it. Last spring break we took a group of High School kids down to NOLA and I got to help this gal prepare this donated foodstuffs into meals for the people who were displaced and still struggling months later from the effects of the hurricane. I read RWK’s comment that there are 3 basic needs in all of us something about God, food and conversation and that THAT happens around a table….I started praying in December about this passion….Oh God send me where they need food….South Africa maybe or Poland or ….somewhere you know EXCITING, I don’t know that I knew that was what I was praying but more than likely it was. I was seriously praying that IF that’s a passion that comes from you and there is something I can do with it…….Well we started this thing in our church where every Wednesday people come with their families and eat together and then we worship together and then Roy lays out the 7 Journeys what they are, introducing some to what a journey even looks like and challenges us to live our lives for Him…..we’ve had upwards of 300 people showing up…..guess who’s helping feed them??
Be careful what you pray for you know…..I think I’ll start praying for a million dollars and see what happens? ; )

Deuteronomy 7: Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments. 10 But those who hate him he will repay to their face by destruction; he will not be slow to repay to their face those who hate him.
I can’t reconcile THIS God to the God who sent His son for us. People who say the God of the OT is meaner than the NT God, I don’t believe it and yet how to get someone who hasn’t read the Bible to see that He is the same then, now and forever??? The whole of a Christ – less eternity…..it is just hard to explain….and you know what there it is…it isn’t mine to explain…it is ours to discover?? It is our responsibility to wrestle with what we believe?? We are to plant seeds and walk along side and seek You and to understand everything and everyone…… because if I think I DO UNDERSTAND, already KNOW something… then my heart and mind are not open to the mystery that is YOU…?? I don’t know……and that’s why it’s a personal journey…..and YOU like it that way…..??...

Deuteronomy 7: 12 If you pay attention to these laws and are careful to follow them, then the LORD your God will keep his covenant of love with you, as he swore to your ancestors. 13 He will love you and bless you and increase your numbers. He will bless the fruit of your womb, the crops of your land—your grain, new wine and olive oil—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks in the land that he swore to your ancestors to give you.
Deuteronomy 8: 1 Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land that the LORD promised on oath to your ancestors. 2 Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands.

The whole of this 3 chapters in Deuteronomy, the retelling of the rebelliousness of the Israelites hearts….how they didn’t and we don’t…Trust You, seek You, believe in Your best….we…I pursue success and $$ and achievement and family security and personal fulfillment and everything BUT you…. and You gave us…gave me… yet another chance…..Jesus is our mulligan, our do-over, our chance ……We didn’t deserve another chance and yet this God of LOVE gave it to us…
And then we do find that when we humble ourselves and say OK God…..I want to WANT what YOU want MORE than anything but I don’t have a clue how to do that…..and begin to seek Him more than anything and in that seeking FIND Him and in that finding LOVE Him and in that LOVE we just want to seek HIM MORE….it’s not natural……it is flippin supernatural…..It is about finding something bigger than ourselves and when we’ve done pretty well without Him or we thought it was without Him then why would I seek Him and yet……IF we stop and listen, really listen….what do we hear??

Mark 15: 13 "Crucify him!" they shouted.
37 With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.
38 The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. 39 And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, saw how he died, he said, "Surely this man was the Son of God!"

The good news comes tomorrow….He didn’t just die…He rose again…….and believing that gives me another chance…..humbly accepting THAT…..let’s me see who He is……