Lavishing His Unfailing Love - A Promise from Deuteronomy - episode #155

The Burt (Not Ernie) Show

Well, hey there. Hello to ya and welcome to the podcast. So thankful you’re here. We are working our way through the Bible, book by book, and grabbing hold of a promise from each book along the way. So, by the time we get to the book of Revelation, written by John the Revelator (how’s that for a job title?), we will have stored up 66 rock solid promises. Every book a promise has kind of been my moniker for this, and I’m gonna say that a few more times between now and Revelation. Every. Book. A. Promise. For you, God’s got promises, and I am so glad you’re here today so we can take a look at your promise from the Lord in the book of Deuteronomy.

Susie Larson Closer Than Your Next Breath book
Psalm 91 Pray It & Believe Audio Course

You’re listening to The Burt (Not Ernie) Show, part of the Spark Network, now playing via the Edifi app. This episode’s recommended resource comes from Susie Larson and her new book, Closer Than Your Next Breath. Susie’s books are always impactful and among those that I read and highlight and read again and underline and read some more and give as gifts and I’ve been very blessed to be on the launch teams for several of her books. This one is a good one, and I’m sharing the link to order in the Show Notes. When you start looking at ideas for book options or study options for your small groups or women’s gatherings this fall, keep this one in mind. Now, let’s dig into God’s promises here in episode number 155.

When I began looking into the book of Deuteronomy in order to find a verse with a promise to share with you on the podcast, well let me just say the pickings were the opposite of slim. There are so many wonderful promises in this book! And it is a great reminder that we don’t need to avoid reading the entire Bible, Old and New Testaments, for fear that nothing in the Old Testament will apply to us today since we know Jesus and are under the New Covenant. Every jot and tittle of the law, the Old Testament, was fulfilled by Jesus - that’s what He said in Matthew 5:18. So when we read the OT, we can and should read it with hope, with the knowledge that Jesus fulfilled it all. I really had a lot to choose from as far as promises go when it came to this part of the Bible. So I want to encourage you to maybe just jot this down, make a note of it in your phone, text it to yourself so that you see it later on, but in Deuteronomy chapter 7 starting around verse 12 all the way through chapter 11, right up to verse 25, there are a vast array of promises. Promises to Israel, and one thing you and I can do when we see promises to Israel is to pray them - remind God of His promises to His people Israel, to the nation Israel, and pray for them to see Jesus as Messiah, for their land to be blessed, for all the things God has promised them to come to pass, and for the role Israel is playing in the end times to be seen clearly by a watching world. Keep your eyes on what is going on in Israel, because really if we think about it, the Bible came to us out of what God did in and through and for the people that became the Jewish Nation, the Israelites. It’s where Jesus lived and ministered. It’s the home of God’s chosen people. Jesus and the Bible changed the world, one life at a time, one moment at a time, down through the centuries. What nation is at the heart of the Bible? Israel. It’s more than just a tourist spot and more than just a spot on the map somewhere over by Egypt. In God’s story, it’s the heart of this world we live in, if you will. So, Israel matters. And praying that every promise God has made to the Israelites will come to pass is in accordance with the will of God as we read it in our Bibles.

Add Dueteronomy chapters 7-11 to your upcoming Bible reading, and pray for Israel as you are so led, and if there is anything promised therein that you feel led to pray over yourself, as one who is grafted in and has now become Abraham’s seed, which we read about in Romans chapter 11, then pause and pray those things over your own life, your loved ones.

Among all these promises I was reading in this book, I landed on a promise that you have most likely heard. It’s one of those verses that you may kind of already know, even if you don’t remember exactly where it is located in the Bible. And it is a promise that you and I are to KNOW. To KNOW this promise, know it like we know our own name, that would be really wonderful. Know it without a shadow of any doubt. And understand that the Lord your God, He IS God, the faithful God, who IS keeping His covenant and His steadfast lovingkindness to a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments.

I’ve kind of given it away already, what this promise verse says.

Let me read it to you from the Amplified and the NLT.

Therefore know [without any doubt] and understand that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God, who is keeping His covenant and His [steadfast] lovingkindness to a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments;

Understand, therefore, that the Lord your God is indeed God. He is the faithful God who keeps his covenant for a thousand generations and lavishes his unfailing love on those who love him and obey his commands.

Got a couple of questions for ya based on this verse.

Do you love the Lord God Almighty?

When is the last time you considered this - like, your love for Him? Yeah, we talk about His love for us, and that is important and foundational! But it’s also good to think about how much you love Him.

Do you keep His ways?

What the Word of God says, what is written on the pages of your Bible, do you do what it says? More than read it, highlight a verse here and there, close the cover and move on but maybe don’t actually do what it says to do. Do you keep God’s ways?

Do you love God? Do you keep His ways?

(Which is a pretty natural response to loving Him and being loved by Him, honestly).

Do you know the Word of God well enough to really know what to do?

Can’t really do what it says and keep God’s ways if we aren’t all that clear on what the Bible has to say, am I right?

It’s not osmosis, this growing in our understanding of the Bible.

Do you know it well enough to do what it says?

And do you know it well enough to know what NOT to do? (also pretty important!)

If not, there’s a fix for that! Read it and apply it to your very own life, read it and then do what it says. Simple fix! And life-changing, too, I might add!

Without any doubt, understand that He is God.

This verb, is, it’s in the present tense here.

He IS God.

Not the God of yesteryear, not the God of down the road a bit. Now. He IS God.

Do you and I live like, act like, behave like, make decisions and choices like He IS God right now. At this very moment. He IS God. If we did make our choices and decisions and speak our words carefully and really live like He IS present tense God, what kind of result could we expect? How would our lives be changed if we lived those lives moment by moment like God is God. IS. Tiny Little word but huge importance in this verse.

I’m going to repeat something I said a few moments ago.

Without any doubt, understand that He IS God.

Live like that present tense IS God is really really real, like the most real thing in your life, and things are going to change for you, my friend. They can’t not change when you live with the continual understanding that He IS God!

Why am I emphasizing the present tense of this verb, you might wonder?

Because if He is the God of the right now, that means there is no later on to be applied to this promise.

This is not for “later on” (whenever in the world that might be…don’t we do this sometimes, think some promise from God is for later on, but we have no idea when that later on may be, and we end up just simply keeping God’s promises in a state of continual deferment…which is sort of like rendering them as inactive, sort of dead…and we know the Word of God is living and active, according to Hebrews 4:12…what if we stopped thinking so much in terms of “later on” as a way to play it safe just in case God doesn’t show up and keep His promises…what if we chose belief, and hey, if God opts to keep His promises to us on this very day, as in today, as in right now, well why not? Who are we to put limits or time limits on God? Let God be God, and do as He sees fit, when He sees fit! Might that not be a life lived in a state of belief, that could very well grow into chronic belief? Contagious belief? Yeah, “later on”...bye bye!) This is for right now.

He is the faithful God.

That’s in the singular. THE faithful God.

Not one among many. And many of us, we have some little g gods in our lives that need to go to the trash heap, need to be ground to fine dust in the Kidron Valley, need to be decimated and destroyed.

If something has no place in the Kingdom of God then it has no place in the life of one of the King’s children.

I am stating plainly that there is ONE GOD and He IS the faithful God.

He cannot be otherwise.

He is faithful, and whoop looky there, another second just passed and He is the faithful God.

The only God.

The one true God.

The Alpha and Omega.

The King of all kings.

The Great I AM.

There is none before Him, and none will come after. He is, He was, and will always be.

Do you know this God as your own?

If so, then this is your promise today.

He is the one true God, and will always be so far in your life.

He is the faithful God, and will always be faithful in your life.

Is.

The.

Two tiny words that bear so much weight on the way we think about God, and about how God behaves toward us.

Two tiny words that change the way we think when we consider them rightly and choose to actually believe that what God has said in the Bible is exactly what He means.

And what happens when your thinking changes?

Well, that’s when your life changes.

Because how you think is how you live, how you think determines the course your life takes.

You think rightly when you think according to the word of God, when you take every thought captive and make it submit to the word of the Lord. That’s what it says in 2 Corinthians 10:5.

And when your thoughts are submitted to the Lord, your life is, too.

This verse from Deuteronomy, it’s a biggie.

There is one faithful God.

And He expects His people, those who bear His name and claim Him as Father, He expects us to know and understand this.

There is one faithful God.

You don’t need to be out searching for some other form of a god to fill some void in your life. Because you have the one faithful God.

Take God’s word and consider it a balm, a healing balm, to place over the wounds you have in your life - in your mind - your heart - your soul. God is a healer, and His word is powerful.

I hope you are really getting this today. This is FOR YOU, for RIGHT NOW.

He IS keeping His covenant, His promises, and is loving a thousand generations of those who love Him and obey Him.

Now how’s that for a legacy, and inheritance to leave to your descendants? Ain’t nothing else like it, I’ll tell you what.

Love and obey.

Can you be about that today?

And can you add in some real faith that God will do as He has promised here?

Don’t wait another day, another moment, to choose to believe that God’s promises are true. Why wait? I cannot think of a single, solitary good reason.

Believe today, reap the benefits and blessings of that belief today, and keep on reaping for the rest of your days. And when you step into eternity, you surely won’t feel regret for believing God fully and leaving all the results of that belief in His capable hands.

The hands that bear the nail scars are the hands of safest keeping for your life, your hopes and dreams, your loved ones, and your every moment.

Lord bless you today and thank you for listening today.

Hey I’m also gonna add a link to grab the Psalm 91 Pray It & Believe audio course if this series of promises has been encouraging to you, then Psalm 91 is worth studying and praying through.

I’ll see you next time for a promise from the book of Joshua. Now, that’s a book that’s got a lot happening, a lot of proof of God keeping His promises. Remember those geometry proofs we used to have to write out? If you did them, you will never forget them. They are called proofs for a reason. It had to be provable, this process of solving the problems. You had to know the proofs step by step in order to prove you’d solved the problem correctly. Joshua is a book of proofs, in many ways. And we’ll dig into that next time. See ya then, my friend and have a blessed day!