Reflecting God - Embrace Holy Living - WordAction - The Nazarene Publishing House (The Foundry Publishing House) in Kansas City, Missouri, United States - The Global Church of the Nazarene for Monday, 4 September 2017 "Stand Out From The Herd" by Norayr Hajian - Deuteronomy 7:1-11

Reflecting God - Embrace Holy Living - WordAction - The Nazarene Publishing House (The Foundry Publishing House) in Kansas City, Missouri, United States - The Global Church of the Nazarene for Monday, 4 September 2017 "Stand Out From The Herd" by Norayr Hajian - Deuteronomy 7:1-11Deuteronomy 7:1 (vii) “Adonai your God is going to bring you into the land you will enter in order to take possession of it, and he will expel many nations ahead of you — the Hitti, Girgashi, Emori, Kena‘ani, P’rizi, Hivi and Y’vusi, seven nations bigger and stronger than you. 2 When he does this, when Adonai your God hands them over ahead of you, and you defeat them, you are to destroy them completely! Do not make any covenant with them. Show them no mercy. 3 Don’t intermarry with them — don’t give your daughter to his son, and don’t take his daughter for your son. 4 For he will turn your children away from following me in order to serve other gods. If this happens, the anger of Adonai will flare up against you, and he will quickly destroy you. 5 No, treat them this way: break down their altars, smash their standing-stones to pieces, cut down their sacred poles and burn up their carved images completely. 6 For you are a people set apart as holy for Adonai your God. Adonai your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his own unique treasure. 7 Adonai didn’t set his heart on you or choose you because you numbered more than any other people — on the contrary, you were the fewest of all peoples. 8 Rather, it was because Adonai loved you, and because he wanted to keep the oath which he had sworn to your ancestors, that Adonai brought you out with a strong hand and redeemed you from a life of slavery under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. (Maftir) 9 From this you can know that Adonai your God is indeed God, the faithful God, who keeps his covenant and extends grace to those who love him and observe his mitzvot, to a thousand generations. 10 But he repays those who hate him to their face and destroys them. He will not be slow to deal with someone who hates him; he will repay him to his face. 11 Therefore, you are to keep the mitzvot, laws and rulings which I am giving you today, and obey them.

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Hunting near the Arctic Circle in the early winter, I’ve often worn my blazing orange parka. It doesn’t hide me from the barren-ground caribou, but I do appreciate the fact that I am very clearly visible to the other hunters. I remember a conservation officer telling me that he could see me clear across the tundra. I stood out and that was a good thing!
In Deuteronomy 7, God told His people that they needed to stand out. They were about to enter into a new land, with all kinds of people who didn’t know God, people who were much larger and stronger. The temptation would be to blend in, to not make waves, to mix in with the people and become one of them.
However, that was not at all what God had in mind. He wanted them to stand out. He had a purpose and a promise for them. They would be His people and He would be faithful to them, even a thousand times over.
Today, we are often challenged to blend in with the world around us. God calls us to stand apart and be faithful to Him, just as He is faithful to us.
Hymn for Today:

"Let the Beauty of Jesus Be Seen in Me" by Albert Orsborn

Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me,

All His wonderful passion and purity;

O my Savior divine, All my being refine,

Till the beauty of Jesus be seen in me.

Thought for Today:

Rather, you people are to be holy for me; because I, Adonai, am holy; and I have set you apart from the other peoples, so that you can belong to me.(Leviticus 20:26).
Please pray:

That many young people in Costa Rica will be called into Christian ministry.
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