The Daily Guide. grow. pray. study. from The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas, United States "The crucial decision: 'Choose life'” for Thursday, 29 September 2016
Deuteronomy 30:(RY: iv, LY: vii) 15 “Look! I am presenting you today with, on the one hand, life and good; and on the other, death and evil — 16 in that I am ordering you today to love Adonai your God, to follow his ways, and to obey his mitzvot, regulations and rulings ; for if you do, you will live and increase your numbers; and Adonai your God will bless you in the land you are entering in order to take possession of it. 17 But if your heart turns away, if you refuse to listen, if you are drawn away to prostrate yourselves before other gods and serve them; (LY: Maftir) 18 I am announcing to you today that you will certainly perish; you will not live long in the land you are crossing the Yarden to enter and possess.
19 “I call on heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have presented you with life and death, the blessing and the curse. Therefore, choose life, so that you will live, you and your descendants, 20 loving Adonai your God, paying attention to what he says and clinging to him — for that is the purpose of your life! On this depends the length of time you will live in the land Adonai swore he would give to your ancestors Avraham, Yitz’chak and Ya‘akov.”
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There was profound urgency in the simple, stark way Moses set the ultimate spiritual choice before the Israelites: life or death? And how much resonance it would have had if it was the scroll found in King Josiah’s time (cf. 2 Kings 22 ff), as that righteous king tried to eliminate shrines to pagan gods while restoring the badly neglected Temple. Bluntly put, God is the ultimate source of all true life. To choose to live apart from God is, then, to refuse life.
• Methodist teacher Leslie Newbigin wrote, “God did not want us to know evil; he wanted us to know only good. But there creeps in that little snake of suspicion: ‘Should we not find out for ourselves the other side of the picture?.... Let us find out for ourselves what is good and what is evil. Surely we can’t simply trust God for that!’ And so… the bond of trust is broken, and we are lost…. We hide ourselves from God; we compete with each other…. Right through the Bible runs the anguish of God as he seeks his foolish people…. God will not leave us until he has won us back to be his children.”1 Picture yourself hearing the aged Moses plead, “Choose life.” What’s your choice—how does your heart respond?
Prayer: LORD God, I like choosing from many different brands when I shop, or having many
options when I go to the movies. Help me to choose life in you, not just for an evening but for all my life. Amen.
1 Lesslie Newbigin, A Walk Through the Bible. Kansas City: Barefoot Ministries, 1999, pp. 16-18.
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Insights from Chris Abel
Chris Abel is the Young Adult Pastor at The Church of the Resurrection’s Leawood location. Find out more about Chris and 20/30 Young Adults athttp://cor.org/leawood/youngadults.
A few summers ago I took three weeks and backpacked the John Muir Trail in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California. There’s something about the challenge, the wilderness, and the beautiful sights that put a huge grin on my face and deep breaths in my lungs. This particular trail is a 200+ mile stretch of wilderness that’s unparalleled in its beauty.
But about a week into my trip, I suddenly lost the trail. It just ended.
Confused, I backtracked, took a different path, and again my path led nowhere. Somehow, in the middle of the wilderness, I had gotten off track.
So after 20 minutes of confusion, I finally pulled out a GPS. I wasn’t too far off the trail, but it took another 5 minutes of wandering before I found my way back. Where had I gone wrong?
It turned out I went left instead of right. I simply wasn’t paying attention.
Faith is a lot like backpacking. As followers of Christ, we walk the trail God has given us—and even with the best of intentions we sometimes drift from the path. Sure, you and I occasionally come to forks in our life where we make deliberate and bad decisions—but most of the time it’s more innocent. Sometimes we’re just not paying attention. And even if we are paying attention, we may not realize the importance of the decision in front of us! So we slip off the trail…drifting further and further as time passes.
In our passage today, Moses urges the Israelites to be alert with the way they live their lives. He’s about to die and so he urges them to continue on a path toward God. Moses realized that the road in front of them has many twists and turns and forks and that there is a very real possibility that they will drift from God. And so Moses speaks to them in no uncertain terms:
“I have set life and death, blessing and curse before you. Now choose life—so that you and your descendants will live.”
No grey areas here. He is all business. This matters.
Sometimes when it comes to faith, we can find comfort in the idea of grace—that God will love us no matter what mistakes we make. But what Moses is talking about here is the reality of consequences. If you don’t do your dishes, no amount of prayer will get them done. If you don’t do your laundry, the AXE deodorant will only last so long (trust me, I know).
Moses is so crystal clear here because most of the time these life and death decisions do not seem vital in the moment. These moments can be subtle. And in these moments we can rationalize decisions that break relationships and hurt people. Moses needs these people to know that the stakes are high. That decisions matter.
As a living, breathing human being, you are in the midst of making decisions. And in the moment, the consequences may seem negligible. Our motives are countless: You want to be happy, they’re making it hard on you, you want more money, what if something better comes along, it’s too hard… but when does God enter the equation?
This isn’t a game. There are stakes to this life. And while we have a LOT of leeway in this life, and we can often find our way back to the path, it will ALWAYS take you more work to get back to the path than the energy you spent leaving it.
Wisdom is keeping your eyes open and attentive to the places God is leading you.
So are you paying attention? Where is God leading you today?
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"Clear support for new leadership"
Friday, 30 September 2016
Deuteronomy 31:1 Moshe went and spoke the following words to all Isra’el: 2 “I am 120 years old today. I can’t get around any longer; moreover, Adonai has said to me, ‘You will not cross this Yarden.’ 3 Adonai your God — he will cross over ahead of you. He will destroy these nations ahead of you, and you will dispossess them. Y’hoshua — he will cross over ahead of you, as Adonai has said. (LY: ii) 4 Adonai will do to them what he did to Sichon and ‘Og, the kings of the Emori, and to their land — he destroyed them. 5 Adonai will defeat them ahead of you, and you are to do to them just as I have ordered you to do. 6 Be strong, be bold, don’t be afraid or frightened of them, for Adonai your God is going with you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you.”
(RY: v, LY: iii) 7 Next Moshe summoned Y’hoshua and, in the sight of all Isra’el, said to him, “Be strong, be bold, for you are going with this people into the land Adonai swore to their ancestors he would give them. You will be the one causing them to inherit it. 8 But Adonai — it is he who will go ahead of you. He will be with you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you, so don’t be afraid or downhearted.”
-------
Numbers 27 told about Moses following God’s directions and authorizing Joshua to succeed
him in leading the Israelites. As Moses neared the end of his life, he made it plain to Israel that he was not irreplaceable: “The LORD told me ‘You won’t cross the Jordan River.’ But the LORD your God, he’s the one who will cross over before you!” Moses knew he’d led in God’s power, not his own. He blessed Joshua, and urged him and the people to fearlessly trust God.
• Have you ever seen a case in which a corporate leader, a government official, a church pastor or even a family patriarch clung to power too long, harming both himself/herself and the people they had served? What kind of attitude and inner spirit does it take to recognize, like Moses, that while we have gifts to offer, only our God is irreplaceable?
• Numbers 12:3 said, “Now the man Moses was humble, more so than anyone on earth.”
(Pastor Hamilton has observed that if Moses wrote that about himself, it wasn’t true!) If the first generation of Israelites had been willing to trust God and enter the Promised Land, surely Moses would have led them. Yet in his parting words, forty years later, we hear no trace of bitterness or blame. What lessons can you learn from Moses about dealing with disappointments, especially if other people have played a major role in them?
Prayer: O God, help me meet all of life’s ups and downs with grace, not necessarily because I am graceful but because you are gracious. I’m not Moses—but help me to learn from him. Amen.
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"The visionary end of Moses’ Earthly Life"
Saturday, 1 October 2016
Deuteronomy 32:(Maftir) 48 That same day Adonai said to Moshe, 49 “Go up into the ‘Avarim Range, to Mount N’vo, in the land of Mo’av across from Yericho; and look out over the land of Kena‘an, which I am giving the people of Isra’el as a possession. 50 On the mountain you are ascending you will die and be gathered to your people, just as Aharon your brother died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people.
34:1 (vii) Moshe ascended from the plains of Mo’av to Mount N’vo, to the summit of Pisgah, across from Yericho. There Adonai showed him all the land — Gil‘ad as far as Dan, 2 all Naftali, the land of Efrayim and M’nasheh, the land of Y’hudah all the way to the sea beyond, 3 the Negev, and the ‘Aravah, including the valley where Yericho, the City of Date-Palms, as far away as Tzo‘ar. 4 Adonai said to him, “This is the land concerning which I swore to Avraham, Yitz’chak and Ya‘akov, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over there.”
5 So Moshe, the servant of Adonai, died there in the land of Mo’av, as Adonai had said. 6 He was buried in the valley across from Beit-P‘or in the land of Mo’av, but to this day no one knows where his grave is.
7 Moshe was 120 years old when he died, with eyes undimmed and vigor undiminished. 8 The people of Isra’el mourned Moshe on the plains of Mo’av for thirty days; after this, the days of crying and mourning for Moshe ended.
9 Y’hoshua the son of Nun was full of the Spirit of wisdom, for Moshe had laid his hands on him, and the people of Isra’el heeded him and did what Adonai had ordered Moshe.
10 Since that time there has not arisen in Isra’el a prophet like Moshe, whom Adonai knew face to face. 11 What signs and wonders Adonai sent him to perform in the land of Egypt upon Pharaoh, all his servants and all his land! 12 What might was in his hand! What great terror he evoked before the eyes of all Isra’el!
Be strong, be strong, and let us be strengthened!
-------
At least from the time of the burning bush (cf. Exodus 3), and probably even earlier, Moses had a God-given vision: living in the Promised Land. Before his earthly life ended, God gave him a mountaintop view of the place he’d hoped and dreamed of. It seems likely that as Moses died he held in his mind that vision of the Promised Land’s beauty. Israel mourned, and remembered their great leader. But Moses’ story wasn’t over. He reappeared centuries later in the Bible’s story. If anything, now he had a greater honor—he was encouraging Jesus, the LORD he’d served all his life, as Jesus prepared to face the cross on which he would save the whole world (cf. Matthew 17:3).
• Moses was not alone in dying before his grand, God-given vision was fully realized. When Abraham died, the “great nation” God promised he would become was just one person—
his son Isaac. King David dreamed of building God a beautiful Temple, but his son, King
Solomon, got to build it. After listing many heroes of faith, the letter to the Hebrews said, “All these people didn’t receive what was promised, though they were given approval for their faith” (Hebrews 11:39). The true Promised Land, toward which all God’s people
journey, is not in this dark, broken world—it is God’s eternal realm of light and unending
life, seen in vision in Revelation 21-22. What are your biggest God-given dreams? How can you pursue them fearlessly, knowing that beyond the limits of this world they will all come fully true in God’s eternal kingdom?
Prayer: Dear God, thank you for Moses (and your faithful servants who wrote and transmitted his story). Let me live my life energetically for you, with my ultimate hopes fixed on that wonderful day when both Moses and I can praise you in your eternal kingdom. Amen.
Family Activity: One way we experience a relationship with God is through Scripture. Create a box filled with Bible verses. Using colored paper, markers, ribbon, magazine cut-outs, family photos and other fun materials, decorate a shoebox or photo box to represent your family and your faith journey. Write some favorite Bible verses on colorful strips of paper and place them in the box. (Psalms is a great place to find many verses of praise and thanksgiving, as well as promises from God.) Once a day, maybe at mealtime, pull a strip from the box and share the
passage aloud. Ask older children and youth to join you in adding Bible texts to the box. Thank God for the gift of being in relationship with God and God’s Word.
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Prayer Requests – cor.org/prayer
Prayers for Peace & Comfort for:
• Shane Presley and family on the death of his grandmother Betty Curtis, 9/20
• Beth Hartwell and family on the death of her sister Jenny Wallace, 9/17
• Jeff and Jan Marrs and family on the death of their daughter Lane Marrs, 9/16
• Nancy Spoolstra and family on the death of her sister Carol Walker, 9/15
• Randall Rock and family on the death of his mother Emma Rock, 9/15
• Keith Erich and family on the death of his uncle Eldon Erich, 9/11
• Jeff Locklear and family on the death of his mother Mary Ann Locklear, 9/10
• Richard Messerschmidt and family on the death of his father Eldon Messerschmidt, 9/9
• Mike Patton and family on the death of his mother Betty June Patton, 9/8
• Debbie Noblitt and family on the death of her mother Eileen Smith, 9/7
19 “I call on heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have presented you with life and death, the blessing and the curse. Therefore, choose life, so that you will live, you and your descendants, 20 loving Adonai your God, paying attention to what he says and clinging to him — for that is the purpose of your life! On this depends the length of time you will live in the land Adonai swore he would give to your ancestors Avraham, Yitz’chak and Ya‘akov.”
-------
There was profound urgency in the simple, stark way Moses set the ultimate spiritual choice before the Israelites: life or death? And how much resonance it would have had if it was the scroll found in King Josiah’s time (cf. 2 Kings 22 ff), as that righteous king tried to eliminate shrines to pagan gods while restoring the badly neglected Temple. Bluntly put, God is the ultimate source of all true life. To choose to live apart from God is, then, to refuse life.
• Methodist teacher Leslie Newbigin wrote, “God did not want us to know evil; he wanted us to know only good. But there creeps in that little snake of suspicion: ‘Should we not find out for ourselves the other side of the picture?.... Let us find out for ourselves what is good and what is evil. Surely we can’t simply trust God for that!’ And so… the bond of trust is broken, and we are lost…. We hide ourselves from God; we compete with each other…. Right through the Bible runs the anguish of God as he seeks his foolish people…. God will not leave us until he has won us back to be his children.”1 Picture yourself hearing the aged Moses plead, “Choose life.” What’s your choice—how does your heart respond?
Prayer: LORD God, I like choosing from many different brands when I shop, or having many
options when I go to the movies. Help me to choose life in you, not just for an evening but for all my life. Amen.
1 Lesslie Newbigin, A Walk Through the Bible. Kansas City: Barefoot Ministries, 1999, pp. 16-18.
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Insights from Chris Abel
Chris Abel is the Young Adult Pastor at The Church of the Resurrection’s Leawood location. Find out more about Chris and 20/30 Young Adults athttp://cor.org/leawood/youngadults.A few summers ago I took three weeks and backpacked the John Muir Trail in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California. There’s something about the challenge, the wilderness, and the beautiful sights that put a huge grin on my face and deep breaths in my lungs. This particular trail is a 200+ mile stretch of wilderness that’s unparalleled in its beauty.
But about a week into my trip, I suddenly lost the trail. It just ended.
Confused, I backtracked, took a different path, and again my path led nowhere. Somehow, in the middle of the wilderness, I had gotten off track.
So after 20 minutes of confusion, I finally pulled out a GPS. I wasn’t too far off the trail, but it took another 5 minutes of wandering before I found my way back. Where had I gone wrong?
It turned out I went left instead of right. I simply wasn’t paying attention.
Faith is a lot like backpacking. As followers of Christ, we walk the trail God has given us—and even with the best of intentions we sometimes drift from the path. Sure, you and I occasionally come to forks in our life where we make deliberate and bad decisions—but most of the time it’s more innocent. Sometimes we’re just not paying attention. And even if we are paying attention, we may not realize the importance of the decision in front of us! So we slip off the trail…drifting further and further as time passes.
In our passage today, Moses urges the Israelites to be alert with the way they live their lives. He’s about to die and so he urges them to continue on a path toward God. Moses realized that the road in front of them has many twists and turns and forks and that there is a very real possibility that they will drift from God. And so Moses speaks to them in no uncertain terms:
“I have set life and death, blessing and curse before you. Now choose life—so that you and your descendants will live.”
No grey areas here. He is all business. This matters.
Sometimes when it comes to faith, we can find comfort in the idea of grace—that God will love us no matter what mistakes we make. But what Moses is talking about here is the reality of consequences. If you don’t do your dishes, no amount of prayer will get them done. If you don’t do your laundry, the AXE deodorant will only last so long (trust me, I know).
Moses is so crystal clear here because most of the time these life and death decisions do not seem vital in the moment. These moments can be subtle. And in these moments we can rationalize decisions that break relationships and hurt people. Moses needs these people to know that the stakes are high. That decisions matter.
As a living, breathing human being, you are in the midst of making decisions. And in the moment, the consequences may seem negligible. Our motives are countless: You want to be happy, they’re making it hard on you, you want more money, what if something better comes along, it’s too hard… but when does God enter the equation?
This isn’t a game. There are stakes to this life. And while we have a LOT of leeway in this life, and we can often find our way back to the path, it will ALWAYS take you more work to get back to the path than the energy you spent leaving it.
Wisdom is keeping your eyes open and attentive to the places God is leading you.
So are you paying attention? Where is God leading you today?
-------
"Clear support for new leadership"
Friday, 30 September 2016
Deuteronomy 31:1 Moshe went and spoke the following words to all Isra’el: 2 “I am 120 years old today. I can’t get around any longer; moreover, Adonai has said to me, ‘You will not cross this Yarden.’ 3 Adonai your God — he will cross over ahead of you. He will destroy these nations ahead of you, and you will dispossess them. Y’hoshua — he will cross over ahead of you, as Adonai has said. (LY: ii) 4 Adonai will do to them what he did to Sichon and ‘Og, the kings of the Emori, and to their land — he destroyed them. 5 Adonai will defeat them ahead of you, and you are to do to them just as I have ordered you to do. 6 Be strong, be bold, don’t be afraid or frightened of them, for Adonai your God is going with you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you.”
(RY: v, LY: iii) 7 Next Moshe summoned Y’hoshua and, in the sight of all Isra’el, said to him, “Be strong, be bold, for you are going with this people into the land Adonai swore to their ancestors he would give them. You will be the one causing them to inherit it. 8 But Adonai — it is he who will go ahead of you. He will be with you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you, so don’t be afraid or downhearted.”
-------
Numbers 27 told about Moses following God’s directions and authorizing Joshua to succeed
him in leading the Israelites. As Moses neared the end of his life, he made it plain to Israel that he was not irreplaceable: “The LORD told me ‘You won’t cross the Jordan River.’ But the LORD your God, he’s the one who will cross over before you!” Moses knew he’d led in God’s power, not his own. He blessed Joshua, and urged him and the people to fearlessly trust God.
• Have you ever seen a case in which a corporate leader, a government official, a church pastor or even a family patriarch clung to power too long, harming both himself/herself and the people they had served? What kind of attitude and inner spirit does it take to recognize, like Moses, that while we have gifts to offer, only our God is irreplaceable?
• Numbers 12:3 said, “Now the man Moses was humble, more so than anyone on earth.”
(Pastor Hamilton has observed that if Moses wrote that about himself, it wasn’t true!) If the first generation of Israelites had been willing to trust God and enter the Promised Land, surely Moses would have led them. Yet in his parting words, forty years later, we hear no trace of bitterness or blame. What lessons can you learn from Moses about dealing with disappointments, especially if other people have played a major role in them?
Prayer: O God, help me meet all of life’s ups and downs with grace, not necessarily because I am graceful but because you are gracious. I’m not Moses—but help me to learn from him. Amen.
-------
-------
"The visionary end of Moses’ Earthly Life"
Saturday, 1 October 2016
Deuteronomy 32:(Maftir) 48 That same day Adonai said to Moshe, 49 “Go up into the ‘Avarim Range, to Mount N’vo, in the land of Mo’av across from Yericho; and look out over the land of Kena‘an, which I am giving the people of Isra’el as a possession. 50 On the mountain you are ascending you will die and be gathered to your people, just as Aharon your brother died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people.
34:1 (vii) Moshe ascended from the plains of Mo’av to Mount N’vo, to the summit of Pisgah, across from Yericho. There Adonai showed him all the land — Gil‘ad as far as Dan, 2 all Naftali, the land of Efrayim and M’nasheh, the land of Y’hudah all the way to the sea beyond, 3 the Negev, and the ‘Aravah, including the valley where Yericho, the City of Date-Palms, as far away as Tzo‘ar. 4 Adonai said to him, “This is the land concerning which I swore to Avraham, Yitz’chak and Ya‘akov, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over there.”
5 So Moshe, the servant of Adonai, died there in the land of Mo’av, as Adonai had said. 6 He was buried in the valley across from Beit-P‘or in the land of Mo’av, but to this day no one knows where his grave is.
7 Moshe was 120 years old when he died, with eyes undimmed and vigor undiminished. 8 The people of Isra’el mourned Moshe on the plains of Mo’av for thirty days; after this, the days of crying and mourning for Moshe ended.
9 Y’hoshua the son of Nun was full of the Spirit of wisdom, for Moshe had laid his hands on him, and the people of Isra’el heeded him and did what Adonai had ordered Moshe.
10 Since that time there has not arisen in Isra’el a prophet like Moshe, whom Adonai knew face to face. 11 What signs and wonders Adonai sent him to perform in the land of Egypt upon Pharaoh, all his servants and all his land! 12 What might was in his hand! What great terror he evoked before the eyes of all Isra’el!
Be strong, be strong, and let us be strengthened!
-------
At least from the time of the burning bush (cf. Exodus 3), and probably even earlier, Moses had a God-given vision: living in the Promised Land. Before his earthly life ended, God gave him a mountaintop view of the place he’d hoped and dreamed of. It seems likely that as Moses died he held in his mind that vision of the Promised Land’s beauty. Israel mourned, and remembered their great leader. But Moses’ story wasn’t over. He reappeared centuries later in the Bible’s story. If anything, now he had a greater honor—he was encouraging Jesus, the LORD he’d served all his life, as Jesus prepared to face the cross on which he would save the whole world (cf. Matthew 17:3).
• Moses was not alone in dying before his grand, God-given vision was fully realized. When Abraham died, the “great nation” God promised he would become was just one person—
his son Isaac. King David dreamed of building God a beautiful Temple, but his son, King
Solomon, got to build it. After listing many heroes of faith, the letter to the Hebrews said, “All these people didn’t receive what was promised, though they were given approval for their faith” (Hebrews 11:39). The true Promised Land, toward which all God’s people
journey, is not in this dark, broken world—it is God’s eternal realm of light and unending
life, seen in vision in Revelation 21-22. What are your biggest God-given dreams? How can you pursue them fearlessly, knowing that beyond the limits of this world they will all come fully true in God’s eternal kingdom?
Prayer: Dear God, thank you for Moses (and your faithful servants who wrote and transmitted his story). Let me live my life energetically for you, with my ultimate hopes fixed on that wonderful day when both Moses and I can praise you in your eternal kingdom. Amen.
Family Activity: One way we experience a relationship with God is through Scripture. Create a box filled with Bible verses. Using colored paper, markers, ribbon, magazine cut-outs, family photos and other fun materials, decorate a shoebox or photo box to represent your family and your faith journey. Write some favorite Bible verses on colorful strips of paper and place them in the box. (Psalms is a great place to find many verses of praise and thanksgiving, as well as promises from God.) Once a day, maybe at mealtime, pull a strip from the box and share the
passage aloud. Ask older children and youth to join you in adding Bible texts to the box. Thank God for the gift of being in relationship with God and God’s Word.
-------
-------
Prayer Requests – cor.org/prayer
Prayers for Peace & Comfort for:
• Shane Presley and family on the death of his grandmother Betty Curtis, 9/20
• Beth Hartwell and family on the death of her sister Jenny Wallace, 9/17
• Jeff and Jan Marrs and family on the death of their daughter Lane Marrs, 9/16
• Nancy Spoolstra and family on the death of her sister Carol Walker, 9/15
• Randall Rock and family on the death of his mother Emma Rock, 9/15
• Keith Erich and family on the death of his uncle Eldon Erich, 9/11
• Jeff Locklear and family on the death of his mother Mary Ann Locklear, 9/10
• Richard Messerschmidt and family on the death of his father Eldon Messerschmidt, 9/9
• Mike Patton and family on the death of his mother Betty June Patton, 9/8
• Debbie Noblitt and family on the death of her mother Eileen Smith, 9/7
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The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection
13720 Roe Avenue
Leawood, Kansas 66224, United States
913.897.0120
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