Today, I am reading and commenting on  Deuteronomy 3-4.

I am not quite sure where I am going to go with this, but I want to focus on a couple of contrasting phrases in today’s passage.  First, the passage says, “do not make for yourselves an idol…For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.”  Then a few verses later when discussing the punishment which will come from breaking that command it says, “ if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul… For the Lord your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon or destroy you…”  The final quote I want to pull out from today’s passage comes a few verses later and, in my mind, explains all of this, “Acknowledge and take to heart this day that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth below. There is no other.  Keep his decrees and commands, …so that it may go well with you…”  The words I left out are also important, but I want to focus on the parts I quoted.  God is jealous because He knows that the idols we may seek to worship cannot fulfill the desires which lead us to worship, cannot satisfy the needs which we turn to them to fill.  He knows that our worship of idols can only lead to our heartbreak.  God is also a merciful God and has provided that anyone who truly seeks Him will find Him.  That final phrase reminds us that God’s commands are not arbitrary.  He made us and thus knows what we must do so that things will go well for us.   His anger at us when we violate His commands comes from His sorrow at the suffering which He knows our actions will bring us.  Once again, everyone who truly seeks God with their entire being will find Him.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.